Making the Winter Olympics Awesome

Since the Winter Olympics are currently taking place in Vancouver, my family has been watching a lot of coverage. However I have very little interest in the Winter games save for figure skating and curling. So it got me and my sister thinking, how could they make the Olympics more exciting so that I, MidnightHunnyRun, would be more compelled to watch?

I happened to catch my sister watching the finals in cross-country. Nothing could bore me more than a guy doing the same thing for more than two minutes with a background of white. (That whiteness thing is a big issue. Ever notice how pale the Winter Olympics are compared to the Summer Olympics?) Biathlon is only slightly better since the competitors get guns. What is interesting to me is how the competitors are so exhausted at the end that they just flop over right after they pass the finish line. So wouldn't it be a good idea to make the finish a whole other Olympic event?

ANNOUNCER

And Papagiorgio is approaching the finish. He won't beat Roland's time, but we'll see how he makes his fall. (beat) He finishes 8.31 seconds behind Roland... And he does a 180 spin out with a leg flail... Oh, just misses the landing, that's going to cost him some points. The highest he can get is a 9.2, based on difficulty. So he's currently in third place in cross-country. (beat) And he gets a 9.1 from the American judge, a 9.0 from the French judge... Ooh, and a 8.8 from the Russian judge. Ouch, that's gotta sting a little. So he's third in cross-country, and only eighth in the cross-country aftermath.

Something else I'd like to see is more aggressive music in pairs figure skating. Anything from the Jock Rock library would do, but the best song would have to be "Techno Syndrome (Mortal Kombat)." I can imagine the routine. The woman would be dressed as Sonya, and the man could be dressed like Liu Kang complete with headband and the topless look. They'd skate/dance/fight against each other to the howling of "Mortal Kombat" and the thumping beat of the song. Fists would fly, and they could do numerous Salchows, Loops, and Axels while they narrowly miss contact with each other. Then they could clinch, and Liu Kang could throw Sonya into the air only for her to land gingerly on the ice. During the "test your might" part they could competitively test their jumping strength while fist pounding the ice. At the end Sonya would win, and when it says "finish him," she could blow Liu Kang a kiss which knocks him out. Or they could do a babality or friendship, but those would probably get booed.

Lastly, they should make all events head-to-head competitions, in much the same way snowboard cross or short track has all the competitors on the field at the same time. Imagine head-to-head figure skating, where a skater tries to screw up her opponent while trying to maintain. Or biathlon where instead of the competitors shooting at targets, they can shoot at each other. While they're skiing. Even the already amazing curling would be enhanced by having multiple teams curling at the same time. Directly toward each other.

Less artistry and greater bombast combined with direct competition would go a long way to making the Winter Olympics much more exciting for me. Or in other words, injecting stale sports with a shot of awesome makes the sports more awesome. And if none of this works, I have one last suggestion: cross-country snowboard cross biathlon.