Another Summer Olympic Games have passed. These were\u2026fine, I guess. OK, that\u2019s harsh. They certainly weren\u2019t terrible. But they also do not measure up to other recent games. And the constant reminders of how the Covid pandemic is getting worse rather than better was a huge bummer. I remain worried that over the next few weeks we will see spikes all over the world from athletes and the folks around them gathering in Tokyo. I hope I\u2019m wrong.<\/p>\n
Week two was not as interesting for me as week one was. There were some great individual moments. But that swimming week is just more exciting and has more of its excitement contained in a US prime time friendly window.<\/p>\n
The highlight of the week, for me, was the excellently nicknamed A Team of April Ross and Alix Klineman winning the gold in the women\u2019s beach volleyball tournament. Their knock-out matches were always, conveniently, in the prime time window, so it was easy to watch them march to the gold.<\/p>\n
However, NBC totally botched the gold medal match. I appreciate that beach volleyball is a difficult sport to show live because it has few lengthy breaks to squeeze commercials into. And I know NBC has to sell\/show ads. But the marque event of that night was constantly interrupted by ads. It didn\u2019t help that the A Team was demolishing their Australian opponents rather quickly. It felt like somewhere between a quarter and a third of the match was shown in side-by-side coverage with commercials. These matches usually wrap up in under an hour. I don\u2019t know why NBC couldn\u2019t tweak their ad load for the night to ensure there were minimal commercial interruptions.<\/p>\n
Speaking of volleyball, I had no idea the US women\u2019s indoor team was so good. In fact, I only heard that they won their first-ever gold medal after the fact. Some of that is on me, as I\u2019m sure NBC mentioned the team in the midst of other events and I just missed those comments. And it seems like they often played in our overnight hours. But we sure weren\u2019t reminded of their run as much as the beach players\u2019 run, or the basketball or soccer teams\u2019 runs.<\/p>\n
That made me realize I miss the big, fat Sports Illustrated preview that used to arrive before the games. It was always filled with features of athletes and profiles of the host country and new sports. There were predictions for every event, which always blew my mind a little bit, as I thought one person picked them all. It was great to keep next to you as you watched so you could know what Americans\/American teams were expected to be good and when they would compete.<\/p>\n
It also be cool if we still had good, daily newspapers that had extensive Olympic coverage with detailed results and schedules of what was to come.<\/p>\n
Obviously I\u2019m super old if I can\u2019t keep up with things outside my immediate interests without some kind of physical, old-school media guiding me.<\/p>\n
How about Karch Kiraly adding a gold medal as a coach to go with the three golds he earned as a player?<\/p>\n
Good on the US women\u2019s soccer team for shaking off their games-long doldrums and defeating Australia 4\u20133 for the bronze. That very much felt like a last moment of glory for a healthy chunk of that squad. Time for the next class of legends to roll into the roster.<\/p>\n
Also props to the men\u2019s and women\u2019s basketball teams. I\u2019m glad the men got over the shock of their meltdown against France in their opener quicker than us watching did. It\u2019s always good to have Kevin Durant on your side. He\u2019s amazing, in a lot of ways.<\/p>\n
I watched the first half of the women\u2019s gold medal game and was laughing constantly. The huge Americans were tossing away pretty much every inside shot by Japan, just as I do with L\u2019s shots when we play. Congrats to the Japanese for sticking to their game plan, knocking down a bunch of threes, and staying reasonably close.<\/p>\n
I know I\u2019m not the only one who, each night, checks the Instagram accounts of multiple athletes who I just discovered moments earlier, right? It\u2019s a very useful tool to get to know these people better.<\/p>\n
I complained last week about NBC using a British announcer for track and field. One evening I watched the USA Network coverage of T&F and they also had a British announcer. This guy was a classic Brit in that he could not pronounce any Spanish language name properly. Seriously, there\u2019s something in the genes of the British that prevents them from ever pronouncing a Spanish word properly.<\/p>\n
He mangled several other foreign names horribly, but did not seem to care. I literally laughed out loud when he just skipped over Odile Ahouanwanou\u2019s name, calling her by her first name, or \u201cThe athlete from Benin,\u201d each time he referenced her. He wasn\u2019t about to read a pronunciation guide and get tongue-tied on national TV. It was equally offensive and hilarious.<\/p>\n
I mean, I get it, that\u2019s a hard-ass name if you aren\u2019t from Benin. But maybe practice it a few times if you know you\u2019re going to cover her and give her the same respect you give her opponents.<\/p>\n
Speaking of \u201cthe athlete from Benin,\u201d I noticed a lot more African athletes contending for medals than I can ever recall. I would assume this is because training and support systems are getting stronger in those countries. Seemed like a lot of them are coming to the States for college, too. I\u2019ve been complaining about Jamaica for 17 years. Might sub-Saharan Africa be a bigger long-term threat to our sprints dominance than Jamaica?<\/p>\n
I was shocked to learn that Dan O\u2019Brien didn\u2019t still hold the world record in the decathlon. To be fair I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve paid attention to the decathlon since 1996.<\/p>\n
One of the great images of the games was after the heptathlon and decathlon athletes had run their final races and joined together to walk down the length of the track, waving to the cameras and the few people in the stands. It was cool to see the women hang around to congratulate the men on their successes, and then the two groups exit as one, savoring their final moments in the Olympic stadium.<\/p>\n
I assume there was probably some big, world-class-athlete orgy immediately after, right?<\/p>\n
Another favorite image from track and field: the robotic truck that returned the hammer, discus, and shot put back to the competitors. That was awesome. I loved seeing it zip around the infield while there was a race on the track.<\/p>\n
Another frustrating aspect of track coverage was how NBC would combine live coverage with events that had been recorded over 12 hours earlier. It was generally obvious what was what – the prerecorded material often took place under stadium lights while the live stuff was in the Tokyo morning sun – but still abrupt and awkward. It was weird to watch a live heat in an event, a prerecorded final that I already knew the result of, then another live heat. Oh well, it\u2019s tough to broadcast with a 13-hour time difference.<\/p>\n
Big time props to Allyson Felix on an amazing career. Wrapping it up with a gold in a truly staggering 4×400 relay win was a terrific topper. That relay was siiiiiick. Felix was the slowest woman on the American squad by far, and she\u2019s won more track medals than anyone ever! Watching Athing Mu blow out the anchor leg was awe-inspiring. I wonder if Mu or Sydney McGlaughlin will be blog material as long as Felix was?<\/p>\n
It was great to see the Geico Tag Team commercial reappear!<\/p>\n
On the other hand, I know I wasn\u2019t the only person completely sick of the Toyota ad with the Paralympian who was adopted from Siberia. I swear that was in every single prime time commercial break. And it\u2019s not even new, it has been bumming me out for awhile. Even S looked up from her charting one night and said, \u201cNot this ad again!\u201d<\/p>\n
Saturday evening L and I were watching the women\u2019s basketball pregame show, and when the announcer mentioned that the games were coming to an end, she said that made her sad. I kind of laughed at her, because she didn\u2019t watch a ton of the games. She more popped in-and-out the way she does with all sports. But I was glad a little of her dad\u2019s love of the Olympics is in her.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve never tried to embed Tweets before. I probably should learn how to do that. We\u2019ll see if this works. Regardless, here are some of my favorite Olympics-related Tweets of the past two weeks.<\/p>\n
\nHow is it possible that NBC has all these channels and streaming options and not one of them is like "Olympics RedZone" jumping around to key moments across all the sports<\/p>\n
— Emma Baccellieri (@emmabaccellieri) July 26, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n