Obsession 2014

A blog about the Olympic Games: History. Athletes. Videos. Moments. Trivia. And more.

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Athletes put their bodies at risk for the most breathtaking crashes and falls. As viewers, we like seeing the victories rather than the failures, however defeats are just as compelling to watch. The purpose was not to make a compilation of triumphs, but to shows a side of the Olympic Games that people don’t seem to enjoy for obvious reasons. In addition, humans are nurturing creatures that take care of one another. I want to show the compassion and empathy people have toward one another, even during an event that is aggressive and competitive by nature. 

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I am obsessed with the Olympic Games because I secretly wish I was one of the glorified athletes competing against the best Olympians as the entire world watches in amazement. We look at them like gods and goddesses; they instantly become celebrities in the small towns they grew up in, the...

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Personal photos from the 2002 Winter Olympic Games in my hometown Salt Lake City, UT. 

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Overall, I prefer watching the Summer Olympic Games over the Winter Games because if I could compete in any sport it would be women's rowing. It moves me emotionally to see the concentration on their faces and strength and synchronicity in their bodies as they glide across the water. 

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Ice skating is by far NOT my favorite event, however I do enjoy seeing the serious, polished, elegant skaters in this light. 

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Have you ever wondered why Olympic athletes bite their medals after a victory?

You can blame it on the paparazzi. Additionally, it stems from the tradition of biting down on a coin to check if it was real gold. Olympic medals were made of real gold, although much smaller, from 1904 to 1912. As more athletes participated in the games, the organization started making gold medals primarily out of silver. Factoring in the size of the latest gold medals, they would be worth approximately $45,000 if they were actual gold. Either way, the bite has persisted over the decades and I would assume standing on that top pedestal would be worth more than owning tangible gold. 

Mitt Romney.

 (Not a statement of my political views or beliefs, just an inside joke for my fellow Salt Lake dwellers.)

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Afterlife

If you are sincerely interested in all aspects of the Olympic Games including what happens to the venues post Olympics, this post is about establishing an Olympic Village and what happens to the facilities after a country has accommodated thousands of athletes. Securing the privilege of arranging the games is something every former and future host city takes pride in. Although, it is an extremely grueling, political and expensive process which begins nine years prior to those games; countries are currently vying to host the winter games in the year 2022).

Once a city hosts an Olympic Games, they are recognized as an Olympic city, therefore can choose to utilize the facilities and keep them running for tourists and prospective athletes. Fortunately many cities such as Beijing, Barcelona, Los Angeles, and our very own Salt Lake City make an actual profit off of the Olympic Parks and villages by luring in visitors. In contrast, cities like Berlin, Athens and Sarajevo have let their amenities diminish to complete ruins. Much of this is due to disputes in politics and war, however the photos documenting the decline are eerie.http://www.today.com/sochi/what-happens-olympic-venues-after-torch-goes-out-2D12152101 

The images are fascinating to look at in a historical context. Another obsession of mine aside from the Olympics is World War II, specifically the war in Europe during this time. The infamous Summer Olympics of 1936 in Berlin, Germany, facilitated by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party were a predecessor of the second world war. The chilling photographs of the notorious Nazi salute in the stands of the Olympic stadium as well as excessive Nazi paraphernalia covering the Olympic village were surely used as propaganda for their political ideology. http://www.heritagedaily.com/2014/02/the-nazi-olympics 

Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Berlin, Germany.

After spending billions of dollars erecting hotels, stadiums, complexes, and even roadways, Olympic cities are either scrutinized or praised. Many Olympic villages have been forgotten however the recent interest is what's in store for Sochi, Russia now that the country has spent an insurmountable $50 billion dollars on amenities including the elaborate Fisht Stadium. Only history will tell.

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An inspiring article from the New York Times about conviction, perseverance, and power brought forth by the world's toughest ski jumpers. 

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Discrimination? 2014? Olympics? 

Something dawned on me while watching the women’s ski jumping event; these are the first games that the sport has been included in the program alongside men’s ski jumping. After hearing this news, the feminist in me rushed to my Macbook to investigate. What I found truly disturbed me. Allegedly, women’s ski jumping has been a controversial topic for several years. The following are quotes I discovered spoken by men possessing high status in professional sports associations: 

"It's a pretty difficult sport with a high risk of injury. If a man gets a serious injury, it's still not fatal, but, for women, it could end much more seriously. Women have another purpose: to have children, to do housework, to create hearth and home,” Alexander Arefyev, Russian men’s ski jumping coach.

“To be very honest, at least at the moment, very few ladies who are really good in jumping," Gian Franco Kasper, president of the International Ski Federation. 

"Because all women's parts, tissues, and [fibers] were finer and more delicate than men's, because their grace, beauty, and gentleness had to be preserved and because overly fatiguing activities tended to produce rheumatism, muscle inflammation, nervous exhaustion, and premature [aging], and worst of all, endangered their 'peculiar function of multiplying the species,” Donald Walker, author of Exercises for ladies; calculated to preserve and improve beauty. 1836.

In an article written by Claire Suddath in TIME Magazine in 2010, she explains women’s ski jumping has been petitioned by activists, athletes and supporters of women’s rights for over a decade to be recognized as a professional sport at the Olympic Games. However the International Olympics Committee has continued to deny the appeals, devoting the sports to strictly male competitors seemingly because of the health risks the sport poses towards women. At this point, I have hundreds of frustrating thoughts bouncing around my brain. Who said all women want to have children? It shouldn't be assumed that women including professional sports athletes will damage their reproductive organs while participating in extreme levels of physical activity because ALL athletes should be aware of injuring ANY part of their body. It stuns me that in the 21st century we are still disputing gender equality, forty-two years after Title IX was passed by President Nixon which prohibits gender discrimination within education, career-building, heath, athletics, among other clauses. 

One athlete in particular, Jessica Jerome is another local athlete from Park City, Utah, who learned how to ski jump at the age of seven. She made headlines and history with her persistent effort and contributions to bring women’s ski jumping to the Olympics. She spent hundreds of hours on the track as well as in courtrooms along with countless others, and her passion paid off, “Jessica made history Dec. 29, 2013 by winning the U.S. Olympic Team Trials to become the first nominee to the inaugural women’s ski jumping Olympic Team.”

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LICK THE CAT PC,UT

It's a strange phenomenon to see people your own age or younger rivaling in the world’s largest sporting competition.  It is even stranger when those people grew up not far from where you did. Park City is know for its snow, majestic mountains, winter sports, and sending athletes to the Olympics. The Utah Olympic Legacy Foundation and Park City Olympic Park http://utaholympiclegacy.com/ is equipped with year round facilities for training individuals including freestyle skiing, nordic skiing, bobsled, skeleton, luge, alpine skiing, ski jumping, ice skating, speed skating, curling, hockey, among other disciplines. 

One of those athletes, Sage Kotsenburg, born in 1993 is a native of Park City, Utah and grew up on those slopes. He has ranked highly in numerous snowboarding competitions including the X Games, International Ski Federation World Cup, Dew Tour, and Grand Prix to name a few. http://ussnowboarding.com/athletes/sage-kotsenburg. Did I mention he won the first gold medal in this year’s Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia for slopestyle snowboarding? In addition, the trick he calls The Holy Crail that earned him the gold, he had never actually landed prior to that monumental run.

He practices his ambitious tricks with the snowboarding crew based out of Park City, Lick the Cat. After watching his gold medal win on T.V., the media coverage shifted across the world to Sage’s family and friends in PC, celebrating his victory. Several of them murmured the phrase “Lick the Cat.” For my personal amusement, I googled L.T.C. and several videos emerged on my computer screen. Basically, they are a group of snowboarding enthusiasts featured in several online publications including Snowboarder Magazine and Transworld Snowboarding.

Congratulations to our Park City medalists Sage Kotsenburg, Joss Christensen and Torah Bright.  

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The Art of Luge.

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Photographic Proof That Sochi Is A Godforsaken Hellscape Right Now

In Russia, Olympics compete against you! Follow @SochiFails for more of this.

A good friend of mine, who also watches the Olympics for two weeks straight as if it were General Conference, sent me a link to hilarious photos taken by Olympic competitors, reporters, journalists, and tourists documenting some of the issues within the city of Sochi for this year's Olympic Games. Apparently, the Russians were not as prepared as the rest of the world would have thought. #Sochiproblems is spreading around social media like wild fire. Hotel rooms are in ruins, public amenities are an absolute joke, and even the conditions of the actual Olympic facilities have had their fair share of complaints. I have to admit some of these photos may seem over-the-top but imagine yourself spending thousands of dollars to see your son or daughter competing in their first or final Olympic Games and your hotel room is under construction with no running water. 

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Olympic Games

I am obsessed with the Olympic Games because I secretly wish I was one of the glorified athletes competing against the best Olympians as the entire world watches in amazement. We look at them like gods and goddesses; they instantly become celebrities in the small towns they grew up in, the country they are representing, and the world they are proving themselves to.

I still remember the day Michael Phelps visited the University of Utah in September of 2004 (http://utahutes.cstv.com/sports/c-swim/spec-rel/092104aac.html) after the Summer Olympic Games In Athens, Greece. I wasn’t a swimmer but went to see his demonstration at the HPER Complex on campus because he was Michael Phelps. He wasn’t even twenty years of age and had won 6 gold medals and 2 bronze at his first Olympic Games. I don’t remember how my sister, friends, and I heard he was coming, just that we had to be there for this opportunity. He entered the pool area and walked over to the screaming crowd. My sister touched his shoulder and he gave my friend and I a high-five along with hundreds of other screaming girls. I didn’t wash that hand for two days. I was a teenager at the time so this to me was a big deal. He along with other esteemed swimmers, Lenny Krayzelburg and Ian Crocker, demonstrated the backstroke, breaststroke, freestyle, and butterfly that won them medals. 

After that moment, I was hooked on the Olympic Games and watched every two years after that. They were something I looked forward to and something I was sad to see disappear; watching people who dedicate their childhoods and early adulthood to one painfully specific discipline. I find it fascinating that so many of those athletes give up their lives to training, competing, racing, perfecting, and winning. We don’t know who these people are and haven’t seen their best performances, but they put it all out there for us to see the one performance that matters the most. This blog is about all things Olympics from the Olympic villages, traditions, famous athletes, history, personal accounts from the 2002 games in my hometown Salt Lake City, Utah, and all the buzz on the current winter games in Sochi, Russia.