kosmo - See all 468 of my articles
1 Comment

My favorite sport is baseball, America’s Pastime.

My second favorite sport is luge, which is definitely not America’s pastime. It is a sport that is only on TV during Olympic years, and even then gets less coverage than figure skating.

I’m not really sure how I became a fan of luge. I don’t live in a luge hotbed (such as Lake Placid or … Lake Placid) nor are any of my family or friends big fans of luge. Oddly, I hate winter and cold weather. But I love watching people put themselves in danger by jumping on a tiny sled and flying down a hill – within a tunnel of ice – at breakneck speeds. The perfect run is a difficult goal, with the sled having a mind of its own and often disregards the guidance of the rider. This makes the rare perfect run a sight to behold, and something to celebrate. I love to see a perfect run, and will cheer for that luger, regardless of their nationality.

The Winter Olympics are just a year away, and I’m getting excited for televised luge. I have even begun following luge news on the internet. If you have never watched luge, do yourself a favor and make it appointment viewing in 2010.

Luge is not the only unpopular sport that I follow.

At first glance, track would not appear to be an unpopular sport. Track gets a ton of coverage during the Summer Olympics, and everyone saw Usain Bolt’s record-setting run in the 100 meter dash.

However, I’m really not a fan of the sprints. Sure, I’ll watch them, but I’m a fan of the distance runners. On my fantasy Olympic team last summer, my track athletes consisted of 5K/10K runners and a hammer thrower – and all them won gold medals for me.

My favorite track athlete is Alan Webb, who is best known as the US national record holder in the mile. I received a pre-Olympic disappointment in 2008 when Webb failed to qualify for the Olympics in the 1500 meter run.

My interest in distance running – and the mile in particular – does have a logical basis. I ran track in high school, and my event was the mile. My efforts could best be described as “slow”.

My favorite track event, though, is not the mile. It is the steeplechase. The steeplechase is a 3000 meter (nearly 2 mile) race. The race also features 28 heavy duty hurdles (they don’t topple like the hurdles in shorter races) and 7 water jumps. The water jumps are essentially hurdles with water pit behind them – the further you jump over the hurdle, the shallower the water. You can imagine the athletic skills it takes to excel in the steeplechase (as well as the inevitable failures and people experience splashdowns)

Really, if someone does a good job of televising any sport, I’ll probably enjoy watching it. I even caught myself watching badminton during the Olympics.

One time, my wife happened to come into the room while I was watching something on TV. “What is that?” she asked. Why, the National Lacrosse League, of course!

Kosmo is the founder of The Soap Boxers and writes on a variety of topics, including the Fiction Friday original short stories. You can purchase some of Kosmo's work at the company store. Like Kosmo's writing? You can leave a tip.

Like this site? Subscribe via RSS, Subscribe via Email, or Follow us on Twitter.

You might also like these other articles from The Soap Boxers (auto generated)

• Sports wrapup World baseball classic The WBC got underway on Thursday, as Japan beat China 4-0. Japan starting pitcher Yu Darvish set...
• Baseball Preference Rankings I hit some news stories in Saturday's article, so I'm taking a bit of a break today, with a fun...
• Olympic Anticipation The 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver are quickly approaching. I'm really starting to get geared up. Most people are familiar...

Related articles from other sites (auto generated, not affiliated with The Soap Boxers)

• Exercise Anywhere You Go The best way to benefit from weight loss and exercise is to make it simple. When you make small, regular...
• Fallene Cotz SPF 58 Water Resistant UVB/UVA Sunscreen for Sensitive Skin, 2.5-Ounce Tube User Reviews Send this to a friend Fallene Cotz SPF 58 Water Resistant UVB/UVA Sunscreen for Sensitive Skin, 2.5-Ounce Tube...
• Cut $1,500 From Your Energy Bill Consumer Reports recently listed 4 strategies to lower your energy bill by $1,500.  You can read the original article by...

Comments

One Response to “Luge is my second favorite sport …”

1. Anonymous
   March 4th, 2009 @ 8:19 pm

   I love badmitton! And I’m pretty good at it – with the right birdie of course.

Leave a Reply

Set up a customized icon to appear next to your comments!

Is your comment not appearing? Don't worry - I'm not censoring you. Your comment just got caught in my spam filter. It will be viewable shortly (almost always within 24 hours, and much more quickly 90% of the time).

Name

Email Address

Website

Comments

Notify me of followup comments via e-mail

---

Writers for The Soap Boxers are freelance writers who work as independent contractors. Opinions expressed by the writers may not necessarily reflect the opinion of management.

Copyright for all content belongs to the writer identified in the byline. Copyright for any content not associated with a particular writer belongs to Kosmo. Copyright for comments belongs to the writer of the comment.

Content from The Soap Boxers cannot be reused in any manner other than what is allowed under the fair use doctrine of US copyright law or the applicable copyright laws of your country.

© 2008-2010. All rights reserved.

Please email Kosmo at Kosmo@ObservingCasually.com with any questions you may have.

The Soap Boxers is a division of Hyrax Publications

The Soap Boxers is hosted by Dreamhost. Sign up by clicking on the ad below and get your first year's service for just $36 - $3 per month!