The Super Bowl is over. No more football until September. But lucky for you, you can still see world-class athletes suffering bone-crushing hits! With 96 countries participating in this year’s Winter Olympics, there’s 96 times the national anthem controversy, and with high-speed sports on a slippery surface, the Winter Olympics has exactly what you crave: the sight of athletes suffering irreparable body damage.
Skeleton
If your first thought while watching a helmet-to-helmet collision is “He just got his bell rung” and not “He is one step closer to a chronic traumatic encephalopathy diagnosis,” skeleton is for you!
Competitors lie headfirst on a sled and hurl themselves 80 mph down a track. If something goes wrong, they won’t even have enough time to brace for impact. They say you never forget the sound of bones shattering, but you can easily drown it out with a chorus of cheers.
Get ready to watch some bells get rung on NBC.
Figure Skating
Are you in awe whenever a wide receiver leaps majestically in the air? Do you always wonder how he was able to get both feet inbounds?
In figure skating, tiny women throw their dizzied bodies in the air and land on one foot. A perfect landing is a sight to behold, but a glittered face slamming onto a sheet of ice…that will make you say “She’s gonna feel that one in the morning!”
Slalom
Do you enjoy watching players slalom through the opposition on their way to 75-yard touchdowns? Do you even know what slalom means? Come watch the sport that gave it its name!
You may be asking yourself, can a 250 lb. linebacker have the same impact as a one-inch diameter pole? Well, when a collision with either can send an athlete on a ten-month journey to re-learning how to walk, the answer is a resounding yes.
Short Track Speed Skating
The onside kick is one of the most exhilarating and dangerous moments in sports. Twenty-two gladiators collide, sacrificing their bodies for glory. The lasting physical toll is irrelevant, as long as your team comes up with the ball.
Now picture an onside kick, but the players are wearing razor sharp blades on their feet. That’s short track speed skating!
Biathlon
Biathlon? You might think this sport is so slow it’s basically soccer. It’s not. We give exhausted athletes firearms and we watch what happens.
In the NFL, you have to wait until the off-season for a gun=related felony. In biathlon, it can happen at any moment.
Ski Jumping
Do you love the overwhelming joy of a wild crowd exploding after a winning field goal hits the net? Imagine the screams of a crowd when that ball is a person and there is no net…
Ski jumpers from around the world will travel over 700 feet in the air, with only two wooden sticks to brace their landing. Ski jumping is about having no fear, and avoiding lasting brain damage, and it’s only on NBC!
Bobsleigh
The Eagles’ Super Bowl LII victory ended a 52-year wait for Philadelphia. Did watching a half-century-old record be broken have you on the edge of your seat? Well, bobsleigh is for you. There hasn’t been a fatal accident since 2004. Will this be the year?
All the Injuries – Live!
With NBC’s 24-hour coverage, we bring all the dramatic moments in real time. You won’t miss a single athlete you’ve never heard of suffer a life-threatening event.
When Olympics injuries require advanced care, they don’t just send a golf cart. The venues are so inhospitable they need a helicopter. And that helicopter is installed with the NBC Sports dash cam so your viewing experience doesn’t stop.
They say nothing is bigger than football, but you haven’t seen the Winter Olympics like this!