Wednesday, August 18, 2004

olympics

Eamonn, an Irishman in Munich, looks for bloggers at the games.

We watch each night -- I find myself still ranting about women's gymnastics (too young, too hard emotionally for kids so young, too unhealthy for their bodies), still envy the sleek power of the swimmers moving through water, and laugh at American commentators for ignoring almost all elements other than American related stories. Aren't they even curious about athletes from other countries? Mumcat has a beef about this, too.

I even enjoy the spectacle shows on each end of the games. And unlike Hugh, I even like Katie Couric.

But I've got to quit looking at the results that are getting posted on news media outlets. No suspense at night. I was a good person, however, in not letting on to partner the results.

5 comments:

lemming said...

NPR is terrible about Olympic spoliers - they tell you who has or hasn't won a medal during the noon update, and no chance to turn down the volume quickly.
(rant!)

Greg said...

I am equally miffed at NBC's ignoring some of the more interesting sports - handball, wrestling, weightlifting, judo, and fencing, among others. The only ones I see in primetime seem to be swimming and gymnastics. I would love to stay up and watch the late broadcasts, but I've got work/school to go to.

Don said...

Lemming -- I know, I hate that.

At least NBC is showing some of these less noted events on their cable channels (Bravo, USA Network, CNBC, MSNBC & ?).

DISH satelite has a channel that shows all NBC channels at the same time (live, not a freeze frame) that let's you see what is happening with their Olympic coverage. That's pretty cool.

The network is touting that the TV GUIDE website has up-to-date listings on which cable channels have what sport as well.

Don said...

The second part of that post was in response to Greg, btw.

Anonymous said...

I was so angry during the coverage of the men's all around that I was ready to spit! Brett McClure was doing his routine and all the commentators could talk about was Hamm's fall. It's like McClure wasn't even there until the very end when one commentator said something to the effet of "Oh, he's done a good routine." What a slap in the face for a young man who probably figured he didn't have a chance for the gold medal but who was out doing his darndest to do a good job.

Know what my fondest Olympic wish would be? That instead of yadda yadda yadda "Oh the Americans are first in the world in this sport and are expected to take the gold", I wish the network would spend one segment -- just one segment -- without commentators while allowing every competitor from every sport and every country to say their name, country and sport on tv. Most of these people will never be on tv for one reason or another, but darn it, they've worked hard to get to the Olympics and they deserve to be recognized for that. Ok, so it's a little goofy, and would take a very long time, but it would probably mean a lot to folks who could come home and have their families and friends say "Hey! I saw you on tv!" I think that'd be totally cool.

End of morning rant.

Mumcat