Who Needs Soaps?
Aug. 15th, 2004 07:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annuinYou don't need soap operas or reality shows to get real drama, all you need is the Olympics. Unscripted reality at its best, filled with drama, upsets, tension, tragedy, uplifting moments and even horror.
After reading some stuff on the Sydney Morning Herald's site I decided to check out some of NBC's coverage yesterday evening, which meant that in the end PreZ and I watched Olympics stuff until 6am (okay, we'd both slept in way late, so it wasn't that huge a deal).
Watched Australia take two stunning golds in the swimming on the first night, Ian Thorpe and the women's 4x100 freestyle relay, where they won the gold for the first time in 48 years. In case anyone wasn't aware, swimming is a Big Deal (tm) in AU, I'd wager to say that it's the national obsession. Nice to see Petria Thomas follow that up with another gold the next day for herself, something she's been chasing at two previous Olympics.
And we watched the mens team gymnastics, which contributed to most of the horror and tragedy portion of the evening's events. Partly due to some of the gymnasts history... including one of the Americans who in recent years first lost a newborn son at birth, then ripped his biceps earlier this year *shudder*. He then proceeded to have a nasty fall on the high bar, smacking down on the floor which left him a bit disoriented and woozy, and in pain. Then there was one of the Russians who on the parallel bars dislocated his finger, which the camera crews happily zoomed in on, to give us all a great view of a finger sticking at an angle it is never meant to go in. That made me cringe like nothing else. To his credit all he did was wander over to his coach who wrenched it back into place *double shudder*. Tragedy for the Ukranians because not too long ago their star gymnast and another member of their small 6 man team had gotten into a car accident, where some idiot driver had hit them at 100mph in a frontal collision, killing the star gymnast, and putting his teammate in a wheelchair for life. Another such story for the German gymnast team, where a nasty fall for one of their teammates earlier this year will probably leave him in paralysed for life.
Sporting tragedy for the Dutch when the Olympic medalist from 4 years ago in the women's road cycling event fell and got stretchered away in the second to last lap. An Aussie ended up winning, so that's the good news out of that story (for me anyway ;)).
So yes, we watched the Olympics, I like watching them and they're always somewhat addictive to watch. In a lot of cases you have to really admire the perseverence of the people who have battled incredible personal and physical adversity to get back to the top.
Plus there's lots of hot bodies to watch :D
After reading some stuff on the Sydney Morning Herald's site I decided to check out some of NBC's coverage yesterday evening, which meant that in the end PreZ and I watched Olympics stuff until 6am (okay, we'd both slept in way late, so it wasn't that huge a deal).
Watched Australia take two stunning golds in the swimming on the first night, Ian Thorpe and the women's 4x100 freestyle relay, where they won the gold for the first time in 48 years. In case anyone wasn't aware, swimming is a Big Deal (tm) in AU, I'd wager to say that it's the national obsession. Nice to see Petria Thomas follow that up with another gold the next day for herself, something she's been chasing at two previous Olympics.
And we watched the mens team gymnastics, which contributed to most of the horror and tragedy portion of the evening's events. Partly due to some of the gymnasts history... including one of the Americans who in recent years first lost a newborn son at birth, then ripped his biceps earlier this year *shudder*. He then proceeded to have a nasty fall on the high bar, smacking down on the floor which left him a bit disoriented and woozy, and in pain. Then there was one of the Russians who on the parallel bars dislocated his finger, which the camera crews happily zoomed in on, to give us all a great view of a finger sticking at an angle it is never meant to go in. That made me cringe like nothing else. To his credit all he did was wander over to his coach who wrenched it back into place *double shudder*. Tragedy for the Ukranians because not too long ago their star gymnast and another member of their small 6 man team had gotten into a car accident, where some idiot driver had hit them at 100mph in a frontal collision, killing the star gymnast, and putting his teammate in a wheelchair for life. Another such story for the German gymnast team, where a nasty fall for one of their teammates earlier this year will probably leave him in paralysed for life.
Sporting tragedy for the Dutch when the Olympic medalist from 4 years ago in the women's road cycling event fell and got stretchered away in the second to last lap. An Aussie ended up winning, so that's the good news out of that story (for me anyway ;)).
So yes, we watched the Olympics, I like watching them and they're always somewhat addictive to watch. In a lot of cases you have to really admire the perseverence of the people who have battled incredible personal and physical adversity to get back to the top.
Plus there's lots of hot bodies to watch :D
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(no subject)
Date: 2004-08-15 04:46 pm (UTC)Yeah, the women's relay win was particularly sweet, given that the last time we won that event it was Dawn Fraser's team... and we all love Dawn, even when she's being belligerent. =)
The boy (http://www.livejournal.com/~captainflux) is rather miffed that we can find NO fencing in any of the broadcast schedules. Fencing is cool, even if we're crap at it as a nation. And we mustn't have anyone in medal contention in the equestrian team, either, because there's barely a glimpse of that.
*grumble* Poxy Channel 7.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-08-15 05:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-08-15 05:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-08-15 08:02 pm (UTC)Not entirely true... there's the hockey which the women especially do well in. And the cycling, more indoor track than outdoor course though.
As for fencing, I doubt that the NBC is even aware that that's being played :P we haven't heard a breath of it on the tv coverage so far.
I'm surprised it's not more of a big deal in the US, though, given that the US is the other biggest swimming nation in the competition.
With the sheer numbers of sportsmen they have here it's not hard to be the biggest nation in nearly every sport. Swimming is pretty popular, but it's not the national obsession that swimming is in Oz, that's something else altogether.
*grumble* Poxy Channel 7
I know channels pay for exclusive rights, but I wish they'd at least show the lesser known sports. If they don't have time to show them, why can't they sell broadcasting packages to other networks with the other lesser seen sports? ... which might be an idea.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-08-16 02:14 pm (UTC)SBS are playing 15.5 hours of footage a day, but it's basically water polo matches, hockey games, soccer games - anything that involves "games" rather than "events".
Still no frickin' fencing. Too daggy for SBS? My word.