The Winter Olympics hasn't started yet, but Bob Costas has already drawn fire for comparing one new sport to Jackass.
The kerfuffle started Monday when Costas, NBC's star sports broadcaster, appeared on Today to discuss the upcoming Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia. Host Matt Lauer brought up slopestyle — a sport in which skiers and snowboarders perform tricks and jumps while hurtling downhill — and Costas promptly stuck foot in mouth.
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Video is no longer available on Today's website — due to "usage restrictions," according to NBC — but here's the exchange via Deadspin:
Costas: I think the president of the IOC should be Johnny Knoxville, because basically, this stuff is just Jackass stuff that they invented and called Olympic sports.
Lauer: You mean that in the best possible way, though.
Costas: I mean it in the kindest possible sense, yes.
While slopestyle is making its Olympic debut next month, it's been an X Games sport since 1997. And many in the action-sports world did not appreciate Costas' remarks. Here's NBC's snowboarding analyst for Sochi, Todd Richards:
"because basically this stuff ( slope style) is just jackass stuff they invented and called olympic sport"....I am speechless.
— toddrichards (@btoddrichards) January 6, 2014
The sacrifices myself and others have made to progress the sport of snowboarding has just become the product of an MTV show? awesome
— toddrichards (@btoddrichards) January 7, 2014
I'm Todd Richards and this is the snowboard slopestyle ( cue jackass twang )
— toddrichards (@btoddrichards) January 7, 2014
And here's Sage Kotsenburg, a likely member of the American slopestyle snowboard team that will be announced Jan. 19, speaking to ESPN: "We just got in the Olympics, and already we have guys who know nothing about the history of our sport telling us we're just a bunch of jackasses? That's pretty demeaning."
In the same ESPN article, slopestyle skier Tom Wallisch had this to say:
Comments like that show his underlying feelings toward the event, and it just puts out a bad message. If people like Costas continue to talk about the sport like that, it's going to make slopestyle look like a junk show, which it isn't. It's a sport that has more followers and fans than a lot of other Olympic sports. And this is our time to show that to the world.
Meanwhile, this apparently since-deleted tweet from longtime action-sports broadcaster Sal Masekela appeared on NBC Sports' PR site:
Sal Masekela ripping Bob Costas ... on NBC's PR site. pic.twitter.com/Gq7RuKvmp2
— Paulsen (@paulsen_smw) January 7, 2014
Talk about awkward.
[via ForTheWin]
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