| Olympics 09:44 - Aug 4 with 18694 views | Roller |
Ignoring the pointless controversy that some sections of the media are trying to stir up over the selection of Andy Murray as the British flag bearer in the opening ceremony, tomorrow sees the official start of the Rio Olympics. I fully expect to enjoy the “festival of sport” and to thoroughly enjoy watch a whole series of sports the I would otherwise not give the time of day to. QPRSki put me onto handball before the London Olympics four years ago, it is a frenetic but very skilful sport, well worth watching if you have never done so. Outside of the usual diet of athletics, cycling, rowing etc, I’ve found myself watching bowls, yachting, even archery.
However, I will not be watching golf, tennis nor football. I firmly believe that these sports should not be included, the Olympics should only feature sports where winning the Olympic gold medal is the pinnacle of the sportsman’s or sportswoman’s career; that will never be the case with these sports.
[Post edited 4 Aug 2016 9:45]
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| Olympics on 07:14 - Aug 11 with 1730 views | Roller |
2 golds and 4 bronze medals yesterday, great entertainment. Potential for many more, especially with the indoor cycling starts today. | | | |
| Olympics on 09:39 - Aug 11 with 1642 views | stevec |
Hate to be a killjoy but when do the gymnastics and water based sports come to an end? |  | | |
| Olympics on 11:04 - Aug 11 with 1616 views | HantsR |
| Olympics on 15:22 - Aug 8 by Stanisgod |
Beach volleyball , ladies of course.😠|
Yeah I've been watching some of that. Pity about the wrist injury, but I should be better by next week. |  | | |
| Olympics on 17:25 - Aug 11 with 1564 views | BrianMcCarthy |
After watching a lot of Irish and British coverage this week (I work at home) I've noticed one thing - Olympic coverage is cheerleading. There appear to be rules.
Rules of Being a TV Olympic Presenter
1. Be completely partisan. No need to even mention athletes from other Countries - they're all on steroids.
2. Keep repeating how nice your athlete is. All of your athletes are nice.
3. Lots of shots of your athlete's family in the crowd, please. All of your athlete's families are nice.
4. Interview your athlete's family and make them cry. With joy. Or pain. Either will do.
5. Parents of other athletes never drove their kids to training when they were five. They were on so much steroids they ran to training and back.
6. If your athlete loses it is because they are young and developing or old and brave. Athletes from other Countries are not of varying ages.
7. If your athlete loses use the phrase 'hard luck' ad nauseam. Their defeat had nothing to do with ability or lack thereof.
8. If your athlete loses you should mutter darkly about judges.
9. Or steroids
10. All of the other athletes are on steroids.
11. There are only a handful of foreign countries - America, Brazil, Africa, Europe, Eastern Europe. No need to learn them all.
12. If your athlete's performances have improved in the last year that is because they are dedicated. And nice.
13. If your athlete's fails miserably to secure the expected gold mention that his/her time was a PB. Reaching a PB and coming seventh is excellent. It also proves that the other six were on steroids. And not nice.
14. Finally, SHOUT. A LOT. Screech, scream, squeal, shout, bawl, wail, howl. |  |
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| Olympics on 17:41 - Aug 11 with 1546 views | Antti_Heinola |
| Olympics on 17:25 - Aug 11 by BrianMcCarthy |
After watching a lot of Irish and British coverage this week (I work at home) I've noticed one thing - Olympic coverage is cheerleading. There appear to be rules.
Rules of Being a TV Olympic Presenter
1. Be completely partisan. No need to even mention athletes from other Countries - they're all on steroids.
2. Keep repeating how nice your athlete is. All of your athletes are nice.
3. Lots of shots of your athlete's family in the crowd, please. All of your athlete's families are nice.
4. Interview your athlete's family and make them cry. With joy. Or pain. Either will do.
5. Parents of other athletes never drove their kids to training when they were five. They were on so much steroids they ran to training and back.
6. If your athlete loses it is because they are young and developing or old and brave. Athletes from other Countries are not of varying ages.
7. If your athlete loses use the phrase 'hard luck' ad nauseam. Their defeat had nothing to do with ability or lack thereof.
8. If your athlete loses you should mutter darkly about judges.
9. Or steroids
10. All of the other athletes are on steroids.
11. There are only a handful of foreign countries - America, Brazil, Africa, Europe, Eastern Europe. No need to learn them all.
12. If your athlete's performances have improved in the last year that is because they are dedicated. And nice.
13. If your athlete's fails miserably to secure the expected gold mention that his/her time was a PB. Reaching a PB and coming seventh is excellent. It also proves that the other six were on steroids. And not nice.
14. Finally, SHOUT. A LOT. Screech, scream, squeal, shout, bawl, wail, howl. |
Really?
I think the thing is with British coverage that there's so much sport going on that you have to focus on the sports where you might see a British medal. So of course it feels lopsided. And then yeah there's cheerleading. So what? Every country will be doing that and you also have to remember that most of the experts, especially on the minority sports, will have worked with, trained with, mentored, followed the careers of the people they're watching. There's much more closeness there than with football, for example, so that partisanship is inevitable - and there's nothing wrong with it.
I've watched loads of the gymnastics though, and that to me seems incredibly even-handed - they wanted Whitlock to get a medal, of course, but they were gushing for all the phenomenal athletes in there.
And, you know, in 2012 it was British TV that made a star of 'Chad's Dad'.
Haven't really heard loads of chat about steroids, but when an entire country has been caught doing state sponsored doping or when a swimmer has suddenly improved her times by an incredible degree in a very short space of time, you can't blame people - or commentators - for being sceptical. |  |
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| Olympics on 17:50 - Aug 11 with 1510 views | BrianMcCarthy |
| Olympics on 17:41 - Aug 11 by Antti_Heinola |
Really?
I think the thing is with British coverage that there's so much sport going on that you have to focus on the sports where you might see a British medal. So of course it feels lopsided. And then yeah there's cheerleading. So what? Every country will be doing that and you also have to remember that most of the experts, especially on the minority sports, will have worked with, trained with, mentored, followed the careers of the people they're watching. There's much more closeness there than with football, for example, so that partisanship is inevitable - and there's nothing wrong with it.
I've watched loads of the gymnastics though, and that to me seems incredibly even-handed - they wanted Whitlock to get a medal, of course, but they were gushing for all the phenomenal athletes in there.
And, you know, in 2012 it was British TV that made a star of 'Chad's Dad'.
Haven't really heard loads of chat about steroids, but when an entire country has been caught doing state sponsored doping or when a swimmer has suddenly improved her times by an incredible degree in a very short space of time, you can't blame people - or commentators - for being sceptical. |
Antti, I'm being completely tongue-in-cheek about this. I'm actually enjoying it.
I do find it funny, though, that in Ireland and in Britain you get really tough constructive criticism of sports and drug use all year around but that once the Olympics kicks off we're treated to John Craven's Newsround meets Disney Sports. | |
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| Olympics on 20:27 - Aug 11 with 1466 views | kensalriser |
Chinese gymnastics team seem a little on the young side. A Chinese year must have more days than the standard 365. |  |
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| Olympics on 20:54 - Aug 11 with 1457 views | LongsufferingR |
| Olympics on 17:50 - Aug 11 by BrianMcCarthy |
Antti, I'm being completely tongue-in-cheek about this. I'm actually enjoying it.
I do find it funny, though, that in Ireland and in Britain you get really tough constructive criticism of sports and drug use all year around but that once the Olympics kicks off we're treated to John Craven's Newsround meets Disney Sports. |
.....and number 14:
If you've proved to all and sundry that you're a shlt presenter on programmes about farms or on children's TV who can't ad lib or construct an adult sentence, you've got yourself a job at the Olympics. |  | | |
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| Olympics on 22:51 - Aug 11 with 1421 views | DWQPR |
GOLD! Team GB Men's Team Sprint in the velodrome, beat NZ the world champions by 0.1 of a second, that was one hell of a race! Hopefully another gold deluge on two wheels coming. Four years ago you couldn't get a ticket for the velodrome at any price. The place is three quarters empty in Rio, except for loads of GB fans. |  |
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| Olympics on 22:59 - Aug 11 with 1408 views | daveB |
BBC switching channels every half an hour is doing my head in but been great so far. Cycling been great tonight |  | | |
| Olympics on 01:40 - Aug 12 with 1360 views | SydneyRs |
| Olympics on 17:41 - Aug 11 by Antti_Heinola |
Really?
I think the thing is with British coverage that there's so much sport going on that you have to focus on the sports where you might see a British medal. So of course it feels lopsided. And then yeah there's cheerleading. So what? Every country will be doing that and you also have to remember that most of the experts, especially on the minority sports, will have worked with, trained with, mentored, followed the careers of the people they're watching. There's much more closeness there than with football, for example, so that partisanship is inevitable - and there's nothing wrong with it.
I've watched loads of the gymnastics though, and that to me seems incredibly even-handed - they wanted Whitlock to get a medal, of course, but they were gushing for all the phenomenal athletes in there.
And, you know, in 2012 it was British TV that made a star of 'Chad's Dad'.
Haven't really heard loads of chat about steroids, but when an entire country has been caught doing state sponsored doping or when a swimmer has suddenly improved her times by an incredible degree in a very short space of time, you can't blame people - or commentators - for being sceptical. |
Trust me, the Brits have nothing on Australia when it comes to this.
Imagine a country that appears to base almost its entire self esteem on how many medals its very heavily funded sports program can produce each olympics (My God they were squirming in London). Throw in a load of gushing, pathetic presenters and dreadful one eyed coverage and there you have it. Thankfully these days there is the joy of using VPNs to largely avoid this nonsense.
Yesterday some clown interviewed an Aus basketball player after they lost narrowly to the US. She sounded like she needed to go back to school for about 5 more years and asked ridiculous questions about how great an experience it must have been, to which the player understandably responded along the lines of "not really, we lost the game after being so close to winning". It was cringeworthy.
For me it doesn't really start until around now and in particular when the track and field gets going. Thankfully the swimming will be finished soon, it seems to go on forever! | | | |
| Olympics on 01:56 - Aug 12 with 1355 views | jonno |
| Olympics on 01:40 - Aug 12 by SydneyRs |
Trust me, the Brits have nothing on Australia when it comes to this.
Imagine a country that appears to base almost its entire self esteem on how many medals its very heavily funded sports program can produce each olympics (My God they were squirming in London). Throw in a load of gushing, pathetic presenters and dreadful one eyed coverage and there you have it. Thankfully these days there is the joy of using VPNs to largely avoid this nonsense.
Yesterday some clown interviewed an Aus basketball player after they lost narrowly to the US. She sounded like she needed to go back to school for about 5 more years and asked ridiculous questions about how great an experience it must have been, to which the player understandably responded along the lines of "not really, we lost the game after being so close to winning". It was cringeworthy.
For me it doesn't really start until around now and in particular when the track and field gets going. Thankfully the swimming will be finished soon, it seems to go on forever! |
Doesn't sound like much has changed there then. I recall watching some coverage in Oz on TV a few years ago, I think it was the World Athletics, and was amazed to see that for track races they only showed a close up of the Australian athlete for the whole race, you never saw any of the other competitors! |  | | |
| Olympics on 02:02 - Aug 12 with 1352 views | jonno |
Anybody watching the hockey? It appears now that every time one team gets a corner, the whole game stops for five minutes while the defending team don protective face masks. A bit like cricket when everything stops so close in fielders can put on all their protective gear, but at least cricket is a stop start game, hockey is not meant to be. H&S initiative no doubt. | | | |
| Olympics on 02:05 - Aug 12 with 1351 views | SydneyRs |
| Olympics on 01:56 - Aug 12 by jonno |
Doesn't sound like much has changed there then. I recall watching some coverage in Oz on TV a few years ago, I think it was the World Athletics, and was amazed to see that for track races they only showed a close up of the Australian athlete for the whole race, you never saw any of the other competitors! |
A few years ago their dire coverage was all you had access to here. Sydney olympics was the worst, as being host nation they had competitors in EVERYTHING. They didn't show the 100m final live because an Aussie was on in the Taekwondo...
It really is brilliant to be able to use a VPN and watch far superior broadcasts elsewhere and actually see what you want to see, rather than some crap water polo, hockey, beach volleyball etc game Australia is involved in. | | | |
| Olympics on 02:30 - Aug 12 with 1341 views | jonno |
Another thing. Why can't the BBC have a dedicated Olympics channel just for the time the Olympics is on? Instead of continually switching from BBC1, BBC2 and showing some things on BBC4. When you consider all the hundreds of other channels showing things like repeats of old episodes of shite like "Bird Of A Feather" surely that's not much to ask? | | | |
| Olympics on 09:28 - Aug 12 with 1284 views | HantsR |
| Olympics on 02:05 - Aug 12 by SydneyRs |
A few years ago their dire coverage was all you had access to here. Sydney olympics was the worst, as being host nation they had competitors in EVERYTHING. They didn't show the 100m final live because an Aussie was on in the Taekwondo...
It really is brilliant to be able to use a VPN and watch far superior broadcasts elsewhere and actually see what you want to see, rather than some crap water polo, hockey, beach volleyball etc game Australia is involved in. |
Too right. In 1984 and stationed on a remote Pacific island, I was obliged to listen to radio Australia for the men's 1500 final. One lap had gone and they simply broke from the action to give me 15 mins of riveting local news. On return it was mentioned almost as an aside that Seb Coe had won the last race. | | | |
| Olympics on 10:30 - Aug 12 with 1260 views | stevec |
| Olympics on 02:30 - Aug 12 by jonno |
Another thing. Why can't the BBC have a dedicated Olympics channel just for the time the Olympics is on? Instead of continually switching from BBC1, BBC2 and showing some things on BBC4. When you consider all the hundreds of other channels showing things like repeats of old episodes of shite like "Bird Of A Feather" surely that's not much to ask? |
ideally like a feature like red button saying 'life story alert' so I can hit the mute button | | | |
| Olympics on 10:57 - Aug 12 with 1242 views | kensalriser |
| Olympics on 02:30 - Aug 12 by jonno |
Another thing. Why can't the BBC have a dedicated Olympics channel just for the time the Olympics is on? Instead of continually switching from BBC1, BBC2 and showing some things on BBC4. When you consider all the hundreds of other channels showing things like repeats of old episodes of shite like "Bird Of A Feather" surely that's not much to ask? |
They do - on the red button. | |
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| Olympics on 11:37 - Aug 12 with 1225 views | Antti_Heinola |
| Olympics on 17:50 - Aug 11 by BrianMcCarthy |
Antti, I'm being completely tongue-in-cheek about this. I'm actually enjoying it.
I do find it funny, though, that in Ireland and in Britain you get really tough constructive criticism of sports and drug use all year around but that once the Olympics kicks off we're treated to John Craven's Newsround meets Disney Sports. |
ha ha, very true! | |
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| Olympics on 11:39 - Aug 12 with 1222 views | Antti_Heinola |
| Olympics on 02:30 - Aug 12 by jonno |
Another thing. Why can't the BBC have a dedicated Olympics channel just for the time the Olympics is on? Instead of continually switching from BBC1, BBC2 and showing some things on BBC4. When you consider all the hundreds of other channels showing things like repeats of old episodes of shite like "Bird Of A Feather" surely that's not much to ask? |
I was thinking that! Would be a much better idea. Just put everything on BBC2. | |
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| Olympics on 11:40 - Aug 12 with 1216 views | Antti_Heinola |
| Olympics on 01:40 - Aug 12 by SydneyRs |
Trust me, the Brits have nothing on Australia when it comes to this.
Imagine a country that appears to base almost its entire self esteem on how many medals its very heavily funded sports program can produce each olympics (My God they were squirming in London). Throw in a load of gushing, pathetic presenters and dreadful one eyed coverage and there you have it. Thankfully these days there is the joy of using VPNs to largely avoid this nonsense.
Yesterday some clown interviewed an Aus basketball player after they lost narrowly to the US. She sounded like she needed to go back to school for about 5 more years and asked ridiculous questions about how great an experience it must have been, to which the player understandably responded along the lines of "not really, we lost the game after being so close to winning". It was cringeworthy.
For me it doesn't really start until around now and in particular when the track and field gets going. Thankfully the swimming will be finished soon, it seems to go on forever! |
Away from Oz, you do get the feeling that some Aussies are just desperate for the rest of the world to notice them.
There's a funny bit in that ep of the Simpsons when they go to Oz and they talk about how when Crocodile Dundee came out that Australia thought the newfound bond between the US and Oz was going to be an ongoing thing. | |
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| Olympics on 12:50 - Aug 12 with 1194 views | BrianMcCarthy |
| Olympics on 02:02 - Aug 12 by jonno |
Anybody watching the hockey? It appears now that every time one team gets a corner, the whole game stops for five minutes while the defending team don protective face masks. A bit like cricket when everything stops so close in fielders can put on all their protective gear, but at least cricket is a stop start game, hockey is not meant to be. H&S initiative no doubt. |
Was brought to Ireland v Holland in The Mardyke Fields in Cork a month ago by a friend who coaches hockey and was pulling the pi$$ out of him about this H&S stuff.
"The ball's very hard" he said
"Shush now man, Christy Ring hurled on this pitch. Don't talk about hard!"
 | |
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| Olympics on 14:18 - Aug 12 with 1175 views | Match82 |
| Olympics on 01:40 - Aug 12 by SydneyRs |
Trust me, the Brits have nothing on Australia when it comes to this.
Imagine a country that appears to base almost its entire self esteem on how many medals its very heavily funded sports program can produce each olympics (My God they were squirming in London). Throw in a load of gushing, pathetic presenters and dreadful one eyed coverage and there you have it. Thankfully these days there is the joy of using VPNs to largely avoid this nonsense.
Yesterday some clown interviewed an Aus basketball player after they lost narrowly to the US. She sounded like she needed to go back to school for about 5 more years and asked ridiculous questions about how great an experience it must have been, to which the player understandably responded along the lines of "not really, we lost the game after being so close to winning". It was cringeworthy.
For me it doesn't really start until around now and in particular when the track and field gets going. Thankfully the swimming will be finished soon, it seems to go on forever! |
Or the US. I seriously doubt people here know there are any events started so far except for the swimming and the gymnastics.
And due to trying to get the biggest tv audience possible (gotta make that ad money) a lot of the events aren't shown live. In London 2012 there was no legal way to watch the 100m final live FFS |  | | |
| Olympics on 22:04 - Aug 12 with 1123 views | BrianMcCarthy |
Great day in Ireland as Gary and Paul O' Donovan - my fellow West Corkonians - win silver, Ireland's first Olympic rowing medal.
Ireland have won too many silvers in the past and they're usually not all that welcome but these two lads have captured the imagination all week with their mix of dedication and laid-back smiling.
Their interviews have been comical over the last few days being refreshingly honest in comparison to the normal understandably stone-faced Q&A's.
Might be hard to understand the accents and might be hard to convey the sense of humour - it's pure pi$$-taking but look them up, they're a howl!
NB. Don't be alarmed by the "Tiocfaidh ár lá" at the end. The IRA aren't the only people to use this phrase, It's literal meaning is "our day will come" and the context here is that their "day" will be when they win gold. | |
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| Olympics on 23:25 - Aug 12 with 1067 views | DWQPR |
| Olympics on 22:04 - Aug 12 by BrianMcCarthy |
Great day in Ireland as Gary and Paul O' Donovan - my fellow West Corkonians - win silver, Ireland's first Olympic rowing medal.
Ireland have won too many silvers in the past and they're usually not all that welcome but these two lads have captured the imagination all week with their mix of dedication and laid-back smiling.
Their interviews have been comical over the last few days being refreshingly honest in comparison to the normal understandably stone-faced Q&A's.
Might be hard to understand the accents and might be hard to convey the sense of humour - it's pure pi$$-taking but look them up, they're a howl!
NB. Don't be alarmed by the "Tiocfaidh ár lá" at the end. The IRA aren't the only people to use this phrase, It's literal meaning is "our day will come" and the context here is that their "day" will be when they win gold. |
A little claim to fame for me relating to the rowing. The CEO of the British Olympic Rowing Association is a guy called Sir David Tanner, who happened to be my history teacher back in the early 80's and who should also be credited as the person who kicked me out of sixth form for drinking too much! Brilliant teacher and the man credited for organising British rowing to such an extent that we are the world leaders in that sport. | |
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