Olympic Glory

I love playing sports. I don't love watching them.

The olympics is always an exception to this rule as I love the drama surrounding the games. If there were delicious backstories, seedy judging, death, romance, arbitrary rules, and desperation in... lets say Basketball, maybe I would be more interested.  

The olympic broadcasters aren't afraid to talk about what figure skating couples are dating or which athletes have hustled to make a buck... its like gossip glory. 

This olympic games there was a native Sandpoint athlete, Nate Holland. Nate is a snowboard cross competitor, and went to school with my brother. He has won the X games more times in a row than any other boarder (thats 5 TIMES folks). He also qualified for the olympics 4 years ago but a crash prevented him from medal contention. This olympics would be different for sure~right? Basically our whole town was going crazy thinking that we would have a gold medalist in our midst for sure.

Sadly, it wasn't meant to be this year. Nate finished 4th in this years olympics.

EVEN WORSE? He made some controversial comments about snowboarders wearing  tight pants and was panned all over the internet for it the day of the race. IT WAS THE FRONT PAGE OF GOOGLE FOR GOD SAKES. See here if you need proof.

Lots of people have written me and said I should post about Nate Holland and the "tight" pants scandal, or do I know Nate Holland etc... 

Here is the deal. I don't really know Nate, other than through my brother. I think it would have been great for him to win, because he's from Sandpoint and everyone roots for the home team...

Now on to the tight pants because thats the category I truly excel in. According to reports Nate doesn't think snowboarders should wear tight pants. He's not happy about tight pants infiltrating their evil way into his rogue sport. Somehow tight pants go hand and hand with the "man" and corporate America and everything that snowboarding isn't?! 

I agree with Nate to a degree. Snowboarding is about image and non conformity, thats why they have the X games? Right?  Would people be happy if figure skaters started wearing flannels and jeans? The uniforms are part of the sport to a degree. We like our figure skaters glittery, our luge competitors slick in spandex, and our snowboarders well we like them looking a little rumpled like they just smoked a bowl at their buddy's house after shredding on the mountain all day. Weird as it sounds, its tradition.

TONS of sponsors, money, media coverage, and elite athletes are now part of snowboarding.  Snowboarding with its sexy bad boy image and attitude draws a crowd, lets face it. If snowboarders decided to go clean-cut and wear spandex, well I don't think the intrigue would be there anymore. In a way, the baggy pants serve as a promotional tool for the sport. I don't think thats what Nate had in mind when he made a comment that no doubt was blown out of proportion by the media, but it's something to think about...

Would snowboarding be as popular if they wore traditional athletic wear?