So, here’s the thing about the Winter Olympics. They can take over your life.
Last Saturday morning, the first full day of competition of the Milan-Cortina Games, I sat down to drink my coffee and catch a few minutes of the live action, which happened to be men’s slopestyle skiing qualifiers. Two hours later, I hadn’t moved. Third cup of coffee, still in pajamas, the dog wondering if we were ever going to walk, and I was freaking out that American Konnor Ralph was in 10th place and might not make the final cut.
And no, before that moment I had never heard the name Konnor Ralph. But within minutes, I was an expert, warning him to throw that clean right double cork 1440 (whatever the heck that is) and hang on to his toe grab (or something like that) because he needed a good score.
I am, obviously, always, Olympic obsessed, Olympic addicted. I have written books about the Olympics, taught classes about the Olympics, and can talk endlessly about the Olympics. But the Winter Games hold a special place in my heart because, well, they are a special kind of crazy. The summer Games? They’re amazing -- those two weeks of competition in Paris some two years ago was among the best ever as we watched athletes run and swim and throw and jump and vault and ride horses and sail boats.
But the Winter Games? They’re a different beast because, well, snow and ice make things fast, make things dangerous, and make things absurd. Not absurd in a silly way, but rather in a how-did-this-become-a-thing-humans-agreed-to-write-rules-for kind of way. Because what could be more compelling than watching humans defy both reason and self-preservation, whether sliding down frozen hills on tiny sleds or skinny skis or soaring off enormous jumps in order to turn 19 million times in the air with plans to land on feet, not heads.
And when it isn’t dangerous it can be a darn reality show, in the best of ways. Biathlon mixed relay, which has men and women in teams of four skiing and shooting and skiing and shooting? And they can’t take their skis off when they hit the ground to shoot? And for each missed target they have to ski a 150-meter penalty loop? Television gold.
Even the events that make us feel like we won’t die if we were to try (and let’s be clear: the moment I’m standing on top of a ski jump would be, indeed, my final moment) are deeply compelling as we become fast experts at things we learned about only minutes earlier. I will never, for example, be able to explain to anyone the rules of curling, despite decades of watching it, but I have no problem screaming “SWEEP” at my television with authority. That said, the only way I know when a stone is good or bad is based entirely on the tone of voice of the athletes and how frantic that sweeping becomes. So, when the commentator tells me that “yellow onto yellow and red will score,” I know it is a good thing for the Americans and a bad thing for the Estonians because even after Google translate fails to help me speak Estonian, it is clear things are going badly for them.
Thus, while February’s idea of weather has doubled down on those of us in the Northeast, bringing unspeakable temperatures, I haven’t minded. Indeed, I have welcomed it. Because the face-numbing sharp air did its job to convince me to spend the entire weekend watching the Olympics. Granted, I generally don’t need much persuasion, but the weather made the choice feel less like laziness and more like patriotic duty, a responsibility to care deeply about strangers who are risking their lives on snow and ice.
The Winter Olympics ask nothing of us except attention and awe, and in return they give us danger, beauty, and the comforting knowledge that it’s perfectly fine to admire from a safe distance these super human athletes who find joy in doing death-defying things. This is why I watch, why I feel brave and knowledgeable and emotionally invested in an athlete from Haiti on a Nordic skiing course or a kid from Virginia who lands a back flip on the ice on one skate from the safety of my couch. These athletes are something to cherish as they show us their talents, speak their minds, reveal their hearts, and personify the best of us, loudly and visibly, for all the world to see.
Amy Bass is professor of sport studies and chair of the division of social science and communication at Manhattanville University. Bass is the author of ONE GOAL: A COACH, A TEAM, AND THE GAME THAT BROUGHT A DIVDED TOWN TOGETHER, among other titles. In 2012, she won an Emmy for her work with NBC Olympic Sports on the London Olympic Games.
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