The Winter Olympics

After a cautious start, I am really enjoying the Winter Olympics now.

One of the main virtues of the "ice and snow Olympiad" is that it is more compact, not being the sprawling monster which its summer cousin has become. Many of the sports provide genuine spectacle, either through the hazards involved or the intricate skills required to succeed.

Living in Britain, these Games have supplied an antidote to some of the nauseating flag-waving nonsense which we had to endure around London 2012. As Britain, despite the protestations of some media folk to the contrary, is generally pretty useless at most Winter Olympic pursuits, it is possible to enjoy the coverage without being totally saturated with jingoism and insularity.  It still irks me, however, to see the media concentrate on some "plucky Brit" who finishes 37th, whilst some majestic performance up-front is almost totally disregarded.

Another thing which is becoming abundantly clear over time is how the face of the Winter Olympics is changing.  When I was young, the lion's share of the attention was allocated to Alpine ski-ing, figure skating and so on.  In recent times, the newer, more "trendy" and youth-oriented events such as snowboarding, freestyle ski-ing and skeleton have come more and more to the fore and, who knows, could even supplant the "blue riband" events in prestige before too long. As commercial considerations hold such sway these days, I can only see this as inevitable. The purists may not be happy, but are there any purists left? Judging by the hysteria on social media, curling is destined to become the new football!