August 26th, 2008
Olympics Hangover
So, I went to bed Sunday night after the Closing Ceremonies, and just woke up.
Seriously, those late nights were killing my productivity during the day. But as expected, it was all worth it. The action was great, the track and field coverage was decent, and there were some simply amazing moments.
Now that the Games are over, take a few minutes to weigh in on these questions:
How did the Beijing Games stack up against past venues?
How did NBC do with its “no politics” rule?
How was the track and field coverage? Did it do much (or anything) to move our sport forward in the ways we’ve discussed on this blog?
What was your biggest thrill of the Games? Biggest let-down?
Let the opining begin!
Last 5 posts by Steve Holt- Who's the most exciting athlete on the planet? - September 6th, 2008
- Yes We Can! - August 7th, 2008
- Gilbert - July 24th, 2008
- Now I can Sleep - April 23rd, 2008
- competition - April 14th, 2008
August 26th, 2008 at 12:31 pm |
Steve, I agree with you that the next few months are going to raise a lot of questions about the directions of the sport and how it is viewed. I like the fact that post-Beijing means our sport can hit a reset button and start moving forward in a new direction if that’s what the leaders choose to do. With the push now focusing on London 2012 and potentially Chicago 2016, ideas and thoughts can now be put into play.
I am going to take a stab at the questions you put out there and hope others do as well.
- I think Beijing created more hype for the Olympic movement than any of the past four Olympics. I don’t remember 1984 and LA (since I was only two years old), but from everything I’ve read, that was an Olympic turning point. I feel that Beijing will have a similar impact. The impact may be less in the U.S., but I feel globally it will have a dramatic impact on the Olympic movement.
- I thought the track and field coverage was average. Obviously many, including myself, wish they could have seen the events live and voiced those concerns to NBC directly. I’ve thought for all of 2008 that the announcers have actually stepped up their game and are doing a better job. Perhaps the worst announcing happens when the announcers try to pick a favorite, talk about that person for the majority of the race, then someone else comes about and performs even better than the person they were talking about. An example of that took place in the men’s marathon, where they talked time and again about Ryan Hall, when in fact Dathan Ritzenhein had the better race from start to finish. I understand Hall had more hype surrounding him, but when Ritz is outperforming Hall for all 26.2 and he is barely mentioned…well that’s embarrasing on NBC’s part.
I don’t feel the coverage did anything to improve our sport. If anything it did more to hurt the sport by not showing events live, a consistent theme in discussing performance enhancing drugs in the sport and creating more buzz around U.S. athletes coming up short then the great success’ our athletes accomplished.
- My biggest thrill of the Games was the emergence of Usain Bolt. Our sport needs a global icon and Bolt seems to have the personality to be that leading figure. However, I have a concern that he isn’t going to get nearly enough exposure in the U.S., especially after reading article after article that Puma isn’t going to use him in their marketing efforts any more than what they had originially planned. Perhaps Matt Taylor could chime in more about that.
My other biggest thrill included Bolt and Matt Taylor combined. I really enjoyed the ChasingBolt blogumentary and I think Matt should create a company called The Chasing Company, that produces blogumentaries for professional track and field athletes. I am sure shoe companies and agents, among others, would finance a company like that. Just an idea
My biggest letdown was not seeing an American in the final of the men’s 800m and 1500m events. While we’ve seen progress in American distance running over the past few years, this result just goes to show that there is a lot of work left to be done.
What does everyone else think?
September 9th, 2008 at 1:41 pm |
I agree with Scott, the biggest let down were several of the performances of the Americans. Though, to be able to compete with the top distance athletes in the world, it does say something about us.