Wanted to give you all a heads up to watch the men's downhill when it replays (or at 2:00 am Sunday morning live). While watching most ski racing is boring as shit if you have little background in the sport, this downhill is completely insane. It is what those in the know would call a "real" downhill. Real fast, real steep, really technical and most importantly really fucking dangerous.
The jumps are enormous, although you lose perspective due to the zoom on the TV camera, but we are talking distances of 240 feet at 80mph. The upper part of the track is bullet proof ice, as they water injected the snow last week. This injection is often necessary in downhill and super g, for to ski at high speed on loose snow is akin to taking an F1 race car down a gravel road: it doesn't hold. That said, the track has dried out and gotten far slicker than they expected it to be after the three opening training runs, with today's third training run witness to some serious carnage. This is what it's all about. :rawk:
looking forward to it.
one of my most memorable skiing experiences was doing the world cup downhill course at Beaver Valley (Birds of Prey). I was doing GS turns to try and control speed and was just barely hanging on. I think I stopped once to rest on the way down. The snow was slick and firm that day, but not icy.
To think that those guys ski it without turning. But first, the course gets hosed down to make it nice and icy.
mind blowing
I attempted to walk up one of those huge ski ramps at the olympic park in lake placid. I got about half way up and was scared i was gonna fall off the side of the stairs going up. I looked down the ramp and was amazed anyone could stay on this without flying off one of the edges. Thing literally went straight down, I was speechless.
I'm pissed that I missed that. Thanks for the figure skating NBC
^ yeah I kept checking the TVs at the bar last night and all they had was figure skating. :samurai:
Superfreakie is used to Canadian Olympic coverage where you can watch the events you want when they're happening, or you can stream them whenever you want after the fact.
For some reason the USA puts up with NBC showing everything via tape delay and all sugar coated with patriotism then wrapped up in an giant American flag.
If I could only watch NBCs coverage I don't think I'd like the Olympics.
Quote from: mattstick on February 09, 2014, 06:03:08 PM
Superfreakie is used to Canadian Olympic coverage where you can watch the events you want when they're happening, or you can stream them whenever you want after the fact.
For some reason the USA puts up with NBC showing everything via tape delay and all sugar coated with patriotism then wrapped up in an giant American flag.
If I could only watch NBCs coverage I don't think I'd like the Olympics.
You just made the list pal.
As Matt said, the streaming is free and, of all things, in HD. And for the events that have no commentators (trials, training runs) you have the live media feed that all countries get access to and over which they would lay their own audio commentary if they had someone. But if there without commentators, as was the case for us Canadians during some of the DH training runs, you can hear the athletes, coaches and spectators cursing it up.....in every foreign language. :hereitisyousentimentalbastard
CBC's Sochi iOS/Android app is pretty amazing.
for the summers of 2012, NBC was streaming almost every event live
you can watch the events here
http://www.nbcolympics.com/olympics-live-extra-schedule
It's on tv now
This is how icy that track was, something that the TV cameras don't pick up:
http://instagram.com/p/kJrs6Bjf-l/#
It makes my stomach hurt looking at that photo.
Thats my nightmare.
The should do downhill only on 12 inch powder days.