Thank goodness for the Canadian coverage, or else I would have missed numerous live events. While US Olympic coverage has been awful for as far back as I can remember, this year’s was historically bad, especially for Track & Field (which was further complicated by having morning and evening sessions, with long breaks during the day in Tokyo).
NBC seems to have tried to pretend that important gold medal events were all happening at east coast Prime Time. They would toggle between live events (morning in Tokyo) and taped events. Additionally, it was just hard to know which channels were broadcasting which events. On most cable system lineups, NBC, CNBC, USA and the Olympic channel are far apart from each other. I would use ESPN to find out about when an event final would be, and then try to find it.
Finally, I remembered that I have a Firestick with all the Canadian channels, so I started watching the CBC and TSN broadcasts, where everything was live, and they had a TSN channel dedicated to T&F.
I can’t believe that a network like NBC, with all of the capital they’ve invested in the Olympics, could screw it up so badly.
And that’s a wrap. Kudos to Tokyo for pulling off the Olympics in extremely difficult times. I like what they did to introduce Paris for the next Olympics. No spoilers as I’m sure most Dopers haven’t seen the closing ceremonies yet.
For the Philippines this was, I am sure, our most successful Olympics since we started participating in the Games. In addition to our first ever gold medal, we also got two silvers and a bronze. Several others also managed to get to the finals for their event, including skateboarding, gymnastics, and pole vault.
Good op-ed (in other words, I heartily agree) on the idea of curbing rabid nationalism and wasteful spending by moving the Olympics permanently to two sites for summer and winter Games - Greece and Switzerland.
“…the games have all too often become overt displays of odious propaganda (the 1936 games were put on by the Nazi regime in Berlin) or the setting for fierce geopolitical arguments, such as when the U.S. and other Western nations boycotted the 1980 games after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan.”
“China, Russia, the U.S. and other major powers with the financial ability to support the games fight hard to host them. The supposed financial benefits seldom seem to materialize. But it’s also an opportunity to show soft power to allies, partners, friends and send a message to opponents. Winning the venue often feeds virulent nationalism that runs counter to Olympic ideals. The frequent corruption associated with the selection process doesn’t help.”
“…The expense for the construction and subsequent maintenance of the global facility could be shared among participating nations as a percentage of their economy with respect to global gross domestic product. The U.S. would fund 15%, Europe 15%, China 15%, India 7%, Japan 4%, Russia 3%. The smallest nations would receive a very small bill.”
I don’t think the Swiss need the tourism-associated money, but Greece could certainly benefit. And a percentage of the dough from TV rights and other revenues could be allocated to poorer countries to support their athletic programs.
Usually, the organizing committee for the succeeding Olympics will send a delegation to perform at the closing ceremonies. Travel restrictions made this impossible so they had a live feed from Paris, where it was mid-afternoon. Spoiler follows:
They had musicians playing “La Marseillaise”. First a single flautist on the banks of the Seine. Then a string quartet. Then an entire orchestra. They cut this with views of Paris, which of course was beautiful. The Champs-Élysées was filled with Parisians of all walks of life, including some athletes and medalists who had already flown home. The Eiffel Tower was flying a ginourmous Olympic flag. (I believe the commentator said that it was the largest flag ever flown.) The capper for the performance was a cut to the International Space Station, where an astronaut, weightless, was playing saxophone in front of the observation window with a view of the Earth from space.
Yeah, I couldn’t figure out how it was done. It was incredible.
insomnia meant that I watched a lot of rhythmic gymnastics. That’s a really weird sport that desperately needs an overhaul.
Apparently, all the judges already watch and study all of the routines beforehand, so they already know exactly what the competitors will do. But then, they’re apparently supposed to judge based on that performance? Yeah, that’s going to happen. Also, the competitors can challenge their score - so every single competitor challenged their score every time.
Oh, also, it’s just weird. Doing a walkover into a split for two of your teammates to lift you up while you’re throwing hoops in the air for two of your other teammates who are busy spinning to catch on their feet is hard. But it’s also just really odd looking.
I’m also surprised the US isn’t better at it.
NBC had a segment on a boat found in northern California that turned out to be from the Tsunami in Japan. They returned the boat and TLDR fostered an exchange between the two cities. I actually found it quite interesting, if only very very tangentially related to the Olympics.
Of course, these will be the “edited” closing ceremonies. They are supposed to include the medal ceremonies for the men’s and women’s marathons; I will believe that NBC airs these in full when I see it. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if they just air Molly Seidel receiving her bronze medal, probably after coming back from a commercial.
I noticed at the end of NBC’s track & field coverage that they showed a quick scene of Neeraj Chopra, the men’s javelin winner, and mentioned that he was India’s first track & field gold medalist, but didn’t bother showing any of this, or anybody else’s throws. I thought it strange that not only did they not show any part of the men’s javelin at the Olympics themselves, but didn’t even mention it during the coverage of the USA Olympic trials - probably because nobody from the USA met the qualifying standard (two athletes did get “wild card” invitations to compete in Tokyo).
One other thing: somebody pointed out to me that, technically, “China” won more gold medals than “the USA,” since Chinese Taipei won 2 and Hong Kong won 1. Yes, Puerto Rico also won 1, but that gives “all of China” 41 to “all of USA’s” 40.
There are many, many threads on this topic, and I’d rather not take up 30 posts debating this issue in a thread that’s supposed to be about the Summer Olympics.