Winter Olympics 2014

You and I both know I am way behind in sharing my stories. This week I had a lovely reminder that I have a small but wonderful readership. So, upon special request, here is my take on the 2014 Winter Olympics.

After re-reading my 2012 Summer Olympics recap, I realized I was about to write practically the same opener.

I can maintain that watching the Olympic coverage in a country other than your own is still a strange experience and the games seemed overshadowed by regular news, soccer (ok, football), and the Ukraine.

But first, let's start with the location of the games. I will probably continue to mispronounce Sochi because it is pronounced differently in German than in English. And I mostly only heard it auf Deutsch, so my brain stored the information in a confusing matter.

This leads us to Germany commentary but English graphics and event games. Talk about Denglisch (that's a mixture of Deutsch and English). It's both positive and negative that English is so universal and has made its way in the German language and culture, but when a German word and English word can be used interchangeably and the use is alternated, it gets confusing. So, please don't ask my about some of the newfangled events because I probably won't be able to tell you the event name in German or English.

But back to commentary. Who doesn't love German honesty? I highly enjoyed Katarina Witt's figure skating bluntness. First of all, it was exciting because this was an Olympic name I recognized, yet scary because it's not from a recent decade. (Yes, the post on my 30th birthday is coming.) Katarina did not hold back at the controversial gold medal decision. It may have been a coincidence because of timing, but I felt like they really cut her off because she was not holding back that they made a mistake. Perhaps this was also so in American commentary? I know the Internet blew up the next day dissecting both routines.

I have to believe that the major factor of nonchalance boiled down to the fact that the Germans did not perform so well. They ended up with a total of 19 medals (8 gold, 6 silver, 5 bronze) and more 4th place finishes that they would care to tally up.

Fun fact: the curling team came from Hamburg.

Aside from the German national soccer team, the Germans still really struggle with national pride and team spirit. Although they did have some great team uniforms.

And by great I mean that there were more than one comparisons to Lisa Frank. And no, the Germans maintain their rainbow uniforms were not a gay rights political statement.

image source

One last point will really bring it home. It was actually not that easy to find Olympic coverage. We were not competing with a big time zone issue and I don't have pay tv (yes, that's what it's called and yes I have free tv). Olympics just weren't always on. And I can't tell you why. But I could always find updates on a ticker running on the bottom of news screens. That's about how important Olympics seemed to be.

*Does anyone have different opinions? I am open to knowing if I incorrectly misjudged the games or if others came to the same conclusions.*