On Friday, the 21st Winter Olympic games will kick off in Vancouver. More than 5,500 athletes will all be competing for some precious steel, but that isn’t the entire reason you should care. Here are 21 reasons why you, kind sirs and madams, should be excited for this year’s Olympic Games.

• Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong, or as you can call him, the Snow Leopard. Kwame is Ghana’s first Winter Olympian, and will be competing in Alpine skiing. How easy is he to love? “No problem. Choo, choo, I’m the train which never stops,” he was quoted as saying. How did he get his nickname? Kwame is being sponsored by an online poker site, and any extra money he makes will be donated to save endangered snow leopards from extinction. Choo, choo indeed!

• Wives, turn away for a second. OK, guys, do this right now. Go to Sports Illustrated, find pictures of Lindsey Vonn, and smile. She’s the world’s best Alpine skier, she is American and she is absolutely beautiful, and not in that “she’s an athlete so she is pretty for an athlete” kind of way. Nope, this is “she walks in a bar and your buddy is going to nudge you” hot. But it isn't her looks that might make her a star. Vonn could win four gold medals in Vancouver. Now that's hot.

• You think NASCAR is fast? Take one night to watch skeleton. Seriously. For all the talk about obscure sports in the Olympics, the fact that people actually practice (and become good) at skeleton is insane. It’s like how Jerry Seinfield used to joke about the luge, only tougher, faster and with more risk.

• Here’s something to ponder: Arnold Schwarzenegger, a man made famous by performance-enhancing drugs, will carry the torch on Friday morning in a Games that is being tortured by, you guessed it, performance-enhancing drugs.

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You're not going to believe this, but Shaun White is very rich. In fact, according to Forbes he's the richest Winter Olympian in Vancouver.

Joining White at the top of the list is South Korea's figure skating ace Kim Yu-Na. Both White and Yu-Na pulled in nearly $8 million last year from sponsorships, prize money, and other endorsements. Not bad for a 23 and 19-year-old.

After the $8 million dollar kids, the earnings drop off significantly with Sports Illustrated cover girl Lindsey Vonn coming in third with $3 million, followed by Alpine skier Ted Ligety's $2 million. Six more Olympians brought in at least a million last year including Americans Apolo Anton Ohno, Bode Miller, and Gretchen Bleiler.

The list doesn't include salaried athletes because that's not fair. The NHL players who will be competing in this year's Olympics make their money through their teams while these more traditional Olympians earn their living through sponsorships, which have decreased as the economy has tanked. Because of this, and the Winter Olympians' less marketable sports, endorsements have become harder to obtain. Just ask the American speedskating team who needed donations from Colbert Nation to stay afloat. Even the seemingly untouchable White was affected, as he lost American Express and Hewlett-Packard deals last year.

Nonetheless, there's still money to be made as an Olympian. But now it's a little harder to do. Probably not as hard as smashing up your face then winning $40,000 from the X Games though.

You might see where this is headed. Canada's federal minister of sport, Gary Lunn, carried out a neat bit of doublespeak on Tuesday.

"... the federal government will continue to fund both summer and winter sport at $47-million per year. Some $11-million of that goes to winter athletes and $36-million to summer athletes.

"But the minister would go no further than that at a news conference that included Jackson and Canadian Olympic Committee chief executive officer Chris Rudge, saying it's going to be a 'tough budget.' "

The devil is due to be in the details. It's an easy win for the federal government. It gets to say it is holding up its end of the bargain. The onus gets deflected away to the corporate sector, which doesn't have to worry about regular general elections. It becomes easy to let it slide.

Ski jumping is a lot like the javelin throw: They're both way harder than any of us can imagine, a little repetitive to watch on television, are slightly dangerous and the results are difficult to accurately gauge without the aid of announcers or on-screen graphics. But ski jumping, of course, has one big advantage: the tantalizing prospects of a wipe out.

Witness:

Do I ever wish injury upon another man? Of course not. But when watching ski jumping next week will I yearn for a catastrophic fall that miraculously results in only minor scratches? Perhaps.

Thanks, SB Nation

The flame hasn't even been lit in Vancouver, yet it's already fair game to wonder if the support for Canadian athletes for the next Winter Games.

The sports-industrial complex in Canada can be rather meh if there's not a stick and puck involved, so it's only natural to wonder if Own The Podium will end up as a one-off. That will be a major focus over the next couple news cycle. Michael Grange, The Globe & Mail's fine sportswriter, noted a couple hours ago:

"... lost amidst the impressive build up to 2010 is what might happen going forward.

"The $11 million the feds have pledged still leaves Own the Podium $17 million short of what they had to spend this year now that VANOC - the other funding partner - will cease to exist.

"Athletes don't know what's going to be out there for them after the Games wind up, and it's inevitable that corporate sponsorship will shrink once the Olympic spotlight fades.

"Some of the most important people in the lives of athletes are their strength coaches, massage therapists, nutritionists and sports psychologists. At the Canadian Sport Centre Calgary, where many of the people who fulfill exactly those functions work, 37 staff have been given layoff notices.

"The fear is that some of the very best ... will get scooped up to work for other countries; some already have according to CSCC president Dale Henwood."

In a word, it would be brutal if that came to pass.

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Courtesy of our friends at Awful Announcing we get wind of the entire announcing schedule for the upcoming Winter Olympics. It's quite the stacked group, and that's before counting Bob Costas as host.

Scattered among the hosts are 18 former Olympians who have won a combined 16 medals. The most experienced commentator will be Dick Button, who is making his 17th Winter Olympics appearance after winning gold at the 1948 and 1952 Games. Several commentators will be making their debuts this Olympics, including Jonny Moseley, Lee Ann Parsley, and Jeremy Roenick who may make people's head's bleed.

Costas, of course, is an Olympics mainstay. He will be returning for his ninth stint as host of the Games. But joining him in the booth this year, after a 22-year Olympics absence, will be Al Michaels, the voice of the legendary "Do you believe in miracles?" call. Here's hoping he's a good luck charm.

As previously mentioned, NBC will be providing 835 hours of coverage in Vancouver. Spread between the 53 announcers, that's nearly 16 hours of talking per person if they never talked over each other. Now might be a good time to invest in a throat lozenge company.

Full announcer list after the jump.

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Days after her controversial Sports Illustrated cover hit newsstands, American skiing sensation Lindsey Vonn is back on the pages of the venerable sports magazine.

Vonn, a favorite to win three gold medals at next week's Winter Olympics, is featured in a multi-page photo spread in SI's annual swimsuit issue, which was released Tuesday. Inside the issue (and online at SI.com), there are pictures of Vonn in a ski chalet, sitting in a sauna, standing on the slopes and posing with a rescue helicopter, all while wearing various bikinis, of course.

If you were one of the misguided few who were upset with Vonn's semi-suggestive cover pose, then these 45 swimsuit pictures are likely to fan the flames even more. Calls of  objectification and sexism by the media will doubtlessly intensify. It's a tired refrain though. 

Vonn isn't a good looking athlete, she's a great athlete who happens to be good looking. She's Chris Evert, not Anna Kournikova. (The latter once posed for SI, the former did not.) By the end of these Olympics there's a reasonable chance Vonn will become one of the most decorated American Winter Olympians of all time. It will have everything to do with her athletic ability and nothing to do with how attractive she is. So she looks good in a swimsuit. Why shouldn't she use that to help market herself?

To fans of sport, one thing has long been clear. In two weeks, it should become readily apparent to everyone else, including the critics: Lindsey Vonn is way more than just a pretty face.

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Let the mind games begin.

Suffice to say, a little added pressure on the home team is part of the host broadcaster's mandate for these Olympics. No one's judging. That's just how it's going to be, for the next 2½ weeks. You really needed to see it to believe CTV's coverage on Monday about who might be the first Canadian to win a gold medal on home soil. There were promos in prime time teeing up Saturday, focusing on Jennifer Heil in women's moguls, Charles Hamelin in short-track speed skating and Manuel Osborne-Paradis in the men's downhill. The second item on the CTV National News was essentially an extended treatment of the same theme (it would be too obvious to put it first).

Look at this way: the CTV Olympic Consortium didn't pay to air a 17-day sports version of Lowered Expectations. (Some would say that is the CBC's job, starting in Sochi in 2014.) So, who is it going to be?

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Things aren't looking too great for the United States ski jumping team. The team, who has not been fully funded since 2006, won't be attending Friday evening's Opening Ceremony because they have qualifying jumps that morning at the Whistler location. Even worse, if they don't qualify that morning, they're out of the Games before they start.

It's been a struggle for the U.S. ski jumpers basically since the start of the Olympics. With just a single bronze medal in 1924, the team has not enjoyed a great deal of success. After the 2006 Olympics, the ski jumpers formed their own team out of necessity. Since then, the jumpers have worked odd jobs, found sponsors, and relied on family for the $20,000 needed annually to continue competing. And it hasn't been easy. Team member Anders Johnson told the Associated Press, "It's really difficult to do with how the economy is now...And it's an even bigger sacrifice for our family to work that extra bit to keep that Olympic dream alive for us."

The skiers themselves are optimistic, perhaps a sign of their youth. Ranging in age from 17-21, the jumpers have left high school and put off college to chase their dreams. Nick Alexander, elderstatesman of the team at all of 21, confidently said to the New York Times, "We'll be up there one day."

With the determination they've shown thus far, he's probably right.

U.S. figure skater Jeremy Barrett isn't quite sure what to think about his Ralph Lauren-designed Olympic garb. He's mostly perplexed by the white pants. But what, exactly, is he thinking? Best answer wins a tattersall shirt and matching ascot. Good luck.

Previously, Jean-Claude Killy is just loungin'.

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