Olympic thoughts
A few questions/observations from watching the Olympics:
1. Why does Bob Costas have to share hosting duties with that other guy this year? Did he get demoted? He’s Bob Costas for crying out loud. He should be running the whole network. And just who is that other guy and who does he think he is?
2. I love that the Chinese thought they could get away with faking fireworks over a city crawling with foreign journalists. Brilliant.
3. Even with the faked fire works and the lip-syncing little girl (what? She was? Never saw that coming….), it was still the best opening ceremonies I’ve ever seen. Those moving boxes were just amazing.
4. Why do the women’s beach volleyball players wear outfits that would make Pamela Anderson blush? Do they want to? Did some beach volleyball marketing guru convince everyone it was good for their sport? I can’t help but think this was some man’s idea, but I can’t imagine that they are all required to dress like that and if not, why do they all? Curious.
5. Why do so many men from other countries think it perfectly acceptable to wear a beard on their neck? It is not. Can we have someone get the word out on this?
6. How is it that the top swimmers can “back off” while swimming in the heats and do “just enough to win” when the races are decided by hundredths of a second? Are they really that in tune? Are they really saying, “you know? I think I will step it down 14 hundredths of a second on this lap to save myself for the medal race?” I don’t get it.
7. I can’t appreciate the skill and talent in gymnastics because I spend the whole time waiting to see if they will take a step on their landing. That’s messed up. When a guy can leap into the air, flip and twist roughly 27 times and no one is impressed unless he sticks the mat like a lawn dart, things are out of whack.
8. Olympic basketball frustrates me. Everyone is all about the way the world has caught up, but if you put any of the top teams in the NBA other than USA and let them play out an 82 game season, there is not a single team that would even win 35 of the 82 games. I mean, teams are good enough that on any given night, they can beat our best players in one game. Big deal. Let’s see them do it for an entire season and then in a 7 game series.
9. During gymnastics one of the commentators went off on a rant against using replay and slow motion to judge the gymnastic events that routinely involve moves that happen slightly faster than the speed of light. Absolutely, lets make the judging as haphazard as possible. It's not bad enough we have olympic events decided by judges, let's also give them every disadvantage. What we really want is some judge blinking at the wrong moment and still deciding which person who has spent the last 10 years for this one moment gets something to take home from it. So someone has to wait 30 more seconds before starting the next routine. This is a big deal compared to the lifetime of work put in? Ridiculous.
10. I demand to see some team handball. Great game. I saw women’s weighlifting the other night (why? Why? WHY?), but no team handball. That’s not right. Someone call Costas.
Ok, that’s enough outta me.
1. Why does Bob Costas have to share hosting duties with that other guy this year? Did he get demoted? He’s Bob Costas for crying out loud. He should be running the whole network. And just who is that other guy and who does he think he is?
2. I love that the Chinese thought they could get away with faking fireworks over a city crawling with foreign journalists. Brilliant.
3. Even with the faked fire works and the lip-syncing little girl (what? She was? Never saw that coming….), it was still the best opening ceremonies I’ve ever seen. Those moving boxes were just amazing.
4. Why do the women’s beach volleyball players wear outfits that would make Pamela Anderson blush? Do they want to? Did some beach volleyball marketing guru convince everyone it was good for their sport? I can’t help but think this was some man’s idea, but I can’t imagine that they are all required to dress like that and if not, why do they all? Curious.
5. Why do so many men from other countries think it perfectly acceptable to wear a beard on their neck? It is not. Can we have someone get the word out on this?
6. How is it that the top swimmers can “back off” while swimming in the heats and do “just enough to win” when the races are decided by hundredths of a second? Are they really that in tune? Are they really saying, “you know? I think I will step it down 14 hundredths of a second on this lap to save myself for the medal race?” I don’t get it.
7. I can’t appreciate the skill and talent in gymnastics because I spend the whole time waiting to see if they will take a step on their landing. That’s messed up. When a guy can leap into the air, flip and twist roughly 27 times and no one is impressed unless he sticks the mat like a lawn dart, things are out of whack.
8. Olympic basketball frustrates me. Everyone is all about the way the world has caught up, but if you put any of the top teams in the NBA other than USA and let them play out an 82 game season, there is not a single team that would even win 35 of the 82 games. I mean, teams are good enough that on any given night, they can beat our best players in one game. Big deal. Let’s see them do it for an entire season and then in a 7 game series.
9. During gymnastics one of the commentators went off on a rant against using replay and slow motion to judge the gymnastic events that routinely involve moves that happen slightly faster than the speed of light. Absolutely, lets make the judging as haphazard as possible. It's not bad enough we have olympic events decided by judges, let's also give them every disadvantage. What we really want is some judge blinking at the wrong moment and still deciding which person who has spent the last 10 years for this one moment gets something to take home from it. So someone has to wait 30 more seconds before starting the next routine. This is a big deal compared to the lifetime of work put in? Ridiculous.
10. I demand to see some team handball. Great game. I saw women’s weighlifting the other night (why? Why? WHY?), but no team handball. That’s not right. Someone call Costas.
Ok, that’s enough outta me.
Comments
Regarding #7. Sadly, "sticking the landing" is the only thing the rest of us are qualified to judge. The other elements require conference calls, replays, judging guidelines, peer review, and 15 minutes of diliberation...and these are for the professionals!
Regarding #9. I was amazed at how quickly they can judge synchronized diving events (which are approximately the length of an eye blink). The commentator (who I think had her own replay machine that we didn't see on camera) was rattling off critiques before they hit the pool. Perhaps we are getting this all wrong. This is the "Olympics" of judging, as only the top judges in the world can do it!
A few more observations:
#11 Is it just me or does it seem like the Chinese men's gymnastic team was just learning to high five for the first time? My 2 year old daughter looks more natural giving a high five than these guys. Ironic, considering they have to be the the most highly coordinated people people on the planet. They can spin at 60 rotations per minute on a high-bar, but they can't make contact with a team mates open palm without concentrating?
#12 Men's gymnastic floor exercises are not that entertaining, but all the elements could be combined in a different way to really raise the game. For instance, what if the guys took some moves from "So You Think You Can Dance?" and performed their routines to hip hop music? Now that would be more fun and would really show off their strength! I think Costas could make this happen.
#13 I am totally surprised that the networks haven't found a way to combine reality TV with the Olympic coverage. Here are a few ideas:
a. For each event (especially gynmastics), bring in some average joes have them attempt things like still rings. Just to show how truly remarkable these olympiads are.
b. Have a website, where fans can email questions (or vote for question, Digg-style) that they want the on-floor journalists to ask the competitors? I am really tired of "what was going through your mind in that last 14/100th second of the race?" questions. Surely, America could do better.
c. Have a post-Olympic torch relay, where the medalists go on tour in exposition events across the country. Why not wind down, like we wind up?
Of course, I feel compelled to respond:
4 - I heard and thought the same thing...except for the birthmark thing...my theory is that some guy on the IOC was thinking, "why would I want to see men without shirts? Now women without shirts, that should be a law."
7 - true. To me it begs the question whether events decided by judges have a place in the olympics. I think not, but I know I'm in the minority. In the end though, isn't the olympics about deciding who is the best at something rather than who some person thinks was the best?
9 - She has replay. No question. Also, synchronized diving has to be one of the strangest and creepiest events in the Olympics. What is the thinking here exactly? In what other sport do we say, "wow, he's great at that, let's find someone else that looks like him and see if he can do the same thing at the same time." It's like taking the annoying game every younger sibling played with their older sibling where they copy every move to....well, olympic proportions.
11 - Great, great point. My lovely wife made the exact same comment. They should immediately move to the easier to execute and even somewhat cooler forarm bump right now before they bring further shame on their nation.
12 - That's one of the worst ideas I've ever heard. Don't get me wrong, it would be a hit and millions of people would love it, but watching effiminate men bouncing around a mat is odd enough, if you added dance moves in those ridiculous getups it would really seem too Viliage People for me. Sorry, I'm just not down with that.
13a - My lovely wife laughed herself silly the other night picturing me trying to do the floor exercise with my series of basic summersaults and cartwheels. Clearly, she would watch your show.
13b - another great point. I don't care what is going through an athlete's mind ever. I would also like to do away with "what were you feeling when..." How about, do you ever worry that simsuit makes you look like a girl? or do you ever regret that you gave up everything in life to dedicate yourself to this sport that will earn you no money and provide you no professional advantage in life and still ended up only being the 8th best at it in the world?
Now, those are questions that should be asked.
13c - Actually, I'm pretty sure the gymnasts do this largely because they end up asking themselves that last question and thinking..."uh oh, I'm about to be broke. I've got to find a way to make some money off of the fact that I can spin around a bar really well.
The height the women get on their kill shots not to mention the velocity on their spikes is crazy.
What about the trash talking French swimmers that ended up choking to us in yesterday's relay. I loved it.
Your usual adroit and hilarious commentary, this time aimed at the Olympics. This post was really funny, as are the comments that have followed.
I don't know if you read Patrick Mead's blog (http://patrickmead.net), but his last two posts have been about the Olympics and he shares some of your views.
Tom & I have been watching non-stop and agree with your assessments, too. Keep writing!
Cheers & Blessings to you all today!
Dee
Anonymous, Thanks. By the way, love your poetry.
Dee, thank you. I will check it out and try to get caught up with your blog as well. Thanks for reading and commenting.
You might find my last several posts of interest because I've been writing about my experiences in going to law school at 44 and how ignorant I was about a ton of things. I'm sure your experiences were much different, but I'd be interested in hearing from you as to what you experienced and/or what you think about some of my observations.
Hope to have you leave some comments (or get some emails)!
Dee
P. S. How is your dad doing?!