Olympic Dreams

I've been watching the Winter Olympics the past few days and it strikes me that a lot of the events are not as interesting (or challenging) as they could be. Here are a few of the (less disturbing) thoughts that have occurred to me:

Luge/Skeleton:
I did a lot of sledding when I was growing up and it bothers me that the Olympic event in no way resembles what I experienced as a child.
First off - there should be jumps. Every sledding hill I was on as a kid had at least one jump. If you can't handle a small jump you've got no business calling yourself an Olympic athlete :-)
Next - what is up with those banked turns? A sledding track should look more like a giant slalom course. You should have to drag body parts to negotiate the turns... And there should be places on the track where you have to slow down or you'll end up in the weeds.
This is probably a bit much to ask, but my favorite sledding hill had a 3 foot deep creek at the end of the run. You either stopped in time or ended up with hypothermia. Now that would be worth watching :-)

Biathlon:
I'm referring to that silly mix of cross country skiing and target shooting. It needs to be fixed... Two words: "Paintball Guns".
This event started out as a military exercise anyway so why not let the athletes be the targets instead of those little round things??? And none of this "cleared track" business! They should be skiing through the woods sniping at each other. Scoring would be based on total time, the number of times you got hit and the number of hits you scored on your competitors. Much more entertaining that way :-)

Long-track speed skating:
This event needs some of the excitement of short track. My idea is to have a 4 person team format where the skaters on each team would have to stay in physical contact with each other. Here's what I envision:
Each team would form a line. Skaters 1 through 3 would be wearing a belt or harness with a couple of handles on the back and skaters 2 through 4 would have to hold onto the handles of the skater in front of them. It would require incredibly precise teamwork plus I think it would look wicked cool and lead to some spectacular pileups...
I think starting a race this way would be darn near impossible so you'd have to allow the team a half-lap or so to get into formation ... But it could work :-)
BTW - Am I the only one who wonders why they don't speed skate down the luge track?

Figure skating:
This 'sport' needs real jumping. Not that hopping in the air and spinning around stuff. I'm talking takeoff and landing ramps - or even a small half-pipe! Real serious air time... (I imagine getting the ice groomed on a half-pipe would be tricky, but with the billions they spend on the Olympics they should be able to work something out.) That would open up a whole new world of possibilities...

That's probably enough of this nonsense for now. I'm sure none of this will ever come to pass... But I can dream, right?