Olympics great entertainment despite sappy commentary

SUNDAY MORNING EDITORIAL — Two days into the Olympics, and one already grows weary from the hyperbole of the networks, and the “how does it feel?” questions to athletes.

It’s not just sport, after all, it’s about the spirit, about overcoming adversity, about the pain, about country. In there somewhere, there are games.

That’s what sports are — games. Winning a medal won’t change the destiny of mankind or even save the environment, but you’d think so listening to the sappy melodrama of TV producers and announcers.

Still, it’s a good show. The opening ceremonies were quite amazing, like 10 Super Bowl halftime shows rolled into one, only better. And when our Canadian team, one of the bigger ones at these 2014 Sochi Winter Games, entered the stadium, it was hard not to be proud. (And yes, Canadians have already won all colours of medals in the first days of competition).

Just checking out the uniforms worn by the various teams was fun, and seeing that some nations that don’t even have winter sent an athlete or two anyway was heart-warming.

What’s truly awe-inducing, though, is what those athletes are capable of in events such as slopestyle snowboarding, one of the early sports on view. Watching them literally fly, and somehow avoid killing themselves when they slam a landing, requires a suspension of disbelief as if we were in an audience at a sci-fi movie.

They’re truly to be admired. So we’ll have to forgive all the attendant gab the networks throw at us, as unnecessary and annoying as it is. After all, we in Kamloops have a special stake in these Olympics, with Elli Terwiel in slalom skiing and Jessica Hewitt in short-track skating.

Time to enjoy it all. And, hopefully, we’re also just about done having to hear ad nauseam about the corruption and threatened terrorism and can settle in to enjoying the skills and talents of athletes from around the world.