I don't know about you, but I've about had enough of the various lunacies in Olympic broadcast coverage. Sometimes the most interesting things are elsewhere. Check out this writeup about Team Japan that I just found.
Currently Japan is sitting pretty in Rio with 33 medals, 10 of them gold.
Showing posts with label Rio Olympics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rio Olympics. Show all posts
Thursday, August 18, 2016
Friday, August 12, 2016
From Rio: A Tale of Two Images in Sportsmanship
The Egyptian judoka refusing to shake his Israeli opponent's hand vs. the gymnasts from North and South Korea taking a selfie together.
🔴Deux images des @jeuxolympiques, deux volontés diamétralement opposées. #Rio2016— Jean-Paul Ney (@jpney) August 12, 2016
Vouloir faire la paix ou la guerre pic.twitter.com/4UCPXY4WEW
Crushing the Competition ... and Commentators' Puny Vocabularies
The NBC Olympic commentators have been - as a collective - ludicrously bad this time around. I couldn't believe I actually read these words just now about the US women's gymnastics juggernaut led by Simone Biles and Aly Raisman:
By the way, commentators, let me suggest this. On second thought, if you can't come up with words, then just be silent. That alone would improve the broadcasts immeasurably.
The commentators, whose voices normally bounce with enthusiasm, sounded suddenly weary. Would people care about a competition that wasn’t competitive? Would they grow bored of greatness? Or, as one of them plaintively asked, "How many times can you say ‘Wow!’ and ‘That was amazing!’?"What kind of question is that? As my buddy Alessandra says, "There's no kill like overkill." When greatness is on full glorious display, you don't ask why. You watch and are glad you were there!
By the way, commentators, let me suggest this. On second thought, if you can't come up with words, then just be silent. That alone would improve the broadcasts immeasurably.
The Awesome Diversity of Team USA
Here's something you might not know! 48 members of Team USA were born in 30 different countries on 6 different continents. The melting pot is in the hunt for medals in Rio!
Friday, August 05, 2016
Rio Games Start Today
The Rio Olympic train wreck hoopla's about to start, so it's time to cut to the chase: here's a half-snarky ranking of all the Olympic events so you can plan to watch or not watch. By the way, I totally don't think equestrian sports should rank so low ... Then again I'm living up (or down) to the stereotype that girls love horses, right?
Also: some sports are pretty much servings of world-class eye candy. Let's make a deal, ladies and gents: let's not accuse each other of ogling and objectifying so we can get on with watching - respectively - men's water polo and women's beach volleyball, OK?
I might not have much free time these days, but I will be watching the opening ceremonies tonight because - get real - I can't resist making stupid comments, especially about fashion choices in the Parade of Nations. Every time at least one delegation wears (designer!) clothes that look like they were pulled out of Rio's festering, disease-ridden waste dump of an ocean. Still, perhaps this year's most fashion-forward outfit might be mosquito netting.
By the way, I will also assuredly be punching the mute button on my remote control A LOT. For the most part the TV commentators are completely insufferable. Bob Costas at least has a streak of sassy smart-aleck that makes him occasionally entertaining, but the others are an undifferentiated mass of Joker-like Botox grins and inane hype-spewing chatter.
I may not have reached this point of grumpiness, but I'm getting really close. I do think this argument has some substance to it, by the way, especially given that the IOC is now approaching FIFA-level amounts of scandalous self-absorption, corruption, and Scrooge McDuck-like piles of money.
Sweet Christmas, I'm getting annoyed just writing this post. I have no real interest in the Rio Games other than a morbid desire to see whether they (and the media coverage) are going to be as horrendous and silly as I think they're going to be. Oh, all right, and also because anything's an improvement on the current nonstop media coverage of Hillary and Trump. Yup, coverage of an actual toxic stew of sewage and trash is still better than coverage of those two figurative toxic stews of sewage and trash.
Oh, all right. One last thought: on the up side. You all know that I hate the "everyone's a winner" sappy mentality of school culture where everybody gets a trophy just for showing up. At least the point of the Games (the brutal REAL point, not the happy-slappy propaganda talking point) is flat-out WINNING. For the next two weeks, despite all the inevitable nonsensical claptrap about whatever and retch-inducing images of NBC broadcasters attempting to samba, we're also going to get coverage about athletes training and working hard and having goals and being dedicated and embracing discipline and aiming for excellence. We're going to get coverage of just how bloody hard it is to get really good at something. And I'm all for that as an antidote to the milquetoast, maudlin approach that celebrates general mediocrity. Hey, thrill of victory and agony of defeat and all, competition and contest, winners and losers on the field, and even if you didn't win, you worked and trained and competed hard in the attempt to win or at least to improve yourself. There's a life lesson to be learned.
Also: some sports are pretty much servings of world-class eye candy. Let's make a deal, ladies and gents: let's not accuse each other of ogling and objectifying so we can get on with watching - respectively - men's water polo and women's beach volleyball, OK?
I might not have much free time these days, but I will be watching the opening ceremonies tonight because - get real - I can't resist making stupid comments, especially about fashion choices in the Parade of Nations. Every time at least one delegation wears (designer!) clothes that look like they were pulled out of Rio's festering, disease-ridden waste dump of an ocean. Still, perhaps this year's most fashion-forward outfit might be mosquito netting.
By the way, I will also assuredly be punching the mute button on my remote control A LOT. For the most part the TV commentators are completely insufferable. Bob Costas at least has a streak of sassy smart-aleck that makes him occasionally entertaining, but the others are an undifferentiated mass of Joker-like Botox grins and inane hype-spewing chatter.
I may not have reached this point of grumpiness, but I'm getting really close. I do think this argument has some substance to it, by the way, especially given that the IOC is now approaching FIFA-level amounts of scandalous self-absorption, corruption, and Scrooge McDuck-like piles of money.
Sweet Christmas, I'm getting annoyed just writing this post. I have no real interest in the Rio Games other than a morbid desire to see whether they (and the media coverage) are going to be as horrendous and silly as I think they're going to be. Oh, all right, and also because anything's an improvement on the current nonstop media coverage of Hillary and Trump. Yup, coverage of an actual toxic stew of sewage and trash is still better than coverage of those two figurative toxic stews of sewage and trash.
Oh, all right. One last thought: on the up side. You all know that I hate the "everyone's a winner" sappy mentality of school culture where everybody gets a trophy just for showing up. At least the point of the Games (the brutal REAL point, not the happy-slappy propaganda talking point) is flat-out WINNING. For the next two weeks, despite all the inevitable nonsensical claptrap about whatever and retch-inducing images of NBC broadcasters attempting to samba, we're also going to get coverage about athletes training and working hard and having goals and being dedicated and embracing discipline and aiming for excellence. We're going to get coverage of just how bloody hard it is to get really good at something. And I'm all for that as an antidote to the milquetoast, maudlin approach that celebrates general mediocrity. Hey, thrill of victory and agony of defeat and all, competition and contest, winners and losers on the field, and even if you didn't win, you worked and trained and competed hard in the attempt to win or at least to improve yourself. There's a life lesson to be learned.
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