[WATCHED: August 6-August 15, 2012] XXX Summer Games continued
The Olympics finally ended in our house. Meaning we taped the closing ceremonies and only got around to watching them (well, fast forwarding through them) a couple of days ago.
I’m not sure what it was about this year’s Olympics, but I was really on board with them. In past years I haven’t watched nearly as much. I’d say it had something to do with my kids, but they weren’t really that interested. They typically played with things while the games were on. My son wanted to watch Tae Kwon Do and my daughter wanted to watch “the beautiful diving.” But they wouldn’t really hang around too much during most of the events. Nevertheless, I was pretty happy to have been able to watch as much coverage as I did. It became something of an obsession to be able to watch as many obscure sports as possible. And even if I didn’t watch everything (the FF button is my friend), I enjoyed so many unlikely sports this year.
Since the last Olympics post we had a whole new breed of events that we got to enjoy:
Rhythmic gymnastics! There’s something so amazing about this sport. I didn’t care for the clubs so much, but the ball, the hoop and the ribbon (oh the ribbon!) were really mesmerizing. It looks so simple and effortless and then you think about what the women are doing and it is breathtaking. We only got to watch a few routines in teams for some reason, which was a drag as the teams were really incredible.
Synchronized swimming was all about the teams for us too. The duets were fun, but the teams blew us away. And the new camera (NBC, shut up about the camera) showed some really cool footage of just what the women are doing underwater whilst hurling their teammates through the air.
Of course some things got short shrift. The high jump was shown for like 90 seconds, same with the pole vault. We didn’t see any thrown objects: javelin, discus, shot put, and saw precious little of the triple jump (a preposterous event that I’m still trying to figure out) or the long jump. And I do not feel that I know enough about either of them to know how they measure the distance. How come the announcers will talk for twenty minutes about some bull, but not tell you how they score the damn event).
And the surprise excitement in our house—cycling! Not any of those velodrome ones, bu the outdoor ones—BMX men’s and women’s was awesome (oh the crashes!), but even they paled in comparison to the mountain bike cross-country events. Holy crap, did you see this course? I feel like it’s the only course where serious injury was expected! It was amazing to watch these men and women ride this course. And although we didn’t watch the entire 90 minutes, the finish was amazing!
And why didn’t this get more attention–after 18 miles of this grueling course, Fontana of Italy rode the last three miles with no seat and no post! And came in third! Holy hell!
We also really enjoyed Modern Pentathlon. What a weird grouping of sports—fencing, equestrian, swimming, running and shooting (these last two combined in one event). It was explained that these were originally a military event, which makes sense for all 5 of those things–a well-rounded soldier and all that. But how do you get into this? You’re a fencer and you can run pretty well. But then you have to learn how to swim. Okay so maybe you do triathlon and you like fencing. But now you have to learn how to ride a horse! Wow. Individually the events weren’t that interesting to watch (although speed fencing was pretty cool), but the combined run/shoot was amazing. And that itself seems like it would be a lot of fun to try.
A few things I’ve concluded: Team volleyball sucks in comparison to beach volleyball. There is nothing exciting about Olympic men’s basketball (although the women’s was exciting), if you’ve seen one run/swim, you’ve seen them all (thanks FF button). you can wring excitement and tension from things you’d never have considered–archery, target shooting. bad tae kwon do is boring, good tae known do is really exciting; water polo is grueling; race walking is surprisingly fun to watch; and it’s really fun to root for countries that don’t win very much. That underdog thing is always exciting.
We missed the opening ceremonies (I’m bummed we missed the bit with the queen—but thanks internet), so we made sure to record the closing ceremonies. And watching it made me realize that England doesn’t have a lot in the way of what I guess you’d call cultural stereotypes (at least not ones that you can make a big production out of). I mean, music and fashion, absolutely, but that just turns it into a concert. Which was fine, but seeing what Brazil has lined up shows what a real cultural extravaganza will look like.
Having said that, it was cool seeing Madness, and the Spice Girls (Hi C Ya), and all the various bits and pieces of other bands who are still around (oh Brian May that hair!) It’s frankly hard to believe that there were that many famous musicians all in one place for one show. Even if you didn’t like all of them (and who does?) that would have been a memorable thing to witness live.
So thanks Olympics, it was a lot of fun. And I do hope that NBC can show 12 hour blocks of the winter Olympics on NBCSN in two years as well. And maybe in two years the nature of TV advertising will have changed enough that they don’t have to go to commercial every five minutes (which somehow always missed something exciting).
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