13.8.08

Olympic Observations or Procrastination

I have a couple of things to do today, but I stayed up way too late last night/this morning. I don’t feel like doing anything, so I figured I would start and hopefully complete an entry instead of getting in the shower.

Part of the reason I was up last night was because I was glued to the Primetime edition of the Olympics. I wanted to make sure Phelps got his two medals and I’ve always been partial to gymnastics.

Here are a few of my observations categorized by good and bad.

Beijing 2008—The Bad

One of the things I’ve complained about since opening day about these Olympics is some of the commentary. I don’t know the names of all the hosts/commentators on NBC save for Bob “Big Head” Costas or Matt Lauer, so I will call many of them the dude or the chick.

Costas and Lauer annoyed me with some of their comments during the Parade of the Nations (my favorite part of any opening ceremony) because they poked fun at the clothes some of the different countries wore. Perhaps some of the garb seems ridiculous to you, but you are on a television station that can be seen around the world. The other thing that annoyed me is that as Guatemala marched in, one of them talked about the guy carrying the flag, Kevin Cordon who is their badminton player, and said, “He might as well go home because China has the gold medal locked in on this one.”

D-dawg was annoyed that they kept saying, “Such and such country has NEVER won an Olympic medal.” After seeing the magnitude of the U.S. Olympic team, D-dawg said, “Well, no wonder we win so many medals! They should take that into account when tallying up medal counts.”*

I know it’s their job to talk and fill us in on these little tidbits, but watch what you say. Ethnocentric much?

Then, last night, when the U.S. Women’s Gymnastic team was done and they were interviewing they team, the woman/chick would not lay off Alicia Sacramone about her mistakes. I mean, I get it that they could have taken gold and they had a chance and yadda yadda yadda, but it happens! People fall off the beam or miss a landing or step out of bounds. And from all the camera in your face shots of Alicia after her last two events, you could tell, she was beating herself up over it, why lay into her in the interview? I just wanted to reach through the TV, take the mic, and whack Mrs. Interviewer over the head and tell her to shut up. They could have not placed. They could sucked it up on all of the events and came in last place. Leave her alone already!

The Good

It was awesome when the men’s relay team beat the French in the pool. I’m not partial to smack talk. In fact, in politics, when people put out negative ads, each time I see one, I loose a bit of respect for them. I firmly believe there is a high and low road, and I like it when people take the high road.

The other good is that I’ve noticed more diversity in the U.S. Olympians. When I saw Raj Bhavsar, I thought it was so freaking cool. Then when I heard how he was an alternate and this was really his last chance to be in the Olympics, I was even happier. The icing on the cake was that his hometown is Houston.

I’m also super excited about the Lopezes who are competing in Taekwando next week. Ahem, also from the Houston area. And lets not forget Bernard Lagat and Lopez Lomong.

Prior to the start of the games, I had read an article about how some countries import their athletes and I thought it was unfair and certain the U.S. did this. But some of them they didn’t import; they’re actual home grown peeps with some spice. I think that’s awesome.


*Neither of us had paid much attention to prior Olympics. We watched them here and there, but not like we have this year. I suppose the giant TV helps. D-dawg says it’s not “giant,” but it is to me! I’ve always had a 21” TV; this is like twice as big!

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