Winter Olympics Fun

Ben and I spent a good portion of our evenings over the last couple weeks watching the Winter Olympics while doing schoolwork. I have to say that I love the Olympics, both summer and winter. Watching all of the different sports prompted our discussion of which sports would we want to participate in if we could be Winter Olympians? They sort of fell into 2 categories: sports we'd like to do if we devoted the time to train for them and sports we could do if the USOC called us up on a moment's notice and said, "Hey, you're on the Olympic team." Here are our picks:

Sports we would do on a moment's notice:
-Curling (is it really that hard? I don't even think you have to be in shape to do this either.)
-Person 2 or 3 of a 4-man bobsled team (what exactly are they doing in the sled?)

Sports we would do if we devoted several years to training:
-Ben's picks: snowboard cross and snowboard half-pipe (pretty flashy and high-flying)
-Beth's picks: cross-country skiing, either short-track or long-track speed skating, ice dancing, or figure skating (xc skiing and speed skating because the training would probably be similar to distance running or track running, and the ice skating because I have always liked skating. Of course, I'd choose Ben as my ice-dancing or pairs partner!)

Sports that neither of us are really crazy about doing:
-skeleton
-luge
-downhill skiing (they all involve hurling yourself down a steep incline at a lot of miles per hour and risk major injury)

What Winter Olympics sports would you choose?

A side note: I found out that there is a group that does curling in our area. One of the former PhD students from my program (a Canadian) who is a visiting faculty in my department suggested that someone organize a curling outing sometime. If it happens, I will definitely have to check it out and report back.