Only a year away!!!

[DevilAlumna]

Okay, are there any other rabid Olympic fans out there? I HEART all Olympics, even the lame, semi-questionable competitions (except rythmic gymnastics... just wrong.)

I was so excited to see this today: http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2007Aug...verage,00.html

NBC will broadcast more than 3,600 hours of coverage of the 2008 Beijing Olympics on multiple television networks and the Internet.

The bulk of that will come online, the first time live streaming broadband video of the Olympics will be available in the U.S.

Hopefully, of those 3,600 hours, less than half will be those stupid Human Interest stories that gum up the normal NBC on-air programming. I resorted to Canadian Broadcast Corp. coverage for the 2004 & 2006 Games, just to actually see some real action. (And to see lots of Curling. Curling's fun to watch when announced by those who know the sport.)

And speaking of those who know sports, it'd be AWESOME if Dan Patrick did join up with NBC & Keith Olbermann, in time for the Summer Games, per this speculative article: http://sports.aol.com/fanhouse/2007/...o-nbc-in-2008/

[YmoBeThere]

Track and Field - the sprints in particular(400's were my thing for awhile)
Swimming

A lot of the other sports(i.e. team) get enough air time in other venues for me to not watch the pre-lims etc. I love basketball but I do watch quite a bit of it.

[Bostondevil]

Squeee!!!

Olympics junkie here, I watch rowing! And track and field heats. And fencing. But you're right, I rarely watch the basketball but this time Coach K will be there so . . .

(I used to run the 400 too, YBT.)

[mapei]

I love the Olympics but hate the way the US network totally ignores great athletes from other countries.

[Indoor66]

I love the Olympics but hate the way the US network totally ignores great athletes from other countries.

Maybe the US public ignores those athletes and the networks play to their audience.

[mapei]

Maybe the US public ignores those athletes and the networks play to their audience.

No doubt. I still wish it weren't so! I love international sporting events precisely because they allow me to see great athletes from other cultures and countries. And, whatever the reason - it's a bit chicken-and-egg with the network and the audience I think - a great opportunity is missed, unless one has access to coverage from Canada or some other country . . .

[Lavabe]

No doubt. I still wish it weren't so! I love international sporting events precisely because they allow me to see great athletes from other cultures and countries. And, whatever the reason - it's a bit chicken-and-egg with the network and the audience I think - a great opportunity is missed, unless one has access to coverage from Canada or some other country . . .

That was part of the charm of the original ABC's Wide World of Sports. In 90 minutes, you had a slick, well-produced package of at least three sporting events, and perhaps some interviews. It truly opened my eyes to the world of sport: whether it be the wristwrestling tournament in Petaluma, CA; Mojave Desert motorcycle racing; or the Acapulco cliff diving competition; surfing the Bonzai Pipeline; Pele; track & field; and others. I guess ESPN changed the appeal of the anthology format, and never felt the need to continue it. Here's the Wiki link on it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wide_Wo..._(US_TV_series)

Jim McKay, Roone Arledge, ... classic teamwork.

Check out the 1972 theme music link near the bottom... you can just feel where Vinko Bogataj crashes on the ski jump.
Cheers,
Lavabe

[Bluedawg]

Okay, are there any other rabid Olympic fans out there? I HEART all Olympics, even the lame, semi-questionable competitions (except rythmic gymnastics... just wrong.)

I used to be more into them than i am now. I watch the Olympics to see the games but 95% of the coverage is personal tales of the athletics. I don't care about those sweet heart warming stories. if I want that I'd buy their autobiography. I watch sports for sports.

Although I keep up I just can't watch the coverage.

[Bluedawg]

That was part of the charm of the original ABC's Wide World of Sports. In 90 minutes, you had a slick, well-produced package of at least three sporting events, and perhaps some interviews. It truly opened my eyes to the world of sport: whether it be the wristwrestling tournament in Petaluma, CA; Mojave Desert motorcycle racing; or the Acapulco cliff diving competition; surfing the Bonzai Pipeline; Pele; track & field; and others. I guess ESPN changed the appeal of the anthology format, and never felt the need to continue it. Here's the Wiki link on it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wide_Wo..._(US_TV_series)

Jim McKay, Roone Arledge, ... classic teamwork.

Check out the 1972 theme music link near the bottom... you can just feel where Vinko Bogataj crashes on the ski jump.
Cheers,
Lavabe

I used to love to watch cliff diving. it was great!

[TillyGalore]

My Olympic viewing habits have significantly declined since the 80's. I don't think I watched anything from the Athens Olympics nor the Salt Lake City ones. I can't stand Katie Couric (who won't be doing olympics for quite a while anyway) or Bob Costas.

But next years Olympics I may take a different approach thanks to DVR (digital video recording). If I record things I can fast forward through the parts I really don't want to see and focus on the events.

I'd like to watch track & field, gymnastics, and swimming. Those are a few I can name off the top of my head. Oh and basketball, can't believe I almost forgot that!

[AtlBluRew]

I'm really happy to see that NBC is finally making more extensive coverage available online. For a decade now, NBC has been timid to take this step. Part of the IOC's contract with any host city's organizing committee (called a LOOC, for Local Olympics Organizing Committee) is that the LOOC provide recorded coverage of every second of every competition. The LOOC provides the feed of that coverage to the International Broadcast Center, which houses commentators from around the world. Broadcasters around the world take that feed, which the LOOC provides commercial-free and with only ambient noise, and add their commentary. Some broadcasters who pay really big bucks, like NBC and the European Broadcast Union, can have their own cameras at the competitions too, but they also have access to the LOOC's feed.

The point of all that is that NBC has always had access to every second of every heat of every competition. And since the technological advances that made streaming video over the internet possible, it has had the ability to make that coverage available. But in 2000 and 2004, NBC shied away from that, wanting to protect their broadcast coverage. And NBC executives have readily admitted that their audience was driven by casual sports fans who wanted the drama, pageantry, patriotism and human interest fluff.

[Indoor66]

I used to be more into them than i am now. I watch the Olympics to see the games but 95% of the coverage is personal tales of the athletics. I don't care about those sweet heart warming stories. if I want that I'd buy their autobiography. I watch sports for sports.

Although I keep up I just can't watch the coverage.

I agree. It has become way too touchy-feely for me. I like the competition sports. The "human interest" belongs somewhere else.

[ohioguy2]

I agree. It has become way too touchy-feely for me. I like the competition sports. The "human interest" belongs somewhere else.

The olympics are one of my favorite events--that said, U.S. tee vee has managed to take a sports fans heaven and turn it into a soap opera. I am glad my cable includes Canadian stations. If you only get to watch our network stuff, you would not realize that there are other countries involved besides the U.S. and the opponent. This should be my (our) chance to see field hockey, team handball, curling, etc. played at the highest levels--instead we see "human interest" stuff and minimal sports coverage. I agree with whoever said if you want their life story, buy the book--otherwise show me the action--that is all the drama I need.

[Olympic Fan]

I guess you can tell from my screen name how I feel about the Olympics.
Funny thing about the timing of DevilAlumna's post -- I read it this morning after spending almost four hours last night watching a couple of Bud Greenspan's Olympic documentarys back-to-back. Watching got me fired up for Beijing.

Like many of you, I HATE the way NBC covers the games. I grew up with ABC's coverage, which just seemed to be on the mark. The network's insistence on time delay in an era of instant access to the results is, I think, wrongheaded. It's also the matter of the human interest stories -- I love a good human interest story, but I hate being buried in dozens of not-very-interesting human interest stories. NBC can't seem to tell the difference.

That's one reason I find Greenspan's work so compelling. He's a great storyteller. Last night I was in tears watching him tell the story of Dimas, a Greek weightlifter who became that country's national hero. The guy was a refugee from Albania who unexpectedly won a gold in the 1992 Barcelona Games -- I may have midunderstood, but I'm pretty sure that was either the first or one of the only gold medals won by a Greek athlete in over 80 years. It sparked a revival in Greek athletics and was followed by a dominant performance by Dimas in the 1996 Atlanta Games. In 2000 in Sydney, he was forced to win on his last lift -- a dramatic victory celebrated by over 60,000 Greeks on his return. In 2004, with the Games in Athens, Dimas tried to become the first weightlifter in Olympic history to win his event in four games. You can imagine the sensation that was in Athens ... He made a heroic effort, but his last attempt at a gold medal weight came heartbreaking close ... but he couldn't quite hold it and had to settle for the bronze. During the award ceremony, the crowd's response was so overwhelming that the ceremony was disrupted for more than 10 minutes.

I know I didn't come close to encapsulating the drama as Greenspan did, but I also never saw or heard a word about Dimas on NBC. Our network is to American-centric -- I can remember Daley Thompson wearing a t-sirt in LA saying "Hey, ABC, how about some coverage" as the two-time decathalon champ (one of the great athletes of the 20th century) was ignored.

If you tell the backstory right, American viewers can get just as excited about foreign stars as our own.

Last night, I was also moved by Greenspan's depictions of Joan Benoit, who ran the marathon trials 17 days after undergoing arthroscopic knee surgery -- then blew away the field in LA. And Lisa Fernandez, the Walter Johnson of women's softball, who almost single-handedly led the American women to the first three golds ever awarded in that event and the Polish swimmer who made a promise to God -- she sold her gold medal to raise money for a children's hospital near her home and Al and Jackie Joyner, the brother and sister who fought their way up from abject poverty in East St. Louis to medal within minutes of each other in the 1996 games.

I think I became an Olympic fan in 1960 when I was mesmerized by the 1960 Games from Rome -- the triumph of Wilma Rudolph (a real-life Forrest Gump, who overcame childhood polio to become the fastest woman in the world; the emergence of brash boxer Cassius Clay, the disappointment of Duke star Dave Sime (beaten by a false start!) and finally the unbelievable triumph of marathoner Abebe Bikila, the unknown Ethiopian runner, who ran barefoot on the cobblestones of Rome, sprinting home in darkness by the Colisseum.

Since then there have always been great stories -- from Billy Mills to Rulon Gardner to the 1980 U.S. Hockey team ... I can't wait to see what Beijing brings us. And I'll be even more excited in the years that follow when Greenspan tells us all the stories that NBC manages to miss in its three million hours of coverage.

[mapei]

That was an awesome post. Thanks.

[DevilAlumna]

No, not Alan, but Bud.

His documentary that included Dan Janssen's tragedies made me bawl like a baby.

Glad to know there's someone like Olympic Fan out there, who's as crazy 'bout the glorious games as I am. (Though my fascination started in '84 with the gymnastics teams, swim teams, Greg Louganis, and the marathoners.)