Rio de Janeiro 2016 ! It ’s a vitrine for the triumph of the human flavour , opportunity for the world ’s top athlete to have all the sex , and a possible looming health catastrophe of epical proportions . High derail over here forall of Thrillist ’s coverageof the games , and the game beyond the games .
The Summer Olympics start this hebdomad in Rio , and in two workweek , their decision will mark the prescribed start of the countdown to the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang , South Korea . But which interlingual rendition of the Olympics is better ? We asked notable sports fanaticsJoe DeLessioandWill Leitchto cover the public debate and make their cases for the Winter and Summer Games , severally .
Joe DeLessio : Hello , sir ! So before we begin the arguing dower of this debate , it ’s plausibly worth recognizing something I believe we agree on : that the Olympics are , by and turgid , sports for people who like reality TV . Part of the fun of being an obsessive sports fan is take root for the team , and part of the fun of rout for a team is that you could come after it , day in and sidereal day out , for years and year . As you ’ve write before , sports fans like linguistic context and chronicle . In the Olympics , you often find yourself cheering for someone you ’d never listen of a week ago and may not mean about again for four more twelvemonth , if ever . Which is okay ! But also different .
Getty Images/Oren Aks/Thrillist
Which brings me to a favourite peeve about the Summer Olympics , as a sport devotee . The mind of the Olympics , if you strip out the corruption and the scandal and the worldwide incarnate cooperator , is a all right one – to see which jock or which res publica is the best in the earthly concern at something . Maybe I ’ve been brainwashed by too many years of Bob Costas , but the Olympics DO have a sure cachet . The affair is , among many of the sports I already have some interest in , the tourney do n’t always feel like a Big Deal .
American basketball players do n’t always deal the Olympics like a priority ( and even if they do , America is still far and off the right team ) . The boxing issue is still mostly for amateur fighter aircraft . The men ’s soccer event does n’t even pretend to compete with the World Cup – or the continental championships , for that subject – and it has roll formula in topographic point to force res publica to play mostly young players . I ’ll take the lawn tennis Grand Slams over the Olympics , too , and though I do n’t follow golf game very much , I get the mother wit there ’s a alike moral force die on there now that it ’s an Olympian sport .
I ’m cherry - picking a bit , but that ’s a peck of gamey - profile sports – as in , one where you may actually follow the jock more than once every four age – where the Olympics are far from the tiptop of competition . ( The saving grace might be the womanhood ’s association football tourney , which is lawfully a big mint , but even that has the World Cup to contend with . )
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Looking through the list of Winter Olympics mutation , I ’m not sure that ’s an issue anywhere . I ’ll get to men ’s hockey in more detail later , but even though there are eminent - profile club leagues all over the world , hockey fans broadly speaking get really into the Olympics . And unless I ’m underestimating the importance of the X Games , an Olympic gold is the enceinte prize in every other sport . Those across - the - board stakes are attractive to me .
Will Leitch : I can , and will , come up with all sorts of grounds why the Summer Olympics are better than the Winter Olympics , but first off , get ’s discuss your ( correct ) averment that " there are a lot of in high spirits - profile athletics where the Olympics are far from the pinnacle of contention . " This is decidedly true . Basketball , soccer ( even char ’s soccer , really ) , tennis , golf , package : in all of those , the Olympics are more of an exposition rather than the independent event .
But this is how it should be . The Olympics ARE an exposition . Carmelo Anthony might end up with four gold medals after this year , but honestly , no one consider him a champion . This is just and correct : the Olympics are a freakish showcase of pocket-size sample distribution sizes that only happen every four old age , and therefore should n’t be the ultimate gauge of anything .
The fun of the Olympics is not when title-holder get their due : it ’s when people coach every Clarence Shepard Day Jr. for four years in tiny sports that no one cares about for shine on the only internal degree they ’ll ever be afford … and then they blow it . That ’s the right ! That ’s what sport is about . They ’re not about congratulating people on being the better ; they ’re about a zero - sum game in which all the normal things in the world that get in the room of actual achievement – societal position , nepotism , forcible attractiveness , occasional sociopathy – do n’t matter , and you either gain ground or you lose . you’re able to make for really hard and still lose and not have anybody care . And after it ’s over , people will forget you ever existed . That ’s the Olympics ' shining virtue . The Olympics are n’t genuine play . This is what makes them both fun and wasted .
We have literal stakes in other sports , the unity we catch the rest of the year , making the Olympics superfluous . That hockey matters so much in the Olympics is n’t a point in favor of the Olympics : it ’s a head against the NHL . Remember two years ago , whenGary Bettman had a fake argumentwith someone from the IOC about what stand for more , a Stanley Cup or a gold medallion ? This is n’t even slightly a argument in any other summercater : it ’s obviously not a atomic number 79 ribbon . If Bettman has to have that conversation , he has already lost . The Olympics do n’t matter . That ’s a reason to watch them . But that ’s also why consecrated sportsman fans do n’t really empower in them .
Anyway ! Five very simple rationality the Summer Olympics are better – which are not especially serious but are notwithstanding undeniably true , thus show my point even further , because they ’re all among the weak of my examples :
1 . Variety of venues . At the Winter Olympics , you ’re either in the city or you ’re in the mountains . ( All the cool summercater are in the hatful , and there ’s more to drink up there , too . ) you could conceivably see every effect in two weeks . ( In Sochi , I did . ) Summer Olympics are more sprawling , and thus have more variety.2 . Less reliance on X Games stuff . I’ve come around on the X Games a fiddling , but let ’s not jolly ourselves : these are mostly excuses for the US to pump up its medal count . And they are a much large percentage of the Winter Olympics than they are the Summer Olympics.3 . Beach summercater . Come on , man , they ’re play sport on the beach . Though to be fair , in Rio , most of those beaches are 43 % syringe.4 . The Summer Olympics have horses , bow and arrow , and guns . And not necessarily in that order.5 . Oh , and trampoline . Which is not this , not yet , but someday :
DeLessio : I can see the NBC promo now : " The Rio Olympics : it ’s just an expo that does n’t matter ! "
I ’m actually gon na skip past that part , though , because none of it is really an arguing for the Summer Games over the Winter Games . The small sample sizing , the athletes in unnoticeable sports on the big leg of their lifespan – that ’s mutual to both . But I ’m not going to skip over the Bettman thing . The interrogation of whether an Olympian gold means more than a Stanley Cup is framed in such a way to invigorate some burning at the stake - red-hot takes , but it does n’t need to be . The NHL and the Olympics can exist on parallel track ; it means a lot to win either one .
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I ’ve argue before thathockey is the perfect Olympian play , and I ’ll digest that argument here : you have a sport with a prominent existing fanbase , athletes we already lie with and surveil , context and history that informs our viewing , players who take it seriously and truly want to gain a medal for their rural area , and proportional parity where a number of body politic can legitimately compete . ghost over a two - week tournament that I really care about – as in , losses - from - six - years - ago - still - stingcare – is a tenuity in summercater . And it ’s an chance to see a sport systematically played at the perfectly highest possible storey , like an All - Star Game that hold up two weeks and actually matters . The Winter Olympics propose that in hockey .
I ’ll hit the other point one at a time :
1 . The ability to sample all of the result ( either in person or on TV ) is a point in favour of the Winter Games . You ca n’t enjoy those obscure sports if the overall political platform is so bloated that you never get a hazard to determine them out in the first place.2 . I jazz the X Games stuff!Perhaps my American - cape is point here , but those upshot are fun . What do you have against fun?3 . Well , TV executive director sure do bonk beach sports , though that ’s not totally because of the drama of the competition.4 . The Winter Olympics have guns , too– in the biathlon , if that ’s your cup of Camellia sinensis . ( By the way , you forgot that the Summer Games also demand swords.)5 . Valid point . Trampoline is pretty cool .
Leitch : Yeah , I kind of took us a bite away from the initial point with my small hockey game Riffian . allow ’s just focus on why the Summer Olympics are dear . There are a lot of reasons ! But the most important reason is a pretty obvious one : normal , non - Norse citizenry in reality flirt these sportsman . We ’ve all go . We ’ve all ridden a motorcycle . We ’ve all played hoops , or association football , or badminton . ( I have play a LOT of badminton . ) The Summer Olympics are merely more relatable because they ’re general sports that are n’t practiced solely by Americans who experience in Colorado , Utah , Alaska , Minnesota , Wisconsin , and role of California . ( No offence to those states ! ) Most people ca n’t even trash skate , Joe , let alone ski or luge or curl . The more popular a sport is is straightaway relative to how much we American idiot can imagine ourselves doing it . The Summer Olympics have almost all of those . They ’re also more global and diverse .
Here ’s the number of countries that won a medal the last two Olympics :
2014 Winter Olympics : 262012 Summer Olympics : 85
Eighty five , Joe ! Some of the countries that medaled at the 2012 Summer Olympics : Afghanistan , Bahrain , Gabon , Kuwait , Moldova , Qatar . I had no theme Gabon was a body politic . It ’s potential it ’s a fake FIFA country .
Plus , Summer has rugby ! How did I not realize rugby was in the Olympics ?
And because so much of the playfulness of the Olympics is every which way tuning in to receive SOME form of sport on , the Summer Olympics is everlasting because no subject the hr of the day , someone ’s either playing beach volleyball game or rasslin ' or jumping off a diving board or quetch someone in the expression . These are the sports we roleplay and can understand . We need no primers . The Summer Olympics are for the most casual of sports fans . We can just dive right in , anytime . ( And then do a synchronized swim routine . )
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DeLessio : I’d disagree with the melodic theme that normal people play a great many of the sports in the Summer Olympics . When was the last time you got your dressage on , Will ?
But spot taken that most of the Summer sports are more accessible than the Winter ones . There are n’t many places to skiin Bolivia . That say , the fact that I can physically run 100 meters does n’t make me enjoy world - class moon-curser doing it any more . Same for swimming or bike riding or any other " normal person " activity .
I should note that while I live in a realm with a cold winter , other than hockey , there are n’t many winter athletics that I in person run , or would even want to try . ( I ’ve been ski precisely once ; I made it down the mountain without pause my neck opening , so as far as I ’m interest , I win at skiing . ) In the Olympics , I require to see amazing effort I could n’t possibly imaging doing myself ; I do n’t want relatable . Have you seen ski jumping ? ! It ’s bonkers , and you could n’t ante up me enough to do it .
Leitch : I can say with 100 % certainty that the Winter Olympics are a LOT more life-threatening than the Summer Olympics sports . In Sochi I sawski jumpingandslopestyle , and it strikes me as manifestly harebrained that any human being would ever do either of them . It remind me of see to it Cirque du Soleil : I ca n’t consider people in those events are n’t invariably break . ( That tends to be save for the hapless souls building the structure where these events are held . ) If you desire to see someone die , you ’re more likely to see that at the Winter Olympics than the Summer Olympics . So you have that , Joe !
All told , though , I feel like we ’re sort of run around in circles here . I enjoy some Winter Olympics mutation , but not all of them , which means the Summer Olympics by definition have to sort of destroy them , because there are SO MANY . Sure , I ca n’t keep track of everything , and there ’s not a lead principle to watch the game in full – other than " the Olympics are so , so bad for the rural area that host them " – but that ’s a feature film of the Summer Games , not a bug . I ’ll dip in when I want , and dip back out when I ’m ready to leave . For a casual August spectacle , that ’s staring .
Plus , I ca n’t wait until Trump tweets something about women ’s gymnastics . You know he will .
DeLessio : Let the record show that I do not , in fact , want to see someone die . But this isn’tAmerica ’s Next Top Ski Jumper , where some schmo who does n’t really know what he ’s doing is bound off a mountain . These are harden pros who somehow make these impossibly heavily , often chilling athletic feats await sluttish . That ’s a beautiful thing .
You ’re also veering into a " amount over quality " logical argument there . The Summer Olympics are undoubtedly bigger , but that does n’t mean they ’re necessarily safe . And do n’t get me incorrect , I wish some Summer Olympics sports , too . path and theatre is basically a trial of human athleticism in its perfect descriptor , and I dig that . But I ’ll take the sum of the Winter Games over the aggregate of the Summer ones .
You contribute up something else I want to mention : the timing . Yes , the Olympics are estimable summer scheduling for a nonchalant viewer . But February in sports is kind of the sorry . football game ’s over . Spring training is scantily under way . The NBA and NHL are in the wiener days of their seasons . And college hoops is a few weeks away from March Madness . It ’s the perfect time to throw off in a largely ego - contained sports spectacle every four years . recent - ish summer is a pretty slow time on the sports calendar , too , but at least I can , you sleep with , go outside then . Those of us at the mercy of the season do n’t really have that option in February .
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( As for the Olympics consistently being dire for the host city , the more I recall about it , the more I ’m on board with Barry Petchesky ’s " Olympic Island"concept . )
Leitch : I think you ’re on to something about the athletics calendar , though I ’d indicate that " move outside " in August where I last in Georgia is as bad or worse than going outdoors in New York in February . But this is a endearing welfare to the Olympics across the board : they come on the fourth dimension of the mutant – and ethnic , and amusement – calendar in which we ’re in most need of distraction . This is a lesson the World Cup is going to learn the hard style in 2022 , when the atmospheric condition in Qatar coerce them to move that tourney to November . We need it now .
I lie with the Olympic Island mind , too , which reminds me of the sodding way to twine all this up : the great Onion TV from 2014 , " Olympic Village Tour : See Where the Athletes Live , power train , and Fuck Each Other . "
The practiced part : it ’s all eco - well-disposed !
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