The Procrastinating Writer

Just as quickly as it seemed to come on, the time of year—well, the time of every other year—when I’m patriotic has already passed. To be more specific, that time every two years when I’m patriotic for approximately two weeks has ended. Yep, the Olympics are over.

Normally, I’m not a big rah-rah American. Sure, I love living in this country, but you won’t catch me adorning my property with the stars and stripes, either. I’m just not that kind of person. But man, put a bunch of people representing different countries in one location and have them vie for the same honor and, all of a sudden, I’m getting teary eyed when the American men sweep the ski slopestyle event. Or when Meryl Davis and Charlie White win a gold medal for ice dancing, during which they had to do some ridiculously tricky move with the unfortunate name of “twizzle.”

What surprised me most about the Sochi games, though, was how invested I got in a sport I had never cared about before: men’s biathlon.

Frankly, I didn’t even know the biathlon existed before this year’s Olympics, and when the announcers started breaking down what the athletes do during it, I thought they were joking:

• Ski around what looks like a cross-country ski track.
• Drop to your stomach in a shooting range.
• Shoot five different targets with what appears to be a rifle shooting BBs.
• Ski around the track again.
• Go back to the shooting range and shoot again, except this time, do it standing up.
• Repeat this cycle a certain number of times depending upon the event type. And let me tell you, there are a lot of different event types (11 in the Sochi games).

I mean, really, it just sounds made up.

I thought biathlon was going to be one of those events you just have to power through during prime-time coverage before NBC gets to the good stuff, but by the end of the games, I was invested—I mean really invested—in the thing. And I think I owe it all to the enthusiastic screams of announcer Chad Salmela.

I wanted to know if Norway’s humble Ole Einar Bjoerndalen would become the most-medaled winter Olympian (he did). I wanted to see how the Fourcade brothers of France placed, especially the charming Martin. I wanted updates on Landertinger, Soukup, Le Guellec, Moravec, Beatrix, Lesser, and Svendsen. And none of them were even Americans, making this the first sport of the games during which I didn’t really care about how the United States did. 

Every morning, I would check each channel that carries the Olympics to find out when the full event was airing (as opposed to the highlights during prime time) so I could record it and watch it at night, sometimes skipping parts of the prime-time coverage to finish it. I wanted to hear every word from Salmela and find out where all of the top biathletes placed in the day’s event.

By the end of the Olympics, I had come to the conclusion that the biathlon was, by far, the most exciting winter Olympics sport—and maybe even more exciting than any summer one, too. I was hooked.

No longer will I whine at the beginning of each winter Olympics about how I wish it were the summer ones. Thanks to the endearing enthusiasm of announcer Chad Salmela, I can barely wait for 2018.