Introduced to the Olympic Games in 1924, speed skating can be traced back to England in the mid-18th century. Even before that, the sport's birthplace is most often considered to be the Netherlands, where skating was actually a common mode of transportation.
Today, speed skating is ranked fifth on YourTango.com Top 5 Surprisingly Sexy Winter Olympic Sports.
Not only is it sexy, it is extremely difficult. On curves, the skater is constantly being pushed outward by a centrifugal force of 60 kg in the inner lane, 52 kg in the outer. In order to counteract this force the skaters must lean 45° when in the inner lane and 49° in the outer!
The two racers skate counter-clockwise around a 400-meter oval ice rink changing lanes once per lap, to equalize the distance covered. Skaters can get up to 35 miles per hour.
The 12 separate speed skating events will span over the course of 2 weeks.
So far, the Netherlands has done their part to make the sport sexy. Sven Kramer was favored to win the 5000m, and that’s just what he did. In the 2006 games, he took silver in the 5000m race, but worked his way up to a gold in this year’s Olympics. He is also favored to win the 10,000m race on Tuesday, February 23rd.
Kramer is a celebrity in the Netherlands, where speed skating is extremely popular. In his native country he is known as the "ambassador of bread." He is actually the spokesman for an anti-junk food campaign to encourage Dutch children to eat more bread, instead of junk food. An awesome athlete who cares about kids… how sexy is that?
Another sport on the top sexy Olympic sports is freestyle skiing. The act of skiing is pretty hot, but are some of the athletes acting a little too sexy? The top American Alpine Skier was recently featured on the front cover of Sports Illustrated, and blogger Nicole LaVoi claims that the photo on the cover is just another example of women being “sexualized” in the media.
Go to your local newsstand and take a peek at the cover. You may be surprised that someone even thought to call this picture “sexy.” While Vonn looks excellent, she doesn’t exactly fulfill my idea of Sports Illustrated “sexy.”
But the comments on LaVoi’s blog got out of hand! People were attacking her instead of trying to explain why they thought she was wrong. LaVoi made some valid points. She explained:
“Over the last 60 years researchers have shown that about 4% of all SI covers have portrayed women.
When females are featured on the cover of SI, they are more likely than not to be in sexualized poses and not in action–and the most recent Vonn cover is no exception.”
This might all be true. However, people are still entitled to their opinion. Perhaps the media is just using Vonn as “the likely poster girl of the US Olympic Team” because she “represents the “norm of feminine attractiveness,” but is that the worst thing that could happen? People like to look at things that are nice to look at. Oh, and along with her good looks, she also offers her ability to win gold medals for the USA.
Apolo Ohno has a similar affect in the media. Every country has those celebrity athletes that people like to follow and enjoy to cheer for, like bread man Sven Kramer in the Netherlands. Apolo appears to be calm, humble, and attractive! The media is not just covering the Olympic games to inform the world of what’s going on. There are profits involved. Covering the Olympics is all about info-tainment. There are so many back-stories, interesting twists and exciting competition! It’s a gold mine (no pun intended).
In an article by Jonathan Mathis he writes,
“Girls are attracted to sporting figures, but even more so to Ohno. It seems the kid is hip and sexy enough to make them scream and cheer. Ohno has a certain sex appeal to fans that often overshadow his achievements.”
But that’s just the risk that these athletes run by putting themselves in the lime light. During the Olympics each country wants their own athletes to win. But sometimes it is just about how sexy the sport or the athlete competing is.
Here is a list of the top five most intriguing athletes to watch this Olympics, according to the students over at Tufts University.
Vonn and Ohno both made the cut. Also on the list are speedskaters Shani Davis and Katherine Reutter, and snowboarder Shaun White.
No comments:
Post a Comment