It's two weeks filled with national pride and unbridled excitement, but I find the Winter Olympics are also a time of profound ignorance.
No, I'm not referring to Russia's backward social policies, but rather my own ignorance as I sit on the couch, transfixed by the screen but not entirely sure what to make of what I'm watching on the TV.
I'm an unabashed supporter of our Olympic athletes but at times I'm finding it difficult to cheer them on, at least with any sense of purpose, because the nuances of their sports often escape me.
As I watched the men's moguls on Family Day, I was rooting for Alex Bilodeau and the rest of the Canadian crew to sweep the medals (they ended up claiming the top two spots on the podium), but I found it next to impossible to differentiate the technique of one skier from the next.
Oh sure, former Olympic medalist Jenn Heil, who was doing colour for CBC, could spot every little deduction, but those of us who only catch the sport every four years were left to wait for the marks before gaining access to the inner circle.
The same goes for figure skating, where Kurt Browning, another former Olympic medalist, could adeptly tell the difference between a great triple toe loop and simply a good one, the subtlety of which is completely lost on me. I'm pretty good at figuring out the marks won't be high if a skater's costume should have also included a hockey helmet, but short of them crashing to the ice, I'm at a loss to know until those fateful numbers are posted.
And how do you tell the difference between a fast luge run and one that's not quite as quick? Yes, I realize a stopwatch helps in such situations, but when lugers hurtle down the course for the better part of a minute, and are separated at the finish line by hundredths of a second, I don't think I'm the only one who can't tell one competitor encased in a skintight rubberized suit from the next. My ignorance hasn't stopped me from cheering on our athletes in slopestyle and half-pipe and skeleton, but it's a little different vibe than watching hockey or even speed skating, a sport that takes pity on the uninitiated by providing a clock in long track and elbow-to-elbow competition in short track.
There are still another 10 days to go in our quest to conquer the Nordic world, and I'm very much looking forward to taking that exhilarating ride along with millions of other Canadians. Forgive me, however, if my clapping is a tad belated.
