2010 Olympics: The Event I Surprisingly Became Interested In

Charlotte Kalla was pretty dominant in Vancouver

The great thing about the Olympics is that they offer to us a large variety events, that if we didn’t tune into watch, we would probably never have known they existed.

The one event that I became enamored with during the 2010 Olympic games was cross country skiing. I have never been a fan of cross country running, because like most other Americans, I find running to be a tedious and strenuous exercise and when turned into a competition, I just find myself completely disinterested. At first view, I thought cross country skiing was incredibly awkward to follow. When I think of skiing, I picture people going down hill’s, but never up them. During some parts of the events, the skiers are literally running up hill on their ski’s, which makes you wonder why exactly is this an Olympic sport.

Normally I’m not a fan of a sport that illustrates an athletes ability to just out-endure their opponent, but when you do research on an athlete like Charlotte Kalla and notice how incredibly built she is, you get a better understanding about how much these athletes have to work on their bodies just to prepare for these types of races. These events are more than just going out and trying to improve your time, it’s also about strength and balance, I can’t recall how many times I witnessed a skier fall down because they were both tired and off balance.

When I found out that Polish Skier Justyna Kowalczyk had been caught doping a few years ago, I found myself with a genuine dislike for her. It was at that moment that I felt like I had a vested interested in cross country skiing. I had made a cross reference with baseball and the fact that I loathe people who cheat, even though I’ve come to grips that a lot of my favorite players in the past have done, that still doesn’t mean I like it.

When Charlotte Kalla won the inaugural cross country skiing event of the Olympic games, I’m not sure what the reason is, but I became instantly fascinated by her. I believe it’s because with her ski gear on she somewhat resembles Kate Beckinsale, with a slightly fuller face, but without her ski gear on, not so much. However, I had already committed myself to being her number one fan during these Olympics, so I wasn’t about to jump ship just because of a wrong comparison on my part. I’m a fan of winners and Charlotte Kalla is just that, as illustrated by her two medals in the Olympics, one gold, one silver, and finishing in the top 10 each of her other three events. (some of these events had more than 40 competitors, so a top 10 finish is something to be proud of.) Another example of my odd fascination with cross country skiing: in the event that Kalla finished with a silver, it was a team event called the Team Sprint Free in which each country had two women alternating laps. Kalla was the most dominating skier on that day but her teammate, Anna Haag, who had won a silver medal in 15k event a couple days earlier, was just not as strong as Kalla was, and it cost them the gold medal. A silver medal is nice, but when you dominated as much as Kalla did for the majority of the race, only to finish with second place, that has to be a bit frustrating.

So there you have it. My fascination with cross country skiing has gotten to a disturbing point. I was rooting for the Swedes over my fellow Americans. I think it’s okay to jump ship and root for another country in these types of events, American women skiers just aren’t as good as the foreign countries women are. Also, it’s a whole lot more entertaining rooting for someone who has a chance as a medal than for your own country that is happy when one of their women places in the top 30.

Advertisement