Last week, we had another of Mike Chamernik’s “Question of the Week” series, the response was great, and Mike is back again with his next question.
Question of the Week
by Mike Chamernik
The Paris Olympics are underway. This year features 329 events, and pretty much everything is televised on the NBC family of networks and streaming platforms at all hours of the day.
We’re familiar with the mainstay sports such as basketball, swimming, gymnastics, track and field and so on. There are dozens of sports that are popular across the world but not in America, including water polo, team handball, badminton, and track cycling. And, there are the quintessential “Olympic” sports that enter the public consciousness every four years: wrestling, artistic swimming, canoe slalom, equestrian, fencing.
What are your favorite Olympic sports that you don’t otherwise follow? What makes those events interesting to you?
Readers? Fire away!
Summer: handball, sprinting, gymnastics, swimming
Winter: just about everything besides hockey, since I follow that already. Any sort of skiing, figure skating, biathlon, curling, etc etc etc
High dive and luge
Snowboard cross
Skate cross? Whatever the downhill ice skating one is
Downhill skiing (I follow occasionally though)
I’m hoping Broomall makes it one of these years
Broomball, darn autocorrect
Just thinking about this.
It’s fencing. It’s a sport that always seems to be broadcast on the main Olympic coverage channels, despite usually being broadcast at suboptimal times. whenever I come across it I end up watching as much of it as I am able. I never make a point to watch it, and I always forget that it exists between Olympic years, but I always enjoy it to the extent that I usually think “I should take a fencing class, that seems fun!” Though I never have.
Kayak turned out to be surprisingly entertaining to watch, but I am a kayaker, so I don’t know if that counts as a sport that I wouldn’t otherwise “follow”.
It used to be curling, but, while I don’t “follow” curling now, I will watch it if I find it on tv anytime of year and I make a point of watching during every Olympics now. So it’s no longer an underdog sport for my viewing priorities.
This year it’s women’s rugby 7s. I have a novice’s understanding of 15s, but I’ve never watched 7s, nor women’s. It is fast paced and exciting.
Summer – beach volleyball
Winter – bobsled and short track speedskating
downhill skiing (the speed and agility of the skiers is amazing)
biathalon (something about the endurance factor combined with the need to shoot with accuracy while exhausted is intriguing to me)
cross country skiing (again the endurance factor)
For me, the Olympics just don’t do anything for me and I typically don’t watch or follow any of it. Usually at this time of the year, I’m following baseball and excited because football is starting up.
Sorry to say the Olympics have lost too much luster for me to care since 1992. If I had to pick an event it would be curling.
Summer: Swimming and diving
Winter: bobsled
Young man yells at cloud moment:
I have absolutely no interest in the Olympics – summer or winter. I was mildly interested during my hockey-watching days, but that was about 20 years ago now.
What really bothers me about it is the seemingly countless number of people who, as far as I know, don’t pay much attention to sports and yet feel the need to discuss the Olympics with me because they assume that I’m following it.
I hear ya — but the Olympics is one of the few “monoculture” things we have left. And generally speaking, we’re all rooting for the same team.
Yep! I appreciate the Olympics and I’m glad they exist. I don’t even blame the people who ask me about them – why wouldn’t a sports fanatic like myself care about them?
Have a question of the week for you:
Is it okay to wear two different logos of the same team? For example throwback hat with a current jersey.
Women’s pole vaulting. You can probably guess why.
Phrasing.
I’m thinking more for playing than watching, but I don’t understand why badminton isn’t more popular. Throw up a badminton net in your backyard or a family reunion, and people of all ages love it. And yet, I don’t think I’ve ever been to a park in my life that had a badminton net. If pickle ball can get this big, I don’t see any reason why the superior racket sport of badminton can’t follow suit.
Totally agree!!! Badminton is so much fun.
Summer – Boxing and soccer…but I prefer to watch as good amount of track and field – what I consider the Olympics to be all about- Decathlon being my favorite though it’s not covered like it should to be – ditto for the pole vault post-Bubka.
Winter – Bobsled and ice hockey…not all that interested in the Winter Games by-and-large, and don’t care much for the NHL. Bobsled is as close to stock car racing as I can hope for – it fills the void.
Boxing! I remember the pre-MMA days when boxing was a much bigger deal than it is now, and there was a lot of excitement about who was winning medals because that was going to be the next wave of stars. The first Olympics I remember vividly was Montreal, when Sugar Ray Leonard and the Spinks brothers won gold.
Water polo, rugby, handball. All of the more obscure sports, but they’re super entertaining to me when I get this opportunity to catch them. I love the Olympics and find it all incredibly thrilling and special.
Summer: fencing, pole vault, rowing, team handball, and now that Middle Child has shown an interest in watching it… surfing.
Winter: I already follow ski jumping and downhill skiing, but I add Nordic combined cross country, biathlon, slalom, long-track speed skating and curling to my must-watch Olympic events.
Forgot bobsled and singles luge!
Is it bobsled or bobsleigh?
link
In the summer Olympics I tend to watch the more “obscure” sports like handball, badminton, rugby (which I admit I know nothing about), table tennis, equestrian (do the horses win a medal too?). Basically anything that isn’t normally televised. And by dint of geography I’m thankfully able to watch the Canadian broadcast as well.
Just show me ANY sport I wouldn’t otherwise be able to see but every four years. Golf and tennis are just iterations of events/athletes we see at least 20 times in the intervening years. There are others as well. Did I see that there is now a pro Track and Field tour happening? Not interested if I have a pretty good idea of the outcome based on a huge data set of almost identical meetings. Give me the unknown athlete that is ranked #4 in the world and holds down a 9-5 – I don’t care which sport it is.