A very popular and large sporting event that receives an extremely high volume of national media coverage is the Olympic Games. For several years, major radio stations such as NBC have provided the public with 24-hour coverage of the Games. Many other major media outlets similar to NBC have also done the same by dedicating sections exclusively to the Olympic Games. The Olympics are a time when citizens come together to cheer for their home country, strengthening their sense of nationalism and pride, and rooting for their home athletes to emerge victorious and the country as a world power. Organically, the games give off a sense of war mentality as countries compete with each other for the prize, the golden metal. As a competitive college athlete, I can identify with the feeling of pride and nationalism one feels before and especially after competing and beating an opponent. Using critical discourse analysis, I will explore how media coverage of the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics provides its viewers from their home country with a sense of nationalism and pride through an emphasis on physical fitness and athleticism . In addition to that, I will also draw from the age-old mentality of the Spartans who also emphasized physical excellence from a young age for competitive purposes. I gather information by reading articles about the Sochi Olympics from the New York Times and the NBC network, as well as comparing them with Russian newspapers such as The Moscow Times and Rossiyskaya Gazeta to see what kind of strategies and themes are used by both countries in conveying nationalism and fitness to their viewers. As I said, I am currently reading American articles from the New York Times and... middle of paper... the media presents things to viewers that influence how we view our countries and others from other countries, as far as the athlete and just the country in general. For my last article I chose to look at an article that only focused on explaining what critical analysis discourse is. I liked it because it gave me a little bit of insight into where it started, who adopted it, how it grew, and the goals of this type of analysis. By reading this article I learned a lot more about what to look for in other articles to get what I want from them. Since the power of linguistics is a focus of this method, I must ensure that I am critical as the analysis describes what I am looking for in my research. I also make sure I have direction, which I feel like I do. With the previous articles that I am analyzing they seem to achieve these objectives.