The Popcorn Stand: I’ll admire these gutsy Olympians from my couch

Now that the Winter Olympics are winding down, I’m starting to get into the Olympic spirit. The one Olympic sport I used to think was the craziest was ski jumping. I remember as a kid watching after Jim McKay would say “the thrill of victory” that poor ski jumper crash every Saturday on Wide World of Sports while McKay said “and the agony of defeat.”

As a kid I remember watching Wide World of Sports one time and on the program was actually ski flying, which made ski jumping look like child’s play. I don’t know if ski flying even exists anymore.

But the crown of craziest sport in the Olympics no longer belongs to ski jumping. Since skeleton has been added to the Olympics that’s now the craziest Olympic sport.

It’s crazy enough to want to go down a frozen water slide at like 80 mph riding a sled on your back, which is the luge. But there are actually people who say that’s not crazy enough and choose to ride down a frozen water slide at like 80 mph on a sled head first, which is skeleton.

I’ve written this before but these Olympic athletes remind me of one of Jerry Seinfeld’s routines in which he talks about how human beings insist on partaking in these skull cracking activities. But instead of stopping to partake in these skull cracking activities, we invented a helmet so we could continue to partake in these skull cracking activities which has to make you wonder how smart is the brain the human being is trying to protect.

I actually have a lot of respect for these Olympic athletes who continue to extend the barriers they’re trying to leap and speed over.

While I’m sitting on my couch.

— Charles Whisnand