A Few More Olympic Things

First off, did you see that dude, Chen Yibing, on the still rings last night? The commentator describes him as weightless when he performs and damned if that wasn't spot on. It was, without question, the best performance of the group and a thing of beauty to behold.

I watch the coverage with my cable company issue DVR. This means that I can put the Olympic channel on, watch something I've recorded for 45 minutes then go back to the live TV and I can rewind as far as an hour. And that's what I do. I then fast forward through commercials, announcer blather, sappy athlete profiles and anything else that I don't feel like watching. When I catch up to the current time I repeat the process. It's totally working for me. Best Olympic coverage ever.

Overall, though, I'm not as interested as I was last week. I'm still interested but my god, I didn't see the coverage of ever single heat of the swimming. It feels like nothing but heats with the track and field these days. I get all excited and then people are jogging to the finish because it's not for a medal and they know they've qualified. Hell, the amazing Jamaican guy, Ussein Bolt, jogged his ass into a gold medal in the 100 meter dash. I'm a little sick of his jogging, run it out Bolty, don't be disrespectful of the event even if you are faster than an actual speeding bullet.

The shotgun-wide approach to the track and field is happening, I think, because there isn't a Phelps or a Torres or a Traener & May to focus the broadcast choices. It's great for America and all but it does mean they're going to show a wider range of heats because they don't want to miss having broadcast the quarterfinal heat of whoever ends up winning. Lots of injuries in the running and therefore lots of upsets so there's still plenty of drama but it's not as focused as the drama from swim week.

My other thoughts on the broadcast choices have to do with the "too much coverage of the US" complaint. I get that and I think that, to some extent, it's true. Then last night as I walked the dog I had a for instance run through my head. Let's say I knew a lesser known Olympic athlete but I didn't know them well enough to travel to Beijing to see the games in person. Then let's say that in order to show coverage of more countries they decide to show a Ukranian gymnast instead of my friend's less splashy heat or even medal contention. How pissed would I be that I live in my friend's country of origin and that country couldn't be bothered to cover her events in favor of showing someone from a different country? I'm thinking pretty damn pissed. I bet the grandparents of the amazing US fencing team who swept the medals are a little ticked that someone's having to FedEx them tape of their granddaughters' Olympic accomplishments since the 3.4 second clips of the winning touches were dissatisfying, to say the least. I'm not defending the NBC machine, don't get me wrong, I'm just saying that they may be wrong in an entirely different way than we think.

Tell me something good about what you're watching these days Olympic or not, please.