Subject: 2010 Vancouver Olympic Winter Games

I wasnt referring to how much they are on tv but to what you said about different races.

"You mean 70!? What a boring sport is that, and 101 different kind of races ..."

Ah ok. Then I count 25 different Cross-Country Skiing/Biathlon/Nordic Combined races of the list I posted ... But it's not only the number of races, also the time it takes to show this on tv. And because of that I'm missing real interesting sports.

These are the most interesting sports in the winter olympic games.

Yeah, how is speed skating is more interesting than biathlon?

And how is speed skating more interesting than cross coutry skiing?

Watching people go less then 20 km/h for hours and hours is much more exiting then 2 to 5 minutes 60-70 km/h ..... yeh I understand (not) :)

Oh come on :)... I seriously doubt you'd ever watch a speedskating event if we were not brought up with it, and do it every time it starts freezing over here ;)

Besides, speedskating events generally take a lot more time than biathlon/langlaufen, maybe except for the longest distance in those two sports. It's a serious struggle in speedskating to get passed the first 10 pairs, cos you know they won't be good enough for a top-10 position, so basically you're just watching...nothing :)... Biathlon and langlaufen is also way more competitive than speedskating: definitely more candidates for the medals, more countries competing on a high level. Seung-Hoon Lee won silver on the 5k speedskating while he did not even compete in a speedskating race before this season started...what does this tell us about the competition in speedskating? :P... Shani Davis is a terrible shorttracker, but is the best speedskater, what does this tell us? :P
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because they shoot guns.

Speed skating would be much cooler if it involved shooting.

Also: Mart Smeets

speed skating would also be much more interesting to watch if they would make a mass start not like in pairs nowadays, more like short track.

currently i think it is the most boring competition in winter olympics. even more boring than the luge/skeleton/bob races, simply because it takes longer, especially the long distances.

maybe we can get them to dual wield pistols, like cowboys on skates :P

I think, if my country was so good at speedskating, I would be so excited about it as you. But I am not.. For me it is like watching speedway, or nascar. :)

speed skating would also be much more interesting to watch if they would make a mass start not like in pairs nowadays, more like short track.

That's what shorttrack is for :)... Speedskating's main attraction is that you have to be the fastest of all competitors in terms of time, not simply the first to get to some place. If you would follow the sport more extensively, you'd see that different time schemes for different types of speedskaters make it very interesting. There are actually people in Holland writing down all lap times of all riders for every speedskating event ;)... So the whole sport would change if you would have a mass start. We have speedskating marathons (100 kilometres and more) in Holland though, which you could compare to cycling events with a real main group and attacking riders, but then on ice.
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Isn't that the case with many sports? They always start with the 'worst' athletes and end with the best. And if you look at the winners of Biathlon you see the same names, and Cross-Country Skiing also (and many other sports). Would be strange if the winner of 10km isn't good enough for 15km ... There is always just a handfull of athletes who makes a good change to win gold medals, all others are already happy to be at the Olympics :)

And example Seung-Hoon Lee isn't to good (worldchampion shorttrack 2008, 300m and 5000m). South Korea is a skatecountry, mainly shorttrack but that doesn't mean he can't preform on a longer track (like he did).

And Davis isn't Azian, ofcourse he is not good enough for shorttrack ;)

Speedskating is a another discipline than shorttrack: you have another technique, you need another mentality, the only thing which is the same is the endurance you need...so it's quite alarming for me that someone who has never competed in longtrack skating before can become almost number one (and maybe he will be number one tonight ;)) in one season. You could call it a natural talent, but otherwise it just tells us that the sport isn't very competitive.

And in my view biathlon and cross-country skiing are different :)... Especially at the men's events you have, approximately, 15 to 20 names who can win a medal. In the individual events favorites are fairly divided over the entire starting list which keeps it attractive during the whole event, while in mass starts you immediately have all the favorites upfront...which also makes the event different in terms of mentality as you are really competing against a competitor instead of competing against a competitor's time. Of course, in the end everyone expects Petter Northug and Ole Einar Bjoerndalen to win in these two disciplines, but things are much more undecided at the start than with speedskating.

I think, if my country was so good at speedskating, I would be so excited about it as you. But I am not.. For me it is like watching speedway, or nascar. :)

you should write too, that you don't like sport, where czech rep. gain medals in ;p