A sign of the times...

This time last week I was all excited to see the Olympics. I had set my Tivo for every U.S. men's hockey game and was even looking forward to crap games like Kazakhstan-Latvia.

Now... once again the Olympics have served as a reminder of what's wrong with sports (and the coverage of sports) these days.

A handful of American athletes were singled out as superstars before the Olympics. They were all we heard about: Michelle Kwan, Jeremy Bloom, Lindsay Jacobellis, Apollo Ohno and of course the everpresent Bode Miller.

All that hype and what did they do?

Kwan dropped out because of an injury.

Bloom failed to medal, as one of his unheralded teammates brought the gold.

Jacobellis pulled a Leon Lett, handing the gold medal to a rival.

Ohno didn't qualify for the finals in one event and got a bronze in another.

Miller has done nothing, failing to medal in the Alpine Combined while a virtually unknown teammate won the gold. He didn't medal in the downhill and he didn't medal in the Super G.

It's nice to see that the trend of overhyping athletes/teams (U.S. women's hockey, anyone?) and then having them not even come close to living up to the hype is not just limited to the professional ranks. Because it has made watching sports so much less fun than it used to be.