2014 Winter Olympics

[dsc123]

Did anybody see the interview with the dutch speed skating coach?

Quote:

Dutch speedskating coach Jillert Anema knows how the United States can improve on its Olympic 0-fer on the Sochi ovals -- stop playing sports like football.

"You have a lot of attention for foolish sport, like American football," Anema told CNBC on Friday. "You waste a lot of talent, athletic talent, in a sport where it's meant to kill each other, to injure each other.

"... (The U.S.) is so narrow-minded, and you waste a lot of good talent in a sport that sucks."

The U.S. assured itself of its first medal shutout in the long-track events since 1984. No American placed higher than seventh in an individual event, and the men's team was relegated to the "D" final, which will decide the last two positions in the eight-team field.

On the short track, only a silver medal in the 5,000-meter relay kept the U.S. from its first shutout since 1988.

Anema believes the United States could do so much better with an improved infrastructure in the sport.

"When you compete once every four years, with talent, with a few lone wolves who are skating, you can't beat the world," Anema told CNBC. "It's no way."

You can't blame Anema for being a bit cocky as the Dutch have won 21 of the country's 22 medals on the speedskating ovals in Sochi.

"I think that the gold medal in speedskating is just as valuable as the gold medal in basketball, and we won 22.

"You'll never win 22 in basketball."

The video is here:  http://www.cbssports.com/olympics/eye-on-olympics/24451316/watch-dutch-speedskating-coach-blasts-team-usa

I think its very funny. The guy is obviously super excited, and with good reason, but man his logic sucks.  Its hard to win 22 medals in basketball when there are two events and each country enters only one team in each, lol.  And his ranting about american football draining talent from real sports like speed skating?  hahaha.

[boogielicious]

  dsc123 said:

Did anybody see the interview with the dutch speed skating coach?

The video is here:  http://www.cbssports.com/olympics/eye-on-olympics/24451316/watch-dutch-speedskating-coach-blasts-team-usa

I think its very funny. The guy is obviously super excited, and with good reason, but man his logic sucks.  Its hard to win 22 medals in basketball when there are two events and each country enters only one team, lol.  And his ranting about american football draining talent from real sports like speed skating?  hahaha.

However, between each Winter Olympics, there are hundreds of thousands of American football games played at all levels that generate orders of magnitude more interest from the public than speed skating.  There are 2092 NFL games played in four years, with multiple billions of $ in revenue.  Why in heaven's sake would we switch to speed skating?

[dsc123]

  boogielicious said:

However, between each Winter Olympics, there are hundreds of thousands of American football games played at all levels that generate orders of magnitude more interest from the public than speed skating.  There are 2092 NFL games played in four years, with multiple billions of $ in revenue.  Why in heaven's sake would we switch to speed skating?

And historically, in 173 speed skating events, we have 6 fewer gold medals than the dutch.  Its funny to be slammed for being #2 in some obscure sport.

[boogielicious]

  dsc123 said:

And historically, in 173 speed skating events, we have 6 fewer gold medals than the dutch.  Its funny to be slammed for being #2 in some obscure sport.

Eric Heiden won all the individual golds in Lake Placid, 1980.  I didn't hear him tell the Dutch that they should stop focusing on other sports.