Olympics: To Ski

I had (what I thought was) an interesting thought regarding the Winter Olympics the other day. Compared to the Summer Olympics, the Winter games have very few sports where the athletes are competing against each other at the same time. There are always exceptions, such as any team sport or the short-track speed skating, but for the most part, the athletes have to just do their best and hope it's good enough.

The main events of the summer games are the swimming events and track and field. In all those instances, the competitors are lined up right next to their main rivals. There's no question about what they have to do to win - finish ahead of the guy next to you. That's not the case in downhill or cross-country skiing, or long-track speed-skating, or ski jumping. In those, you do the best you can possibly do, then sit and watch to see if it's good enough.

Not to say that system doesn't lead to excitement. Who doesn't like seeing somebody flying down the hill, then glancing to the corner of the screen to see if their ahead of their competitor's pace? It's always exciting, especially if they're close near the end. But imagine if you are a Nordic skiier from America. You just had the race of your life, a personal best by far, and you're in gold medal position with 20 skiiers left. After about a half-hour, some jerk from Norway comes across the finish line a quarter-second faster than you. Just a tip of the cap to them right?

But what if those two hypothetical skiiers had been on the track at the same time. Isn't it pretty reasonable to think that the American skiier would see the Norweigan skiier start to edge in front of them and start to give just a little bit more? Great athletes are always pushed to bigger and better things by competitors that are their equals; you see what your opponent is bringing, and you bring a little more. I have to think that the American skiier in my hypothetical situation would have been able to decrease his time even more if skiing right next to someone equally as talented.

And even if that isn't the case, even if both skiiers would have had the exact same scores as before, wouldn't it have been more exciting to see them come to the finish neck-and-neck rather than watching one skiier and a clock?

I'm not trying to rip the Winter Olympics. I still love watching, and I've been catching as much of them as I can. It just seems like that's one major area where they'll never be quite as good as the Summer games.