More Miscellaneous Olympic Musings

Track and field is underway at the London Games, and Oscar Pistorious has already made history as the first double amputee to race in regular Olympics.  The South African runner, who competes wearing blade-like prosthetics, ran the 400-meter race, advanced to the semifinal in that event.  Some folks, including the great Michael Johnson, feel the prosthetics actually give him an unfair advantage because they increase his speed.  I don't know if that's true, though it's worth noting that not too many people expect Pistorious to win a medal of any sort.  But whether he wins or loses, Pistorious has opened doors for similarly handicapped athletes who no longer have to compete in just the Paralympics that follow the regular Games.

I never thought that the biggest scandal of these Games would involve . . . badminton.  And I never thought it would involve cheating through losing rather than winning.  Eight female players from China, South Korea and Indonesia were disqualified and thrown out when they deliberately lost to competitors in their pools in order to get easier opponents to beat later.  While the South Koreans and Indonesians appealed the decision, China - not exactly a country known for fair play - did the honorable thing and sent its athletes home.  Well, at least the players weren't on drugs.  Or were they? They would have had to be smoking something to think they could get away with something like this.  At best, the Chinese Olympic authorities have preserved some of the sport's integrity. At worst, this makes a sport long associated in America with boring suburban family cookouts look all the more ridiculous here.

NBC is still getting flak for its Olympic coverage, and I continue to point out that certain marquee events ought to be shown on tape delay in weekday prime-time so people with nine-to-five jobs can watch them after dinner.  Of course, they could show marquee events live on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, when these same nine-to-fivers are home.  But that would run afoul of the advertisers, who want maximum returns on their sponsorships.  So I, as of this writing, haven't seen Michael Phelps in his last Olympic race yet.  I did see live this afternoon the American men's volleyball team lose to the Russians and the American men's water polo team lose (badly) to the Serbians.  But I appreciated seeing the men's 10,000-meter race and watching American Galen Rupp win the silver medal (the first U.S. medal in this event since Billy Mills's gold medal in 1964) behind his friend and co-trainee, British gold medalist Mo Farah. (Hey, Mo! :-D)   

That said, there was no reason other than pleasing the advertisers to air the Olympic opening ceremonies on tape delay, especially when people in other countries sharing our time zones saw it live.  We didn't have to see our local news instead.  But NBC doesn't broadcast for us, it broadcasts for its shareholders and sponsors.  A public television system like the BBC - or even the CBC - could have covered these Games with its viewers in mind, and without concern for profits, which is why special broadcasting interests force PBS to operate on a shoestring budget.  Maybe that's why the PBS NewsHour has news summary reports and feature stories spoiling the outcomes of tape-delayed events - and even repeats the results in its end-of-show recaps.  (Cheeky!!) 

One last thing - Jessica Ennis is hot. :-) 

Way on down south, London town . . .