Summer Olympics or Winter Olympics?

Many of my American friends assume that we of the frozen north are only good at winter games. I played basketball against Americans in my day and a lot of them couldn't deal with the concept of a Canadian being able to stay with them.

Even though you're Canadian? What's that supposed to mean? Does Canada not do as well in the Summer games as compared to Winter? And yeah, curling is okay with the "fast action" replay, as you call it. I think it's pretty neat how those guys with the brooms (or whatever they're called) can slow down or speed it up so much.

I ride dressage (although my horse is stocky and yellow, not big, elegant and brown) so watching equestrian makes sense :-) I was in Greenwhich on Monday and Friday lest week, I'd really like to be there today and tomorrow for the individual finals. The Brits have done really well so I'm sure the ones going there will have a great day out. Hopefully with no rain or thunder! Norway usually does quite well in the winter Olympics, we're 70 medals ahead of the US on the "most medals ever" count. As long as you don't mention Calgary in 1988 (no gold medals! The nation was more than upset) we're happy. Far too much football on TV here. But I tried to watch what you call football (American football) once, and it made even less sense :-) It's logical to call soccer football, but as they don't kick the ball with their feet in whatever I saw, it should rather be called something else IMO :-) As golf is going to be an Olympic sport in Rio, maybe American hand-football is next? That and cricket. And pole-dancing, if the Russians get their will *hehe*

Interesting that you like watching equestrian. I don't really enjoy watching it too much myself, but to each their own! It's true that a lot of sports in the Olympics are unseen otherwise. I noticed during the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver that Norway did win a lot of medals. It's nice that you can catch replays on the news; here in the USA, the news spoils the results of what happened in the Olympics that day (well, daytime in London) before it was even possible to see it on television (the best events are tape delayed to be shown in the primetime broadcast). And indeed, being in Norway, I'm sure there's tons of soccer (as we call it here) on the TV.

Yeah, events like those are captivating to watch because you realize on how much of a higher level these athletes are competing at than everyone else. The amount of practice and precision needed to make those routines perfect is astronomical. And, in some cases, you only get a few (or even one) chances to impress the judges and win a medal.

This is a good point; I can't remember seeing to many Indian athletes in the Winter Olympics, but they definitely have a strong presence at the summer Games. Interesting that you enjoy boxing and shooting; I've never really watched those events before. Being an American, I have learned that apparently USA boxers have had some questionable judging decisions in the past, to people like Roy Jones Jr. in Seoul in 1988, among others.

I know of one Indian competing in the Luge competition I think. Of course, he did not win anything. Regarding boxing and shooting, I follow it because there are Indians who are real medal prospects in that. BTW, I must say I am very disappointed with the scoring system adopted in boxing which is completely opaque and no one is really happy with it. Cheers! Ram

It seems like the USA and China will continue to battle for the most overall medals and the most gold medals here at the 2012 Games. It sure has been close up until now.

That's too bad that you don't get to experience winter and sonw and other things like that. And there's a lot of channels here in the USA showing the Olympics too (NBC, CNBC, MSNBC, NBC Sports Network, Bravo, and a few other "Specialty" channels). I forget how many there were for the Winter Olympics.

Good point about less participating countries. One of my favorite parts of the Olympics is being able to see all the athletes from almost every country in the world all together in one place. Indeed, the Winter X Games are also quite neat; I think they just don't get the following the Winter Olympics do because it happens every year and it's not quite as worldwide as the Olympics are yet.