For two weeks a year every four Winters, the whole world is captivated by seeing athletes from all over the world compete for the gold in events like speed skating, curling, and figure skating. That is what is going on right now with the Winter Olympics. Likewise, for two weeks a year every four Summers, millions and millions of folks are fascinated by watching events like swimming, gymnastics and men’s basketball. The next summer Olympics are scheduled for London in the summer of 2012.
I will admit that, at the encouragement of my colleagues, my cold feelings towards the Olympics may be slowly thawing out! Loyal Homer had a birthday yesterday and while at dinner with friends last night the majority of the 15 people in my crew had their eyes glued to the TVs at the bar watching Olympic skiing. And yes I did pay attention… in between stuffing my face with a steak!
In the meantime, The Sports Debates thought it would be really cool to debate: Which version of the Olympics are better?
I am leaving the definition of “better” open ended, which should leave a wide open debate.
Bleacher Fan, who is arguably the biggest Olympic fan out of the four of us, will argue that the Winter Olympics is the best. Meanwhile, Babe Ruthless will try to convince me, and perhaps you, that the Summer Olympics are better.
For the record, I am encouraging both Bleacher Fan and Babe Ruthless that I truly need to be convinced of which is better. I am admittedly not nearly as knowledgeable on this topic as many of our readers are. Both sides obviously have advantages. It is up to you to convince me which is better!
The torch has been lit by Loyal Homer. Let the games begin!
Is it even a question that the Olympic Summer Games are far superior to their fledgling counterpart, the Winter Games? Seriously, the Summer Games have a history steeped in tradition that goes back thousands of years to the ancient Greeks around 776 BC. The Winter Games are less than 100 years old. The Summer Games feature hundreds of sports and thousands of competitors. The Winter Games feature fewer. The Summer Games have a global appeal. The Winter Games are regional and somewhat of a novelty act. The Summer Games boast some of the most intense and masculine competitions of athletic prowess ever imagined. The Winter Games… not so much. The Summer Olympic Games are the genuine article in comparison to the Winter Games’ cheap knockoff. The Summer Games are bigger and better in every way.
Not convinced? Imagine you are at one of the first Olympic Games in ancient Greece. You can keep it rated G by imagining it before all the nude competition stuff started with the Spartans (which for the record, is freaky-deaky). Now imagine you are listening to the play-by-play calls of an ancient sports commentator. What do you think you would hear? Would it sound something like this?
“And Cleisthenes makes a flawless transition from the double axel into a perfect triple toe loop.”
Probably not. But if I were to say, “Alexandros slams Demetrios to the ground and grapples him into submission” you might be more inclined to admit that sounds appropriate. Why? Because the Olympic Games have an ancient history… that is not tied to Winter sports.
The ancient Olympic competition included the following: horse and chariot racing, wrestling, and running, among others. Each event was found throughout the ancient world, which could be practiced throughout the empire. The modern Olympic Games, date back to the turn of the 20th Century and featured some of the same lineup as the ancient games. While the contests have increased exponentially in number, they have been true to the game’s roots, an athletic competition in which any athlete can engage. The same can not be said of the Winter Games.
The Winter Olympic Games cater to specific countries, those with snowy regions or the ability to practice in those places. Every now and then, a country or athlete gains global attention as an exception to this norm, like the now world famous Jamaican bobsled team or this year’s skier from Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah-Achempong – the Snow Leopard. Unfortunately the performance of these novelty acts is usually substandard. The Summer Olympic Games, however, focus on sports that are as widely practiced as they are ancient in nature. There is nothing elitist or segregated about the Summer Games. For the most part they can be practiced anywhere there is an athlete and a field. The Summer Games are truly a competition for the world, and the numbers reflect it.
More than 11,000 athletes competed in more than 300 events across 28 sports during the last Summer Olympic Games in Beijing, China. This year’s Winter Games feature just 5,000 athletes, less than half the number of participants in the Summer Games. The Beijing games had almost 4 billion viewers during the opening ceremonies. While the Vancouver Games – which are shaping up to be one of the most watched Winter Games in Olympic history – had just a 67.5 million viewer audience for the opening ceremonies. The numbers do not lie. The Winter Olympics just cannot compete.
Now I have proven that the Summer Games are better because of their history, appeal, and in sheer numbers of participants and spectators. All these arguments are strong, intellectual, and probably appeal to data driven fans like Sports Geek. But I want to make sure everyone is on board in acknowledging the Summer Games as supreme, so I am going to do what I do best – get Ruthless.
The Summer Games are the biggest compilation of the most awesome sports on the planet. The Winter Games, however, carry about as much machismo as a tickle fight. The Summer Olympics feature sports that comprise many of the individual aspects of modern MMA (i.e. wrestling, boxing, judo, and taekwondo), while the Winter Games feature competitions like curling (seriously… how is that an Olympic Sport and baseball isn’t!?). In 1996 Kurt Angle, Olympic wrestler turned professional wrestler, won the gold with a broken neck. Curling is so gentle one of the Canadian team’s backups is able to do it despite being five months pregnant.
The Summer Olympics boasted unadulterated competitions of manliness, like weightlifting, shooting, and archery. The Winter Olympics feature competitive ice dancing. And yes, the Winter Games have a couple of manly sports, like hockey and the biathlon, (a combination of cross country skiing and marksmanship), but do those make up for the male figure skating costumes? I don’t think so! Even the Americans have lost their minds when it comes to figure skating costumes. American figure skater Johnny Weir wore pink tassels in something that looks like it came out of a Fredricks of Hollywood catalog. I do not know about you, but I do not think that is what the ancient Greeks had in mind. Sure these guys are proudly representing our country, but that sort of stuff just does not have the same mass appeal as watching the American NBA all-stars rip up the boards against defenseless third world countries during the Summer Games. To me, even the gymnastics competitions of the Summer Olympics have more appeal.
There is no doubt the Summer Games are the better than the Winter Games in every measurable way.
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Posted by Loyal Homer 
