Personal sympathy and International rivalry

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We care about certain Olympic sports. We love skiing and basketball for example. A lot of women like watching the gymnastics and figure skating. You won't see Americans getting excited over things like the biathlon or water polo.

 

About the Olympics:
When I see a list of total medals earned, I don't look at the Americans. I don't count them in. I'd be surprised if they don't top the list.

The games that most Dutchies would care for are speedskating and in the (I guess) less popular summer games that would be swimming and hockey. We were also good at rowing and some dandy stuff on a horse.
For speedskating: If Fabris (Ita) would win, I'd frown. If Germany wins, it's okay. If Bokko (Norway) or Klassen (Canada) wins, I'd smile and if America wins, I'm indifferent. There's not much rivalry, I suppose.
The Dutch speedskating supporters tend to cheer for any athlete from any country. They're mainly there for the atmosphere. If Holland wins, the atmosphere is at best, of course.

 

That's a massive generalisation, Barmy. Maybe YOU don't. Plenty of Europeans care about the Olympics. Even English people. I bet plenty of rowers care about Sir Steve Redgrave and think he's a legend. I bet plenty of runners care about Paula Radcliffe. Plenty of cyclists care about Chris Hoy. Plenty of eastern Europeans care about weightlifting and gymnastics.

I personally look forward to the Olympics. I know not everyone does, but it's still one of the BIGGEST sporting events on the planet so clearly somebody must care about it.

 

Nicely said.

Personally, I love the Olympics. Winter, Summer, I don't care really. Not picky when it comes to events either. Marksmanship, athletics, hockey, swimming, figure skating, gymnastics, fencing, even the dandy horse disciplines and sports I don't really understand... except tennis. I just can't watch tennis.

The charm of it is being able to cheer for just about everyone.

 

I can't go past athletes like Kenenisa Bikele. That guy just blows everyone else off the track in the 5000m and 10000m. He just cruises around like it's a walk in the park, then when they get to the last lap he takes off like he's as fresh as a daisy and leaves everyone else gasping in his dust. That's awesome.

 

Sergey Bubka for me. Despite his rather modest Olympics track record (I think he only won one gold, before I was even born), I was always fascinated with his jumps as a child. He cleared 6m more times then all other pole vaulters combined. Amazing.

 

I see your point, but I kind of doubt that you actively follow those sports, other than the two weeks that the Olympics are being played. I doubt you'd consider yourself of fan of water polo, or could name anyone on the US team. I will watch whatever Olympic sport happens to be on when I tune in, but that does not mean I'm a fan of the sport, or have any keen interest in it (although I will obviously root for the Americans).

I do not think Americans, taken as a whole, really care much about most of the Olympic sports. They may watch them when they are on telelvision as a novelty item, but it's not something they have a super keen interest in... At least that's how I see it.

 

Oi, guys! You're letting me down... we're meant to be giving one up to the Americans... .

 

Yes it does. But being Asian, I'm having a hard time trying to remember who's American and who's European because I might be thinking of the wrong football game.

 

Well make some more sensible observations then and I'll back you up!

Like something about how a rugby flanker pretty much has to sprint around the field for the whole 80 minutes of the game, but in American sports, they keep going on and off the field/court/rink all the time.

 

I will concede that point. In rugby and soccer, there really aren't any breaks. About the only popular American sport where such is the case is basketball, where star plays routinely play the entire game. Although even in those cases, there a foul shots where players take mini-breaks. In the case of American football, generally you play offense or defense, so you are only actively participating in half of the game.

 

Unless you're a kicker, in which case you routinely play about 1% of the game. That is the best job in all professional sport.

 

The basketball games I have seen also had lots of timeouts, maybe 3-4 one minute commercial TO per quarter plus the shorter ones.

In soccer most players don't run or jog all the time, not even close -there's a lot of minibreaks although the game is in progress. I think full backs or defensive midfielders run the most in one game, maybe with the exception of the referee.

 

In basketball the stars are relieved by the players on the bench, and return after rest or to prevent fouls to add up.

Mahut vs Isner Wimbledon 2010 59/59 in the fifth set and they go on Thursdays.
Everybody else can apply for sissy of the year.

 

I don't know how it is in Europe, but the here in the States, it is routine for a star player to play nearly the entirety of the game. It's a 48 minute game, and if you look at star players minutes per game, they usually average around 44 minutes.

And even that stat is misleading, because oftentimes when a star does NOT play the entire game it's because his team has a big lead, and so they give him a break in the 4th quarter.

I will concede that sometimes a player sees fewer minutes because he gets in foul trouble, but that's never the plan going into the game. But there are many times during the year where star players on a team play the entire 48 minutes.

 

In Europe basketball games last only 40 minutes. I'm not sure, but I think even with shorter periods bench players are used more in Europe than in NBA. The games as a whole are shorter in Europe; a normal tv game lasts about hour and a half, maybe two hours, while NBA games seem to take at least 2 1/2 hours to complete. That's one thing why I like about football/soccer- you always know how long the game is going to last (give or take few minutes), unless it's a elimination game.

 

Especially playoff games. Typically, the first 47 minutes take about an hour and a half, and the last minute takes an hour.