Beijing Olympics 2008

[clemsonfan]

I didn't see a general thread out there to discuss the Olympics. So I thought I would make one. It's only about two days away!

I'm pretty excited about watching it with my kids. Hopefully they will get into them.

[molson]

The Women's Soccer tournament has already started, with 6 games already played. Men's Soccer starts tomorrow.

[Celeval]

Except that they started today. USA 0 - Norway 2 (women's soccer). Ew.

[molson]

How in the world did China get an Olympics?

China revokes visa of gold medalist, Darfur activist Cheek - Fourth-Place M... - Olympics - Yahoo! Sports

"Olympic gold medalist and outspoken Darfur activist Joey Cheek has had his visa revoked by the Chinese embassy, hours before the speedskating champion was set to fly to China. And he wasn't even planning on wearing a mask when he got there.

"Chinese officials don't need a reason to revoke anyone's visa but, in their eyes, they had plenty of reasons to snatch Cheek's. He is the founder of Team Darfur, a group of 70 athletes whose goal it is to raise global awareness of the human-rights violations taking part in the Darfur region of Sudan. China's military, economic and diplomatic ties to Sudan have been well-publicized in the lead-up to the Games.

[darkenigma510]

I am hoping the China Olympics are a trainwreck for the sake of Schadenfreude.

[tyketime]

I used to be so psyched to watch the Olympics when I was a kid. But I find as I grow older, it holds less and less of an appeal to me. I wonder how much has to do with the state of international sports today, with so many international events now (and the accompanying TV media blitz), it's lost the thrill of a "once every four years" unique event for me. I will watch some of it, but by no means am I scheduling around certain events.

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by tyketime

I used to be so psyched to watch the Olympics when I was a kid. But I find as I grow older, it holds less and less of an appeal to me. I wonder how much has to do with the state of international sports today, with so many international events now (and the accompanying TV media blitz), it's lost the thrill of a "once every four years" unique event for me. I will watch some of it, but by no means am I scheduling around certain events.

[johnnyshaka]

Agree completely with tyketime and DC...I can't quite put my finger on what killed it for me. Maybe the constant "pending drug test results" so-and-so won or the constant political overtones that seem to overtake the true spirit of it all.

[path12]

I still like them and will watch a lot of it, but what has irritated me more and more each time is the incessant "USA USA USA" coverage -- when an event comes down to a 10 minute profile of the American entry and then maybe 10% of the contestants are shown actually competing.

I tend to watch the Canadian coverage more, but they're starting to do the same thing it seems.....

[molson]

I think the "human interest story" stuff is more perception than reality, at least for the 2006 and 2004. With more channels this year I think there'll be even less of that (just stay away from NBC in prime time, if possible).

[path12]

I remember it starting in the 70's and then getting steadily more annoying into the 90's. I think you're probably right about 06 and 04 being toned down from the peaks, but I'd still rather just watch the damn events.

[sachmo71]

Originally Posted by molson

How in the world did China get an Olympics?

$$$$

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by johnnyshaka

... or the constant political overtones that seem to overtake the true spirit of it all.

I'm 8 years older than you (give or take whether your profile is accurate), so we're not all that far apart in age but I've got an almost completely opposite feeling about it. It's the lack of the USA/USSR (and associated allies on both sides) that has pretty much killed my interest.

Well that & the high percentage of events that I wouldn't look out my window to watch much less bother to choose over anything else on television.

[BrianD]

The USA/USSR battles did have a great us vs. them kind of feel, but now we are back closer to real sport. Aside from some of the major sports like basketball and soccer, we've got a bunch of people who have been training their whole lives for this one moment. Once it is over, their lives will probably change forever as they are forced to take on a new focus.

[MrDNA]

So, is there anywhere that will tell you exactly WHEN events are happening? NBC's site just says "Women's Volleyball, somewhere between 9 AM and 9 PM" Thanks, NBC, I'll be sure to watch! :nuts:

[Groundhog]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Well that & the high percentage of events that I wouldn't look out my window to watch much less bother to choose over anything else on television.

It's a funny thing though, the Olympics (to me). Sports like Handball for example I wouldn't even dream of watching outside of the Olympics, but as soon as something like a gold medal is up for grabs, it grabs my attention.

It's only really team events and track and field stuff that I watch though.

[tarcone]

Pro athletes ruined it for me. How exciting was it to watch a bunch of college kids beat Team USSR? Awesome.
Now they want to dump baseball and softball. But they keep crap like ballroom dancing.
And I looked all day for Olympic coverage and couldnt find it anywhere except UHD (some hi-def channel I dont get on directv.) Any help finding coverage would be great.

[Alan T]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

I'm 8 years older than you (give or take whether your profile is accurate), so we're not all that far apart in age but I've got an almost completely opposite feeling about it. It's the lack of the USA/USSR (and associated allies on both sides) that has pretty much killed my interest.

Well that & the high percentage of events that I wouldn't look out my window to watch much less bother to choose over anything else on television.

This is exactly it. I remember as a kid, you would always see the medal counts with the references to the USA vs the "Eastern Block" where East Germany, USSR, and a few other communist countries would be the "bad guys" and team USA was trumpeting the cause of democracy in every event that they won...

Maybe it is the events in the world, or the disappearance of the cold war, or no strong rival such as the USSR was, but it just doesn't feel the same anymore. And lets face it, I just don't really care about men's gymnastics if there isn't some patriotic reason to watch it.

[Brownkeg8]

Originally Posted by Alan T

This is exactly it. I remember as a kid, you would always see the medal counts with the references to the USA vs the "Eastern Block" where East Germany, USSR, and a few other communist countries would be the "bad guys" and team USA was trumpeting the cause of democracy in every event that they won...

Maybe it is the events in the world, or the disappearance of the cold war, or no strong rival such as the USSR was, but it just doesn't feel the same anymore. And lets face it, I just don't really care about men's gymnastics if there isn't some patriotic reason to watch it.

Agreed, always was built up as we were sending amateur athletes and the Eastern Bloc countries were grooming young men and women to win at all costs. There was always that big buildup of us vs. them. I have always preferred the winter games over the summer games as most of the winter games are not events that you see on tv everyday.

[Young Drachma]

The Olympics are only around so I can have hope to someday build toccer up enough to see it played in the Games. lol

[ISiddiqui]

I like the winter games better too... but there are plenty of interesting summer games sports. I like most of the swimming events and short running events. Men soccer is usually fun (especially when you consider its the young, up and coming players).

[flere-imsaho]

Winter Games > Summer Games

The thing that kills it for me is the style of the U.S. TV coverage. When I lived in the UK, I really enjoyed the BBC coverage, because they would actually, you know, show the competition.

The BBC would flit from one event to another, each with their own play-by-play and color commentator (usually a former competitor) and they'd show a ton of the events. Even stuff like badminton which you never see on U.S. networks. You got a really good feel for the various sports and it was kept interesting.

Compare this to NBC et. al., who it seems spends 50% or more of each hour with some sappy "human interest" story, almost solely focusing on a U.S. athlete, and then shoehorn in some events, almost always the "marquee" events. Completely uninteresting.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

Winter Games > Summer Games

The thing that kills it for me is the style of the U.S. TV coverage. When I lived in the UK, I really enjoyed the BBC coverage, because they would actually, you know, show the competition.

The BBC would flit from one event to another, each with their own play-by-play and color commentator (usually a former competitor) and they'd show a ton of the events. Even stuff like badminton which you never see on U.S. networks. You got a really good feel for the various sports and it was kept interesting.

Compare this to NBC et. al., who it seems spends 50% or more of each hour with some sappy "human interest" story, almost solely focusing on a U.S. athlete, and then shoehorn in some events, almost always the "marquee" events. Completely uninteresting.

To be fair, the NBC coverage you're discussing is mostly found on the prime-time coverage each evening on the NBC network. They have several other channels that have coverage that is much more event oriented. For example, the HD Soccer and HD Basketball channels are just one game after another. The Universal HD channel has a lot of great events planned with minimal storytelling. As long as you steer clear of NBC in prime time, you should be pretty happy with the coverage. That evening coverage is catered to women, hence the stories to help the viewer be emotionally involved in the event.

[molson]

You can also watch stuff online this year (2,000 hours of stuff online v. 1,400 hours of TV).

You can watch 1st round badminton tomorrow night if you really wanted to.

I'm pretty sure the people who are still stuck on the "human interst" angle haven't actually watched the Olympics since 1996.

[JPhillips]

We'll be watching a lot as my adopted daughter will really enjoy seeing lots of shots/stories on China.

[LloydLungs]

Yeah, the "human interest" stories, while probably still too numerous, have been in steady decline since the 1990s. I don't really see them as that big of a problem anymore.

My real issue with the Olympics is that most of the major events will be shown on a severe tape delay. The nature of the modern Internet is such that it's almost impossible to avoid getting results spoiled. It's not as simple as, say, not going to a specific site or a specific thread. Because of the massiveness of the Olympics, you basically have to avoid your computer altogether, and even if you do that, ESPN will gleefully spoil everything without much if any warning if you happen to stumble on any of their zillions of channels.

I think I would immensely enjoy an Olympics held in the U.S., but the time differential is the biggest obstacle for me.

[Radii]

Originally Posted by molson

I'm pretty sure the people who are still stuck on the "human interst" angle haven't actually watched the Olympics since 1996.

That's definitely true for me. The coverage in the 90s really killed my interest entirely. With you guys saying that it improved a lot in recent Olympics I may make more of an effort to catch some events this year.

[BishopMVP]

Originally Posted by LloydLungs

My real issue with the Olympics is that most of the major events will be shown on a severe tape delay. The nature of the modern Internet is such that it's almost impossible to avoid getting results spoiled. It's not as simple as, say, not going to a specific site or a specific thread. Because of the massiveness of the Olympics, you basically have to avoid your computer altogether, and even if you do that, ESPN will gleefully spoil everything without much if any warning if you happen to stumble on any of their zillions of channels.

I think I would immensely enjoy an Olympics held in the U.S., but the time differential is the biggest obstacle for me.

Chicago is lining up to host in 2016 at least. Until then, it really is terrible trying to avoid being spoiled. Even if I'm just trying to find out what events are being held on which channel, I probably have to hit up a site that will spoil results.

US-China has potential for a US-Soviet like medal race, but the problem is that the countries rarely go head to head. We're not producing Ping Pong players and outside of the one hurdler, they aren't producing Track athletes or swimmers. Women's gymnastics is the one huge showdown that I'm sure will dominate multiple nights of prime-time coverage.

[JonInMiddleGA]

I wonder if I'm the only person who thought that massive drum thing in the opening ceremonies evoked memories of Germany in the 30's?

[Young Drachma]

Chinese National Anthem

Arise! All who refuse to be slaves!
Let our flesh and blood become our new Great Wall!
Chinese nation faces its greatest peril,
All forcefully expend their last cries.
Arise! Arise! Arise!
Our million hearts beat as one,
Brave the enemy's fire, March on!
Brave the enemy's fire, March on!
March on! March on! On!

[Senator]

I am curious to see the "before the games" and "after the opening ceremonies" comments on this thread.

[BishopMVP]

I agree with JimGA - I'm not sure exactly what look China is going for with these opening ceremonies, but fascist, totatlitarian and monolithic are the words popping into my mind.

Originally Posted by MrDNA

So, is there anywhere that will tell you exactly WHEN events are happening? NBC's site just says "Women's Volleyball, somewhere between 9 AM and 9 PM" Thanks, NBC, I'll be sure to watch! :nuts:

Double whammy - USA, etc have their coverage in 12-hour blocks with events listed as occuring somewhere during that 12 hours, making it impossible to DVR.

Only thing saving them in my eyes are the Olympic Soccer & Basketball channels available in HD with individual game listings.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Nice gimmick with the people inside there. I kind of saw it coming but it was still a well crafted moment

[kcchief19]

While the "color commentary" of the opening ceremonies is driving me a bit nuts talking about the "cinematography" and the genius of Johnny Moe or somesuch, the opening ceremonies have been rather amazing.

Another note ... anyone notice Bush and Putin were sitting next to each other? They cut to a shot of them and they appeared to be somewhat animated. Does anyone know about the timeline of the Russian bomings in Georgia? Was Russia bombing Georgia during the ceremonies?

[Flasch186]

Hey George, you havnt been watching TV today have you? no. Good...enjoy the show.

[JPhillips]

I assume everything is done by humans. When we were in China there were people pushbrooming the freeways and standing for 12 hour shifts at the end of grocery aisles for questions. The volume of people is truly staggering and they just don't need to mechanize a lot of things we take for granted.

On a side note, and I'm not sure what this means, but my wife and I are engrossed while our Chinese daughter is much more interested in her Disney princess game.

[kcchief19]

Originally Posted by BishopMVP

Only thing saving them in my eyes are the Olympic Soccer & Basketball channels available in HD with individual game listings.

Time Warner has also temporarily added USA HD, giving us four HD networks for the Olympics. Sweet.

The scheduling in blocks has always been an Olympic programming touch. While it certainly would be nice if the blocks where more specific and spliced up differently, but these are live sporting events and the schedules routinely get all shot to hell pretty quickly. Plus, unless you're awak in the middle of the night, all ove the coverage is going to be time delayed and edited so that an event that took an hour or two will take like four hours in editing.

Swimming is going to be the star event of these games since they are essentially the only events that will take place live in U.S. prime time.

[BishopMVP]

Originally Posted by kcchief19

The scheduling in blocks has always been an Olympic programming touch. While it certainly would be nice if the blocks where more specific and spliced up differently, but these are live sporting events and the schedules routinely get all shot to hell pretty quickly. Plus, unless you're awake in the middle of the night, all of the coverage is going to be time delayed and edited so that an event that took an hour or two will take like four hours in editing.

That's supposed to be the beauty of DVR/Tivo - I can sleep like a normal person, but wake up Sunday and start watching at my own pace. For example, Sunday morning I know US-NED soccer will be at 7:45am and US Basketball starts at 9am, but there's no way to record only those events on the USA coverage (thankfully I get the Soccer and Basketball channels). I'd have to record the whole 12-hour block, which in HD just takes up so much space it's untenable.

Here's a decent guide for online viewing to get proxies and other countries feeds - hxxp://valleywag.com/5034866/the-definitive-guide-to-watching-the-olympics-online

[JonInMiddleGA]

That United Airlines spot (which I assume was a network buy that everybody just saw) was actually pretty creative.

[JPhillips]

My heart swelled with pride when Bush checked his watch.

[JonInMiddleGA]

And while I'm posting anyway, a couple of other things
1) Why do I have a sudden compulsion to watch this?


2) Djibouti !!!

[SirFozzie]

Adopted homeland of our own AE!

[Racer]

Sounded like Iran was getting booed by a decent portion of the crowd. Haven't noticed that from any other country that's been announced so far.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Racer

Sounded like Iran was getting booed by a decent portion of the crowd. Haven't noticed that from any other country that's been announced so far.

My son actually pointed out to me that Pakistan appeared to be getting booed earlier in the night (or, as he put it, "they're getting heel heat")

[miami_fan]

I am sure my military and military sports background has everything to do with this, but this has to be an absolutely awesome feeling to be walking into that stadium as part of your country's Olympic team.

[SirFozzie]

I'm watching the Team Handball Prelims on NBCOlympics.com Fun stuff

[MrDNA]

Thanks for the heads-up, Fozz. Team Handball is pretty cool!

[sabotai]

Just the sport and the crowd, no annoying announcers. I'll probably end up watching more online than I do on TV.

[Toddzilla]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

"they're getting heel heat"

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

My son actually pointed out to me that Pakistan appeared to be getting booed earlier in the night (or, as he put it, "they're getting heel heat")

Which seems to be weird since China and Pakistan are allies. Probably the Indians around the audience who are pissy .