August 8, 2008
Olympic Fever Peking
That feeling of oppression, smog, and soy sauce in the air can only mean one thing; the Beijing Olympics are underway.
The Times and PI both have reporters blogging from China, and preview the Games on the intertubes.
The NBC family of networks always makes it confusing with their mix of tape delay, and live only-on-the-East Coast coverage, however, Seth at Sports Northwest Magazine shares his TV picks.
CBC (Channel 99 for most cable subscribers) does a much better job with live coverage, even though they tend to focus on the Canadian athletes, and you know how they can be.
How is Seattlest going to cover the Olympics? Well, of course we'll be following local boy Apolo Ohno, and resisting the temptation to make jokes about the cycling team hitting fans with U-locks, but mostly we're going to try and get you drunk.
So start smiling and cheering for your favorite athletes—unless you’re going to be one of those Deputy Downer types, in that case the door is over there.
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Pardon my ignorance, but what does Ohno compete in during the summer games?
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Oh No!
Also, the PI yesterday had a spread on local, actually competing, athletes.
Like Brad Walker from Mountlake Terrace on the Pole Vault, Travis Stevens from Tacoma in Judo, and Hope Solo (I have always loved fun names like Picabo Street) as the Goal Keeper for the woman's football team. She hails from Richland.
There are a few more, but I get bored of rowing.
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I don't follow the Olympics too much any more but I am watching CBC right now. The colors for the opening ceremony are outstanding and very remarkable.... and (where is that thesaurus when I need it?)
I don't care for NBC's coverage as it focuses too much on the human interest angle and not enough of the other competition. They also don't show much that is not USA teams competing. For instance, I would like to see more of the Chinese teams competing but will not be able to see them unless they are competing against the USA.
and we are blocked from seeing much online but there will be lots archived so online may be the way to go this year even though we in the USA won't be able to see it live.
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I have to agree with johnnye, the US coverage focuses too much on US athletes. My wife made me get cable just so she can watch the CBC feed. However, I'm guess that since it isn't in hi-def on CBC she'll cave and come crawling back to NBC.
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Costas once said that the NBC bigwigs have done studies which show that the general public would rather see US athletes in human interest stories, as opposed to, you know, actual sports.
It's kinda hard to stomach, imho.
I wish DirecTv had CBC. Thank god for Tivo.
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That's the case with most news organizations. More often than not, the general public cares more about the person and personal stories.
Hence, international-sports stars.
It's not just a U.S. phenomenon. And why is that necessarily bad? Isn't the reason we enjoy sports are the people? Otherwise, wouldn't you watch every sports team rooting for each player and team equally... wait... then why play a sport at all?
People are fundamental aspects in all events. It's what draws our interest... why? Because we, as humans, enjoy seeing ourselves in other things because it helps us understand something.