thurdl sports

Olympic Moment of Day Seven

Womens SBX. Actually, this is going to be an antimoment. Something to look at the positives I'm pulling out of the game, and to see them in context.

First, this about Snowboard Cross: KICK ASS! Just a damn cool event. In SLC, everyone was focusing on the new sport of skeleton, and how exciting that would be. But...in the end it turned out to be just another sliding sport, the kind that's hard to watch, because the slight distinctions between a good and bad run are too subtle for the layman, and that ends up looking like the same thing over and over. They're batshit insane, no question about that, but I can only watch about five skeleton runs at a time. SBX? Really damn exciting, and I think the heats are what do it. It's obvious who's doing better, because they're ahead!

But then came the gold medal race. Lindsey Jacobellis had the gold wrapped up. No question. It was three seconds between her and the next racer. So what does she do? Rather than just finishing out the course and taking her well earned gold, she showboats. As a result, she lands awkwardly, and has to scramble to not DQ. That she got the silver is due only to the fact that the third place racer had wiped out earlier in the race, and was several more seconds behind. Just shameful, and she probably doesn't even deserve the medal she got. I don't care how "cool" it would have looked to perform a trick just before winning, there was no place for it.

I enjoy the XGames being added to the Winter Olympics. I'm not sure, after yesterday, what I think about the XGame mentality of showboating even when such is not rewarded does for the games.

Pathetic.

posted by thurdl @ 10:27 AM