The Games Are Over

[eggwards]

I'm probably writing this way too late, but system problems at work yesterday made the whole day a total bitch, and I never did get around to writing down my final Olympic thoughts, so here goes.

First, credit where credit is due, NBC did do a better job of showing all of the different sports this year - if you had cable; and you were willing to stay up into the wee hours. Badminton? Sure. Wrestling? Yes, a day after it happened, but yes. Where NBC used to show a more diverse lineup of sports in their latenight segment, this year they just placed it all on cable. There's still the bias of showing events that American's are in, but not as much as NBC Primetime.

NBC does a lot to protect it's affiliates, holding many of the big sports for primetime. This year was very odd because some events would be taking place live in the morning, Beijing time, and others would be held back from the night before. Of course everything was highly edited. It's odd when they are covering just a small group of competitors and suddenly you find that someone has taken a medal and was never covered.

Lets reduce the amount of beach volleyball. it's an awful sport and only serves as a way to get scantily clad women on TV. At least they aren't underage, but still. They barely show the Decathlon, the classic Olympic sport, won by an American even, but they show hours of people in the sand.

The second week of the games just fell flat, not only because the Michael Phelps show was over, but because the US wasn't doing so well in the running events (we did fine in the field events, but they don't focus on that), that NBC seemed a little bitchy about it. The games seemed to run out of steam after swimming and gymnastics were over.

Lastly, the closing ceremonies certainly didn't bring the excitement and the wonder that the opening ceremonies did. It didn't help that NBC tried to stretch out a 90 minute event into 3 hours with tons of flashbacks. The large tower just made the floor show look like the worlds largest showing of Chinese Acrobats at Six Flags. The fireworks still amaze, though.

London really came in and rattled the whole thing with the rock-and-roll double decker bus. Leona Lewis and Jimmy Page? Talk about a change in tenor at the ceremonies. They really livened up the ceremony, and then China couldn't really comeback because their pop-spectacular features government friendly songs sung by Jackie Chan and a group of people you never heard of. "Beijing, I Love You" is no "Whole Lotta Love."

For the 2012 games London should just load up the entire opening ceremonies with world-class pop acts, Annie Lennox, Paul McCartney, Elton John, Pet Shop Boys, Spice Girls, and whoever is hot at the time. Screw the thing of we have a billion people, just show that a small island has put out a ton of pop culture over the last 50 years or so and have that as your opening ceremony. Done.


Hey, note to the Republican convention guys, if you also thought the second week of the Olympics was too much, so will the second week of political stump speeches. People are already tired of presidential politics this year, and will be even more so next week when your giant American flag is up in St. Paul.

Otherwise, I am sunburned again. I can't seem to use the aerosol spray cans of sunscreen without missing some very large swaths. I have stripes right now.

Off to work, from what I hear the software problem we had yesterday still isn't fixed, so it should be quite a day.

Comments

[polomex.livejournal.com]

*nod* I tried explaining to people that as good as the coverage was, there were still far too many events that were available online only. I also wish NBC had a better "schedule." If I wanted to record Greco-Roman wrestling, I had to search for the block of four hours that included "Archery, Badminton, Wrestling, and Volleyball" or something like that. Why can't you just tell me what time that sport will be on? Why do I have to record four or five hours worth just to catch the 15 minutes that I'm looking for?

I too wish they had made a bigger deal out of some of the other athletes. Yes, Phelps is awesome. But what about athletes like Henry Cejudo, who won the gold in wrestling (55kg)? His story was very touching. I find headlines like "Cejudo Wins America's Heart" laughable, considering no one had a chance to follow his path. Or, as you noted, German weight lifter Matthias Steiner, who deserved incredible respect but only received a 30-second spot on the Olympic wrap-up. Instead, we were subjected to every one of the 35+ swimming competitions.

[eggwards.livejournal.com]

Yes. If it wasn't Phelps it was Nastia, and even after they left Beijing, they couldn't stop bringing them up. There were so many others, the men's volleyball team for one, and of course the decathlete. I did see a story about Cejudo, talking about his family, but it was only on CNBC as they quickly went through his matches one afternoon. That was definitely a story they should have highlited.

Don't forget that they tend to forget the rest of the world, what about the gay Austrailan diver who kept a shut out of Chinese golds in diving? What about the first person from Togo to win a medal? How about the strong showing by Great Britain this year - the BBC was on it. You really had to search for these stories because NBC didn't care.

Yes, the 4, and sometimes 8 hour blocks were hell on my Tivo as I was looking for weightlifting and wrestling. Even when they did show it they edited the coverage so much you would only see a few athletes. At least with Basketball and Soccer you get whole games. that wasn't so with Water Polo and Handball. Heck, some cable outlets even had a basketball and soccer channel. Why can't we show a full weight class?

Ugh. Well, there's always 2012, i suppose.

I can't say I saw any of the Greco-Roman event at all. All I saw was Freestyle.

[eggwards.livejournal.com]

Well, Dave (scotbear down below) does make a good point that there's a lot of history to be celebrated for the GB, but like China, they may want to avoid a few bits of stuff. Just going through and not doing the "let me introduce you to my city" thing would be different and refreshing. I'd like more of a look forward, especially as that seems to be London's outlook these days.

The other thought is to go small. Try to have the most intimate gathering of 100,000 in a stadium. Having a concert without all the cirque mess will do it, and be unique. Buck the trend Brittania!

[closeted2.livejournal.com]

The closing ceremonies were much too long. Too many commercials, too much going on, with no explanations. Also they tried to show the whole field, and I could not follow what was going on. Make it simpler, for us simple minded folks.
I do not think this makes sense. Not simple enough.

[eggwards.livejournal.com]

NBC really botched it, and probably lost a lot of viewers. The ceremonies before the dousing of the torch and the party are terribly boring, with speeches and flags going up and down and such. By the time the average viewer had to sit through all of that, they were handed more commercials and unnecessary flashbacks. I fast-forwarded over much of what was presented after London's little piece because there was no surprise, on "ooh" moment, and no one recognizable except Jackie Chan.

I think part of the problem was that there was no real narrative to the mess after the dousing of the flame, so there wasn't much to talk about except that you had acrobats and singers whom western countries wouldn't know. Not very compelling.

[scotbear.livejournal.com]

Wow...I for one would be greatly disappointed if 50 years of pop culture was touted as Britain's cultural contribution to the world. How about a thousand years plus worth of art and literature and architecture and music and politics; Stonehenge to Magna Carta to William Shakespeare to Christopher Wren to Winston Churchill etc, etc, etc.......
I guess that doesn't hold a candle to the Spice Girls!!! LOL

[eggwards.livejournal.com]

This is London's third time to host. Now the last two times the giant bombast that is the opening ceremonies wasn't there, but still, does London have to do a whole history of England and the British Empire? It just seems old. I hope London will look to do something different and not give into the whole effort of trying to top the last city that we've had going for at least the last 7 olympiads.

Yes, some of us have a short term memory, but it depends on this, are you trying to put on a show for the world, or trying to do a history lesson by cirque du solei?

[gorkabear.livejournal.com]

Or La Fura dels Baus for what it's worth

[scotbear.livejournal.com]

I'm not suggesting anything about what they do or don't do as an opening ceremony...I certainly don't want it to be long and drawn out and pompous. I'm just suggesting that only recognizing 50 years of pop music as the extent of Britain's cultural contribution to the world is embarrassingly narrow, like so many people who don't recognize anything outside their own sphere or frame of reference or even lifespan as being important.