Does anyone watch the olympics anymore?

Cypress said:
That is actually the only thing about the Cold War I miss. The Olympic competition between the soviets and Americans!

I always felt the 1980 hockey match was payback-of-sorts for their shocking upset of our 1972 basketball team....
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While shocking and wrong because of the way it was handled, 1972 was not an upset. An upset occurs when the team that wins does so without question.
 
Damocles said:
Can't turn away. Every time they are on the kids get annoyed because the TV has some curling event or something... lol
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Last Olympics, I really got into watching the curling. I don't know why, but suddenly, I found it compelling.
 
Cypress said:
I do not really watch cable or network TV anymore, but I have always liked the winter Olympics, and people at my work are watching them.

The greatest sporting event of my life - and I think this is true for a lot of Americans of a certain generation - was the Soviet Union-United States hockey game of 1980. There has never been another sporting event in my life - no super bowl, no world series - that even comes close to being as electrifying as that hockey game and it's immediate aftermath were.
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Yep. Some here aren't old enough to remember it. But...Russian pros against our college kids. What an upset. It wasn't long after that when the U.S believed it was only fair to match pros/pros in the Olympics.
 
Cypress said:
That is actually the only thing about the Cold War I miss. The Olympic competition between the soviets and Americans!

I always felt the 1980 hockey match was payback-of-sorts for their shocking upset of our 1972 basketball team....
Click to expand...
That's an issue with the events that require judges' scoring as well. It's so crooked, many spend a lifetime preparing, only to get screwed. In all honesty, Nancy Kerrigan prob. didn't deserve gold in figure skating.
 
Bigdog said:
Last Olympics, I really got into watching the curling. I don't know why, but suddenly, I found it compelling.
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Because on the suface, it seems silly... But there's a lot of strategy, and actual talent employed. Many don't take it seriously because of the Beatles.

 
Althea said:
Yep. Some here aren't old enough to remember it. But...Russian pros against our college kids. What an upset. It wasn't long after that when the U.S believed it was only fair to match pros/pros in the Olympics.
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Great description...young American college kids against intimidating, world class Soviet professional veterans. Hollywood couldn't even write that script.

To this day, I believe it is hard to over-estimate how electrifying that hockey game was....I remember it with almost crystal clarity, watching it with three of my high school buddies and one of their dads. Edge of seat type stuff. I have never had that rarified feeling in any sporting event before or since. It felt like the whole nation was chanting USA USA. And my minds eye can still see that goalie looking for his dad in the stands as the game ended. Wow, maybe it's just me but that game is burned onto my neurons 40 years later!
 
Originally Posted by Cypress
That is actually the only thing about the Cold War I miss. The Olympic competition between the soviets and Americans!

I always felt the 1980 hockey match was payback-of-sorts for their shocking upset of our 1972 basketball team....
Click to expand...
well we are in a new cold war..hope you enjoy this one with or without the games..

I felt the same way during the Fischer/Spassky chess match - but I was a chess nerd in high school at the time.

Ya.. the hockey game was indeed epic..
 
noise said:
well we are in a new cold war..hope you enjoy this one with or without the games..

I felt the same way during the Fischer/Spassky chess match - but I was a chess nerd in high school at the time.

Ya.. the hockey game was indeed epic..
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One does not grow up in a family of Russians without being taught chess at a very young age.

Yes, I was just a little kid, but I remember Bobby Fisher and that chess tournament. I remember it because my father was following it closely, and he was amazed and grateful that an American unexpectedly won.
 
Cypress said:
One does not grow up in a family of Russians without being taught chess at a very young age.

Yes, I was just a little kid, but I remember Bobby Fisher and that chess tournament. I remember it because my father was following it closely, and he was amazed and grateful that an American unexpectedly won.
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i thought you might have some kina recollection. Fisher went on to become anti-semtic ( da joos) and a very
unsavory character,and dies at 64.

But those games - some are still played as best examples of k-4 openings
 
noise said:
i thought you might have some kina recollection. Fisher went on to become anti-semtic ( da joos) and a very
unsavory character,and dies at 64.

But those games - some are still played as best examples of k-4 openings
Click to expand...

I wonder how much of those sporting and gaming events would even be remembered without the Cold War as a back drop. Without the context and perception of an East-West existential struggle for hearts and minds.

As I thought about it years later as an adult, a chess tournament, a hockey game, a basket ball game were almost geopolitical extensions of the global conflict between the eastern bloc and the United States. Those events were almost like asymmetric warfare, they were a part of the field of battle as much as they were a simple athletic competitions.
 
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