What? Indoor swimming isn’t remotely unusual, and neither beach volleyball or track and field are being held indoors. What are you on about again?
The commentary is what gets me. The upcoming 100 meter dash will tell us who is the “fastest man alive.” :rolleyes: I didn’t know Wally was in this race! What it will tell us is who runs it the fastest on that day in that venue. Have one of those sprinters do the marathon and see just how fast he can go 23 miles.
You could say much the same thing about Sergey Bubka, who still owns the indoor and outdoor world records for the pole vault (which are now 14 and 15 years old), and set those records 35 times.
He won every World Championship gold in pole vaulting from 1983 to 1997, yet for all his dominance he won Olympic gold just once.
Ok, NBC, it’s not your fault that gymnastics happens at a time when you have to show it from 11:30-1:00 am. I understand that and I am willing to stay up late to watch because…imagine this, I like to see people performing gymnastics.
I also understand that not everyone watches for the sport, so you have to pump up rivalries and focus on certain people (the United States and Chinese in this case) to have viewers feel engaged.
HOWEVER! Aren’t there at least four apparatuses and at least eight people performing, and if you just wandered around a bit you could** SHOW SOME FRIGGING GYMNASTICS!!! ** and not the American gymnast sitting on the bench or, as was shown in excruciating detail last night, picking at her toe??? Are there not enough camerapeople to actually cover a range of nations and apparatuses, IOW back-to-back actual action?? Grrrr.
Yeah, at least some of those events weren’t offered back when Mark Spitz was swimming. He has said that had they offered the 50-meter, for example, he would have won another gold in that. (And he’s probably right; Spitz was very strong in short sprinting swims).
But Mark has acknowledged that the sport has moved on since his wins; his record times would be average now. He doesn’t think that he had the training or conditioning to match Phelps, even when he was at his best. So Spitz has said that he can offer Phelps best wishes, but not much useful advice.
By the way, what is the deal between the Olympic Committee and Mark Spitz? Why was he so deliberately excluded from attending these games? I really expected at some time to see pictures of him standing with Phelps, each of them showing off their neckfulls of medals, or Spitz being interviewed with Phelps, etc.
I know that Spitz was considered a rebel & non-conformist as a competitor; does the Olympic Committee still hold grudges from that long ago? Or would that be considered out of place in closely regimented China?
I thought it was pretty lame of the article to have a picture of the cute lipsyncher, and not the less cute actual singer.
I gave up on the Olympics. I have less than no interest in beach volleyball, unless I’m playing (obviously not at Olympic levels). I am sick of seeing shots of Bush, who may be home now, for all I know. I am not about to stay up late to watch the girl’s gymnastics, after two days of being told they’d be on tomorrow night, only to awake and find out they’d already been on.
I have given up trying to find pertinent info on that mess of a website that nbc considers “comprehensive”. It may well be, I just can’t wade through the stuff to find what I want.
Are they showing any woman’s field hockey at any time besides 3 am? Doubt it. I’m excited for Phelps and think he’s great, but the wall to wall coverage of him is tedious to say the least. There ARE other American male swimmers there, as well as foreign swimmers–why does Bob Costas assume we don’t want backstory or at least some info on the Netherlands or France or Tobago? I heard that India got a gold–no idea in what, thankyouverymuch.
Bah.
My mom couldn’t sleep the other night and was excited to see that field hockey was scheduled to be shown (she played back in the day). Of course, they never actually got around to showing it. :rolleyes:
Ok, now I’m even more pissed off. Stoopid NBC.
The only way to see those less then popular events is to use NBC’s internet video. No decent commentary, but you get to see the events. I was thrilled to get to watch a bit of Judo, and even got to see the Greco Roman wrestling controversy, though the lack of commentary meant I had no clue what went wrong.
Yeah, I don’t know why they did that online. I have the hard copy of that edition, and in that they show both.
We swept the sabre fencing, and they showed some of the footage. Each of the “matches” seemed to take less than 5 seconds. I couldn’t figure out what the winner had done vs the loser. I was still trying when the second round passed me by as well. Next thing I know, she had won the gold/silver/bronze and I was still going, “Now, wait a—”.
I think we all understand the rules to volleyball, so why not use this opportunity to learn something about a sport we know nothing about, especially when 3 women made Olympic history in it? WTF?
I’d like to defenestrate Bob Costas. At least his sidekick is no longer with us (time has mercifully expunged his name).
Well, that’s new. Back in the day when I watched the Games a lot, they were obsessed with gymnastics. Now they’re obsessed with beach volleyball.