Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize.

• 1 Corinthians 9:24

With God we will gain the victory,
    and he will trample down our enemies.

• Psalm 60:12

Julie Sheppard had a question on her blogsite about a week ago (Question #43).  She asked if we were watching the Olympics.

The importance of verb tense comes into play.  I was not presently watching the Olympics at the time, but I planned on maybe watching a little.  In the Winter and Summer games, I like team sports, but I do not like sports that have more judge interactions than actual performance.  I like the artistry of figure skating and snowboarding freestyle and skiing freestyle.  But when they start judging how well someone did from an artistic point of view, calling part of it “technical”, I get lost in my memories when the Russian judge in the 50s-70s would pay off another judge and everyone else was playing for the silver, allegedly.  Sure, speed skating considers the slightest movement before they are allowed to skate as a false start.  Skeleton mixed teams required the skeleton to not move until the green light came on and there was a confusing horn that came on a half second early – confusing some people.   My wife was a “little Dutch girl” at heart.  She had an uncle that had won the cross-country (the Netherlands) canal race one time.  And I root for the Oranje (Orange) when they are not going against an American.  I like the boredom of watching cross-country skiing and the biathlon.  Alpine skiing is nice, but Ice Hockey would be my first choice.

In the Lake Placid Olympics in 1980, I saw both the semifinal hockey game and the Gold medal match.  I learned later that in the USA, one of those was not televised.  But since I was in Germany at the time, I had to watch them on German television, and due to the difference in format, the picture was snowy, but I could hear fine and that helped me figure out what was happening.

But in 2016, when I was out of work, finally retiring officially, a year before I started this blogsite, my wife said we had to get rid of cable TV.  The cable provider had a low cost, basic channels option and we took that.  So, NBC was my only option to watch the Olympics.  They made deals with cable channels and their streaming service.  Everything I wanted to watch was on channels I could not get.  So, for nearly an entire week, I saw nothing.  Then, I sat through the horrifically long commercial breaks one time to see smiling faces at the cross-country venue.  Then about three races of women’s speed skating.

So, then my next time tuning in, the Kazakhstan figure skater came on.  The announcers berated everything that he did.  He was not artistic, but this was his chance to learn.  He could make the jumps, but he had no artistry and the jumps were “predictable.”  Then every skater after the young kid fell or stumbled so badly that they all failed to maintain their place ahead of the young skater.  Then the one called the “Quad God” came up.  Coming into this final skate, all he had to do was half of his program and he won.  He might hit a couple of quads and then bow and leave the ice.  But the announcers were ignoring that the judges had his program.  When he made two spins instead of four, they counted off as missing what he was supposed to do.  Then, the Quad God fell, twice.  He ended eighth in the competition, behind people who had finished before I tuned in.

What do I think?  If you call yourself the Quad God, you do not have the mental game for it.  Arrogance will fail you at some point.  And God does not like people calling themselves any kind of god.  But he claimed that it was a mental thing in that this was a stage that he was not ready for.  Physically, he had the skills, but his mind failed him, maybe due to what I already mentioned or maybe not.

But as I watched speed skating, if there was a crack in the ice, everything stopped until they repaired the crack.  Ice hockey games have extended timeouts for the same reason.  But not figure skating.  They go in groups with the ice resurfacing between the groups, and since this skater was so far ahead, he went last after four or five skaters chewed up the ice by falling.  Was it all mental for all those skaters?  For those that were behind, they may have risked some things to get more points, but all of them?  The young skater, who everyone said was just learning, won the gold medal – because he thought he had no chance at passing all the others?

Those questions may not be answered anytime soon.

But with a lull in the constant figure skating coverage, I got to see several Dutch skaters win medals, and a couple of Americans, and a couple of skeleton events.  Still no hockey or Alpine skiing.

I think it stinks that the networks are so greedy that they deprive the poor folk a chance to actually watch the games.  Not just this one network since I have not seen many college football bowl games in the past ten years either, all the games on one cable network, except a few.

But now, I am being tempted.  More things that I might be interested in.  God has given me all I need, and not watching the Olympics has given me time to do more writing.

Hmmm.  Will I lose my mind if bobsledding is available for this entire week?  Is there any Alpine skiing left?  And what about just the gold medal game of hockey?  Now, that is just asking too much.

But this is my reaction to what little I have seen.  God provides me what I need, and life is better when my wants match my needs.  I can find out who wins these events before the network reveals the winners.  So, then, why watch?

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.