The View
Olympic ObstaclesWednesday, March 03, 2010 By Amy Willsey
The Winter Olympics take place only once every four years. But when they do happen, it seems that every person in every country becomes a fan of snow related sports. NBC alone had 190 million viewers, according to multichannel.com. The Olympics are hard to miss when they are shown on three different television channels every night; NBC (on basic Time Warner Cable, channel 13), MSNBC (channel 28) and KCWE-TV (channel 29). “I watched some Olympics every night,” said Dillon Higdon, physical education. “And I always read about the results in the paper the next day.” Like Higdon, Haley Shelton, sophomore, said she watched the Olympics “every time it was on. ” “My favorite event to watch is snowboarding because of Shaun White,” said Shelton. “He is a great athlete that always does amazing tricks while competing.” White, according to vancouver2010.com, won gold in the men's halfpipe snowboarding competition after scoring 46.8 out of 50 in his first run and 48.4 in his second. White's first run in itself was enough to seal the title. Higdon, on the other hand, said his favorite sport to watch is downhill skiing. He finds the risk involved to be what draws viewers in. The best moment in the Olympics so far, according to Higdon, was Lindsey Vonn's comeback in skiing. She injured her right shin in a practice run two weeks before the Olympics started. According to espn.com, Vonn wondered if she'd be able to compete at all, let alone win two medals for the United States. She competed on Feb. 17 in downhill skiing and placed first. On Feb. 20, Vonn participated in the finals of Super-G and won a bronze medal. Though those were her only medals, she competed in other events including slalom. “ Seeing an athlete come back from an injury shows that athletes will stop at nothing to compete,” said Higdon. “And that's something that should be respected.” |