London 2012

big chicken wrote:Doesn't tomorrow have a commercial free presentation of that one show with all the animals? Or is that tonight? Either way, I don't think that show is going to make it past the first season.

I hope it's an hour long like the WWII non-Olympics piece was! That's totally appropriate.

The online coverage doesn't have commentators, which is problematic if you're not familiar with the less mainstream Olympic sports. I've really enjoyed the Taekwondo, but without a commentator I'm not entirely sure what's happening.

I don't think Bolt is that full of himself. He's...er, right. No one comes even close to him. And he's very respectful and complimentary of the other athletes and his teammates. He's also going to have to enjoy it while it lasts, because I think his back problems are going to cut his career short.

I don't take Bolt too seriously when he says stuff like that. I really think that he showboats and grandstandsmostly for fun and because people now seem to expect that of him.

I'm looking forward to the the women's indoor volleyball final. It's been so much fun watching them smash the competition on their way to the gold medal match, but alas, I still rooted for South Korea when they played against them again two days ago.

A) I'm pretty sure Bolt's Twitter bio is tongue-in-cheek.

B) Have you seen him run? His times? He's not wrong.

C) Also, this.

And Binky's right in that he's a really good sportsman overall. Sure, he grandstands, but he's a sprinter. That's not exactly unheard of or uncommon.

Bolt is pretty much the most recognised sporting star in the world who seems to enjoy himself and doesn't really take himself seriously, especially in comparison to most sprinters. If I was as good as him, I might be more obnoxious and less generous towards my team mates and competitors. I can't think of a foreign athlete that is so beloved, particularly by children, all over the world.

I'm up this early on a Sunday as I'm finally going out to the Olympic stadium to see some men's handball. Woohoo! On the downside, this time tomorrow, it'll all be over. Booo!

Bolt strikes me as being so chipper in his cockiness that I really enjoy it. It's classic showboating, but without the annoying dourness and aggression that it usually comes with (I'm looking at you, Michael Johnston, among others). Plus my cousin met him and said he's awesome, so I love Bolt.

And anyone who shit-talks Carl Lewis after Carl Lewis has the BALLS to accuse them of being a cheater is aces in my book!

Ugh, so sad for the US women's volleyball team. I wanted the commentators to shut up during the first set and stop bragging because it felt like they might jinx the match, and wouldn't you know it, Brazil whooped ass after losing that opening set! Seeing Akinradewo (spelling?) cry after the loss was tough. The team played so well throughout the tournament, but props to Brazil for the excellent turnaround because I was not expecting that!

Super happy for David Boudia and Tom Daley clinching gold and bronze in the 10m platform final though! They were just amazing tonight, and I was so tense as Boudia stepped up for his last dive. Really glad his dream came true, and of course, seeing Tom's team hoist him up and jump into the pool was really sweet and awesome, too!

Tom Brokaw and WWII should just get a room already.

woolhat wrote:Tom Brokaw and WWII should just get a room already.

Seriously. When he was previewing the special, he was all "this was not that long ago, it happened during my lifetime," so therefore you ingrates have to want to watch this instead of the Olympics. I DO NOT.

If you want to see some lovely sportsman ship, the gold medal match in Taekwando between an Italian and a Gabonese guy competing for his country's first medal was pretty awesome. They hugged it out on their knees, and then each guy went over and hugged the other guy's coach. So very sweet and friendly given that the rest of the time they were 200 pound guys trying (and often succeeding) in kicking each other in the head.

I watched that Taekwondo match too. Stuff like that makes me love the Olympics. Especially since the match had been soo close and had eventually to be decided by the judges (after the Gabon competitor had nearly won it outright) and they still had those sportsmanlike reactions.

Let's just say I had flashbacks of Johnny Lawrence handing Daniel Larusso the All Valley Karate Tournament Trophy... and tear up this time too.

I just finished watching the closing ceremony via stream and the final act featuring Darcey Bussell is something awesome. I'm going to pretend it was done by that newly formed ballet company from Center Stage.

Someone on Twitter described Bolt as "the Kanye of track". I thought that was a pretty accurate description.

Yeah, he does remind me of Kanye a bit except I honestly think Kanye has a few loose screws whereas I think Usain is playing up his reputation for fun.

Did anyone see the men's indoor volleyball final between Russia and Brazil? It was so tense and taut! I can't believe how Russia turned that game around in the middle of the third set. It was brilliant!

I really hope that next Olympics NBC heeds some of the criticism and takes the time to air some of the great non-swimming/gymnastics/basketball/track&field/volleyball moments during primetime. I'm a sucker for all of those sports too, but the Olympics is about athletic excellence in so many more disciplines. And instead of showing WTF retrospectives, there were 6 hours this week they could have ACTUALLY SHOWED THEM!! I am writing an angry letter!!

I was disappointed with NBC's coverage for some of the men's gymnastics events. They showed every single move the Fab Five made, but once it was clear that the U.S. men weren't going to medal in the team final and that John Orozco was out of the all-around final, it's like they stopped caring. If it weren't for Danell Leyva winning a bronze, I feel like as if NBC wouldn't have shown pretty much anything at all from the all-around competition. Show a little more support for our men and for all the other excellent athletes their competing with, guys! Yeah, winning is awesome, and I'm really happy for Gabby and the other ladies, but just because your team isn't gonna end up on the podium doesn't mean they're completely irrelevant.

BTW, this year's Games have gotten me a bit smitten with wrestling. I had no idea it could be so riveting! Same goes for the throwing competitions and stuff like the high jump and pole vaults! I wish we could have seen more than just snippets of those finals!

truecrystal wrote:I really hope that next Olympics NBC heeds some of the criticism and takes the time to air some of the great non-swimming/gymnastics/basketball/track&field/volleyball moments during primetime. I'm a sucker for all of those sports too, but the Olympics is about athletic excellence in so many more disciplines. And instead of showing WTF retrospectives, there were 6 hours this week they could have ACTUALLY SHOWED THEM!! I am writing an angry letter!!

Given that they pretty much stuck their nose in the air and went "Our viewers are too stupid to understand our brilliant broadcast choices tailored to what we know our audiences want, no matter that they are telling us the exact opposite, and also F U," I'm not holding my breath. I suspect that technology is going to advance to a point where NBC loses technical control of the Olympics, and that's the only thing that will stop the damned Michael Phelps retrospectives. For a damn hour. ASSHOLES.

Ahem.

whatthedeuce wrote:.
BTW, this year's Games have gotten me a bit smitten with wrestling. I had no idea it could be so riveting!

Right there with ya. I was totally captivated by this event. And I have an inappropriate crush on Jordan Burroughs.

Our viewers are too stupid to understand our brilliant broadcast choices tailored to what we know our audiences want, no matter that they are telling us the exact opposite, and also F U,"

Given there has already been a Pews poll with 76% rating the coverage good or excellent and ratings that crushed expectations, 12% higher than Beijing even though Bejing had a lot fewer events on tape delay, they are most likely correct about their viewers. That doesnt mean their coverage was good, it just means that a lot of the viewers are not necessarily sports fans and so are fine with more highlight/human interest package framing of events.

I also thought a great deal of their daytime coverage was pretty good.

The daytime coverage was very good, especially since most of it was live. The real problem (for me) was the WTF choices they made about what sports to put in the primetime coverage. I think we saw every single one of the Beach Volleyball games and one regular Volleyball game. Almost none of Kohei Uchimura, evental gold medalist and the top male gymnast in the world, but every single swimming heat. The choices were just baffling.

And they compounded them tonight by airing a retrospective that was just the stuff they'd already shown in primetime and then cutting away from the Closing Ceremony to show the monkey doctor show. NBC I don't want you to fail but it seems like you're doing it on purpose.

The NYTimes had this to say about Phelps:

In the end, he was given a special trophy, which looked like a piece of pewter shrapnel stuck to a base, that read “Greatest Olympic Athlete of All Time.”

I am very amused. "WE HAD THIS PIECE OF RUBBISH HANGING AROUND AND WE FORGOT TO MAKE YOU A SPECIAL PRIZE, SO WE WELDED IT TO A BASE AND CONGRATULATIONS!!!"

On Bolt:

Measured by sheer quantity of bling, Bolt has a fraction of Phelps’s medals. But perhaps because the designation “fastest man on earth” speaks to such an elemental physical feat, or because he celebrates with unequaled brio, Bolt might have made the deepest and most lasting impression here. At minimum, he joined the pantheon of great athletes, like Ali and Pelé, famous enough to be known by one name.

So the word 'bling' has now been used in the NYTimes.

Also:

A small fortune was spent on ads urging Londoners to “Get ahead of the games,” which most of the locals translated to “Get lost, O.K.?”

The Times really outdid itself for snarky coverage tonight.

NBC does horrible Olympic coverage with great ratings, so nothing's going to change anytime soon. They think the American public wants to focus on Americans only so that's what they show. It's so stupid. If it's a popular sport NBC saves it for the primetime slot. Yet the primetime spot only has about four hours of coverage for all the marquee events so they cut them down to focus on the Americans which actually shortens the coverage of said marquee sports. And then if the Americans don't do as well as expected (and they have enough of a time delay to slot in something else) they cut it even more. So in the end we get extra swimming heats because it features Americans (it's a heat, no one fucking cares) and lose out on watching men's gymnastics because the Americans aren't contending. But I guess that leaves more time for retrospectives on the '92 Dream Team and WWII with Tom Brokaw so that just makes it all....even worse.

I bitched about the gymnastics coverage before but I finally realized what was really bothering me about their coverage. The wonks that know about gymnastics focused too much on the new scoring system. Yes we simple Americans with our shitty math skills can understand it's no longer based on the amount of toes we have. Please remind us with Every. Fucking. Score. We got it after the first kabillion times. Oh is that not a number? Sorry. Did I mention my shitty American math skills yet? What they did wrong was they never showed the actual standings enough to let you know how the score that they blathered on about how it was red/yellow/green compared to the other scores. I don't care if it was worth 19 points and they got 14 points. What I cared about was whether 14 points was better or worse than the other gymnasts. That was what was actually important and they never showed that. WTF?

And as for primetime coverage, it will be better for Rio. They're only 1 hour before EST so there will be less spoilers and less time for NBC to cut planned coverage. So if the men's gymnastics team wins the prelims again and they commit two hours of primetime coverage to gymnastics finals, they're going to have to either show it or scramble hard to replace it.

I hadn't even thought about how odd it was that they showed every single swimming heat! I suppose that's because I was invested in those events. It really did take away tons of time that could have been dedicated to other sports though. It's definitely gotta be better in 4 years when there won't be long time delays, and we won't have to hear spoilers for every damn things before it's shown in primetime.

Oh god. "After an hour of Animal Hospital, we'll show you the rest of the Closing Ceremonies..." No one is falling for that, NBC. Not even the mothers of the cast of Animal Show are sticking around.

Like Raised by Wolves said, avoiding spoilers was pointless because if it was on primetime; America did well. I hope Usain Bolt's popularity will at least make NBC reconsider the America show. Also, that they'd have a twinge of shame and realize the high ratings are because they are the Uncle Pennybags of coverage over here.

I didn't watch any gymnastics. Does Trautwig still think the Cold War is on?

Okay, I don't watch the Olympics, ever, but I have to ask - is it true that the NBC coverage said something along the lines of 'This isn't actually Batman, but a British folk hero known as Del Boy'?

I hope it is, because I can't stop laughing at the idea of Del Boy as a folk hero...

So if the men's gymnastics team wins the prelims again and they commit two hours of primetime coverage to gymnastics finals, they're going to have to either show it or scramble hard to replace it..

I have no doubt they'll have a number of prepared documentaries to air in the event non-Americans fail to produce medals. I preditct there will be one on what Michael Phelps has been doing since he became the GREATEST OLYMPIAN OF ALL TIME, another on his mother and how she's been coping with the fact her womb produced the GREATEST OLYMPIAN OF ALL TIME, Missy Franklin and how SHE IS FREE OF ALL ARTIFICE AND GREDD AND JUST WANTS TO SWIM FOR HER COLLEGE TEAM, the Magnificient Seven and the Fab Five and what they've done since they won the team golds, and poor Mary Carillo will be be sent out to take lessons in HOW TO BE BRAZILIAN including learning the samba.