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Is anyone here excited about the summer Olympics?
- Thread starter ski diva
- Start date
Jenny
Angel Diva
Love it all - for the duration of the Olympics I choose a "willing suspension of disbelief". No one does drugs, no one is cheating, it's all for the glory of sport. I'm probably one of the few people who gets mad when they talk during the Olympic hymn because they always talk over the part with the harmonies I like.
Favorite two sports are gymnastics and track, but I'll even watch weightlifting if it's on.
Thank goodness there's a few days between the Tour de France and the Olympics or my butt would probably fuse to the couch!
Favorite two sports are gymnastics and track, but I'll even watch weightlifting if it's on.
Thank goodness there's a few days between the Tour de France and the Olympics or my butt would probably fuse to the couch!
litterbug
Ski Diva Extraordinaire
I get warm fuzzies about the Olympics. Jenny, I'm with you--I only just caught up with stage replays on Friday night. My evenings have been ruined, especially for the mountain stages, when I'm pinned to my seat for hours! Dinner? Feed the cat? Hah! So I may have to rein myself in. Or I may tape everything and be watching for weeks.
pinto
Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Looooove the Olympics. Haaaaate much of the media treatment (those $&#*#*$ing vignettes! Argh! Remember Dan Jansen ... gawd, I mean, yes, touching story/stories, but good grief.)
Still, I will set aside my crankiness, as I do every other year, and enjoy myself immensely.
Still, I will set aside my crankiness, as I do every other year, and enjoy myself immensely.
I guess that's what broke me. I love the game and used to enjoy watching it. But no more. I'm so sick of the media making a mockery of it I stopped watching the last couple ones. (I did watch the opening ceremony of both Korea and China, but that's got nothing to do with the game, just entertainment)
EnglishSnowflake
Ski Diva Extraordinaire
I like the Parade of Nations in the opening ceremony, especially when the really small countries come with only a handful of athletes but still get to walk in along with everyone else and wave their nations flag, I find it really touching.
Sports-wise, equestrian and gymnastics are favourites but will probably watch rather a lot of everything this year, being host country and all! You can't move an inch around the UK at the moment without bumping into something to do with the games, it's a bit crazy and overwhelming to be quite honest, and I don't live in London!
Sports-wise, equestrian and gymnastics are favourites but will probably watch rather a lot of everything this year, being host country and all! You can't move an inch around the UK at the moment without bumping into something to do with the games, it's a bit crazy and overwhelming to be quite honest, and I don't live in London!
If you can get a Canadian station to watch the games on, better. Their mandate is to show all Canadians participating, but the slant isn't so bias to just the Canadians. They will show all winners whether a Canuck or not. Haven't looked yet to see about CTV on line coverage, but they did do the winter. If I see a link later I'll post it for everyone.
Sports I'm looking forward to - rowing, kayaking, canoeing, mountain bike, swimming, diving, sychro swim, horse jumping, dressage. Things the Canuck do well in. (Men's cox for the 8's is a local boy!!)
Sports I'm looking forward to - rowing, kayaking, canoeing, mountain bike, swimming, diving, sychro swim, horse jumping, dressage. Things the Canuck do well in. (Men's cox for the 8's is a local boy!!)
Lilywhite
Ski Diva Extraordinaire
I am super excited, my OH's son is taking part in the closing ceremony so my lucky OH is off to watch the rehearsal tomorrow night. I am still laid up so I will have to wait for the TV coverage. His boy has had to sign a non-disclosure agreement to take part so I know nothing!
I love the Judo but will watch mostly anything although my least favourite is the hockey (too fast to watch comfortably) and the mens footy (over saturated with football on the TV all year round).
This year I will probably overdose on the coverage as I still can't move around too much- BRING IT ON!
I love the Judo but will watch mostly anything although my least favourite is the hockey (too fast to watch comfortably) and the mens footy (over saturated with football on the TV all year round).
This year I will probably overdose on the coverage as I still can't move around too much- BRING IT ON!
Jenny
Angel Diva
I love when we can watch the Canadian coverage - it seems so much less "hype". A few heartwarming stories are OK, but when the media decides ahead of time who we're all going to love and then saturates the airwaves with it it just gets to be too much. I also like the Canadia cameramen better for the gymnastics coverage - they seem to stay more stationary and not swing the camera up and down along with the athlete on the high bar, for example. And they also don't go in for the closeups and then miss the trick because they're in tight on someone's face. (At least in my memory, that is - maybe they've changed, too.)
I'going to try and see what we can find online, so that we're not totally tied to the NBC primetime show.
https://www.ctvolympics.ca/viewers-guide/index.html
Top left of navigation bar has a "watch now" link. That should be it, but nothing is happening at the moment, so not sure.
Top left of navigation bar has a "watch now" link. That should be it, but nothing is happening at the moment, so not sure.
Jenny
Angel Diva
Yay - thanks. Going to make sure to give that a try.
I'm with you. I'd rather see more actual coverage, less "heartwarming story". They all train hard and have excellent stories, so lets see them all compete, not just the top few who the media happens to think we're going to like the most and then you get to hear about and watch only those people.
I also have to say that I get pretty frustrated by the big money aspect of tickets and corporate sponsorship and whatnot while the athletes get nothing unless they are big names or in mainstream professional sports, or live in a country that allows them to pursue their sport while in the military or another government job or stipend or that type of thing. I'm not suggesting we should pay taxes to support olympic athletes, but I'd rather see some of that cash flow from television and everything else trickling down to the athletes. I know they make a big deal about athletes "doing it for the love of the sport" but I don't know if it's the older I get or what, but it seems more and more absurd. It's costing 11 Billion Pounds and I have friends who train and train and work multiple jobs and rack up debt to get a chance to go and the more I see it, the more I think it's just big companies making money off of unpaid athletes.
Christy
Angel Diva
Has everyone seen Bud Greenspan's documentaries? He has one for each Olympics from LA in 1984. They're great! Even those of you that don't like the personal interest stories might like them--he focuses on just a few stories from each games and does a detailed story (they are not cheesy like the networks' bits). They aren't always about a winner, and they're quite gripping. His story about Janica and Ivica Kostelic (well, it was mostly about Janica in 2002, when she won Croatia's first ever winter medals) was great. And And I can't forget the story of Khalid Skah, the Moroccan that was accused of cheating in the 10,000m, disqualified, and when they figured out he hadn't cheated they reinstated his win back but the whole crowd booed him during the medal ceremony. It was heartwrenching to watch. Anyway, check these out if you love the Olympics.
That sounds interesting. And it's not that I don't like personal interest stories as much as I don't like that at least with our US coverage, they ususally come at the expense of seeing other, less "popular" athletes compete. Instead of watching the competition, you get to watch a cheesy story about dedication and blah blah blah. (Or 18 different montages about how much Michael Phelps eats...) Not that some of them aren't interesting, but they usually feel repetitive and I get frustrated knowing I'm missing stuff that I'm more interested in. And then there's the issue where they like to only show the US athletes. Yeesh - I have like 1000 channels of TV. Show the whole darned thing. And then you can add in all the personal interest stuff. I know how to fast forward....
Jenny
Angel Diva
And what I really hate is when they show us an American athlete in place of the athlete from another country who is actually winning the competition! I mean, I want to see ours, but I also want to see the actual contest, too. Show me both, please.
And does anyone else spend the whole Olympic period trying to avoid hearing who won what's going to be on TV that night? All day long you have to avoid the radio and you can't go to any Internet news sites either. Everyone who knows me knows better than to tell me the results but it's so hard to avoid them, at least for the marquis events that I like. They never just blurt out the yachting, dressage, shooting, etc.
And does anyone else spend the whole Olympic period trying to avoid hearing who won what's going to be on TV that night? All day long you have to avoid the radio and you can't go to any Internet news sites either. Everyone who knows me knows better than to tell me the results but it's so hard to avoid them, at least for the marquis events that I like. They never just blurt out the yachting, dressage, shooting, etc.
