Look, I get that a lot of you are pissed about how NBC is choosing to cover the Vancouver Olympics with this jagged, misinforming one-size-fits-all coverage that’s designed to appeal to everyone except the people that actually want to watch the Games. But how valuable is it to you for me to just rail endlessly on a network that nobody likes anyway? Very little. But when speed skater Sven Kramer of the Nederlands does it, it’s awesome, as evidenced when he was asked for his name and nationality right after he won a fugging gold medal.

“Are you stupid?! Hell no, I’m not gonna do that.”

The video after the jump shows Sven recounting the event with a Dutch journalist. Mmmm, Dutch. Not only are they pretty and unable to speak English, but they also pay their own way. Oh, they do speak English. Eh, two out of three works. Read the rest of this entry »

Shani Davis won a gold medal at the 2006 Olympics in Turin. And apparently he’s had it up to here with Stephen Colbert, that one TV guy that offered to raise money for American speedskating leading up to the Vancouver Olympics in February.

“He’s a jerk,” Shani Davis said Thursday when asked for his take on the comedian’s criticism of Canadians. “You can put that in the paper.”

Davis declined to elaborate, making the comment while vetting potential questions from The Canadian Press before rejecting an interview request and walking away. –FOX Sports.

If he keeps this up, they’re gonna stop letting black people into winter sports. Why do you think ice time is so expensive? Oh, because constantly keeping a warehouse at freezing temperatures is so expensive? What’s that? It is expensive? I see…

The United States Speedskating team lost a sizable chunk of its funding when the team’s biggest sponsor, DSB Bank NV, declared bankruptcy last month. But an unlikely hero has stepped up to offer the team its support, and America’s speedskaters will find themselves in Vancouver skating for another nation–Colbert Nation.

“On their enormous, billboard thighs, it will say, ‘Colbert Nation,”‘ Colbert said in an interview before Monday evening’s taping. “Be looking for that logo as it comes around the final turn. It will be easy to see because it will be in first place.”[..]

The show isn’t paying the team any money directly. Instead, Colbert is calling on his fans to donate to the team via www.colbertnation.com and www.usspeedskating.org. In the past, Colbert has had a great deal of success raising money this way. He has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the Yellow Ribbon Fund, a charity that assists injured service members and their families. –SI.com.

Even if “The Colbert Report” itself doesn’t give the team a dime, they’re getting tremendous exposure that will bring other potential sponsors to the team and the athletes themselves. And with Apolo Anton Ohno being favored in nearly all of his events, the show should be rewarded as well. Usually both parties don’t stand to benefit like this unless one’s a Japanese businessman and the other’s a blonde prostitute. I think the speedskaters are the prostitute here. They have better legs.