Olympic Coverage So Far....C+

Coverage of the Olympics has been midly frustrating so far and last night was no exception. I cannot stay up late enough to watch the events that I want to see. With coverage starting at 8 pm and going to at least midnight, if not later, the events that I want to see dont seem to start until 11 or later. Unfortunately that is past my bedtime, at least it is for 5 days in a row. I dont know what they air during the day since I am at work but prime time has been dissapointing.

I have also hit my saturation point with swimming. Frankly, it isnt very fun to watch. The mens gold medal relay was great, but thats not what the typical race is like not to mention the many qualifying swims prior to the final. At least seeing swimmers in those very tight swimming pants has been nice.

Beach volleyball also seems popular this Olympics, or rather Misty May and Kerri Walsh are. I think there is another womens team competing, but I have yet to see them play. It is unfortunate when individuals like Michael Phelps or teams like Walsh/May so dominate their sports because you just get so much of them it starts to get annoying. I would rather see two teams or individuals that arent so dominate play a hard match or race against each other, thats exciting.

Track and field starts today though and I am looking forward to that. These athletes always amaze me, especially the sprinters, just in phenomenal shape and so athletic. And although I do appreciate long distance running, it isnt as exciting as sprinting. I am looking forward to the marathons though. One of the Womens runners 4'11" Mizuki Noguchi (Japan) is going for her second gold medal in that event which has never happened. When several of the top elite runners broke down from the heat in Athens, she kept on going and won with a time of 2:26:20. The heat may again be a factor in Bejing so there is a good chance she could repeat.


Now I moan and groan a bit about the coverage, but I recognize it is a hard task to know what to air and when, a job I certainly wouldnt want. Ideally, I would like to pre-record the events that I want to see and come home and watch it at night, but I dont think I could really do that easily even if I had a DVR since they jump back and forth between events. Maybe by 2012 we can get that figured out.