Olympian Ennui

Nowadays I look forward to Winter Olympics because it gives me an excuse to completely unplug from the TV and sportspage/websites because I know there will be nothing to interest. (I have a track and field background and a greater interest in the summer games though I don't recall paying that much attention to the Beijing games either.)

I don't why this is because as a good I used to be a giant fan of both- I remember stumbling on a latenight program showing the opening ceremonies to the Sapporo games in 1972 and being hooked. I recall watching as many events as possible and being particularly fascinated by the ski jump competition (I recall the Japanese jumpers cleaned up) and the downhill (a couple weeks after, imitating the downhillers while walking down the hill to school I broke my arm). My 4th grade teacher would put the games on our snowy school TV set in the morning before the pledge- I remember the theme song was pretty good ("Across the sea....") Later I recall the 1976 games and Franz Klammer's exciting downhill although the ski jumps weren't quite as neato as I had remembered. After that except the USA hockey victory over the Soviets (which we listened to over the drugstore PA system where I was working) and Eric Heiden's speed skating, I don't really have any memories of any Winter Olympics since then.

I blame it on the marketing which resulted in
1. ABC's "Up Close and Personal" focus on the athletes which seemed to be looking for an element of soap opera.
2. More figure skating coverage including adding something called Ice Dancing as a "sport"
(#s 1 and 2 are currently resulting in a bombardment of stories on Nancy Kerrigan's familiy troubles)
3. More Dick Button.
4. Weird outfits on the bobsledders, lugers and speedskaters which made it seem less real
5. Overhyping it as an event rather than an athletic competition (I kind of miss Jim McKay's hokey "fish out of water" stories where he bumbled through some exotic locale marvelling at all the culture).

Of course all these changes might have lost me as a viewer but gained millions of other nontraditional sports fans. So is anyone going to pay attention to this years games in - [had to go look it up]-Vancouver?