The Olympics make me feel like I, too, can slide very fast down a mountain, hurl myself in the air and spin around an improbable number of times before the landing pulverizes my knees.

The Winter Olympics are happening in PeyongChang. What form of sliding is the Student Life sports staff most excited for?

There were lines everywhere, and they were long. I had wanted to go to the Olympics since I was 5 and watched Shannon Miller compete in 1992, and I was very excited to make that dream a reality.

The Winter Olympics are boring. Like, really boring. We’re talking paint drying levels of excitement for most of it, folks. The main problem with the Winter Olympic Games is the sports themselves. So few of them involve any direct, head-to-head competition. That is what makes a sport exciting. When I am watching athletes show off their prowess, I want to see struggle.

The news recently broke that NBC will likely lose money on the Winter Olympics. I don’t understand. Yes, it kind of makes sense that the country is in a bad place economically. But that cannot be the only reason why. I need to ask: Why the hate? I read an article for class earlier today that posed the following question: What kind of person would leave the television on with no one watching?

Mere mention of the Olympics conjures up many images, from sheer athleticism to Olympic medals to Michael Phelps at the Beijing Games. Two years later, the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada, begin without marquee names. The Olympic flame arrives in Vancouver on Friday, and the games begin with opening ceremonies (broadcast on NBC at 8 p.m. Central time) and qualifying rounds of ski jumping.