Ski, what did you think about what happened to the British men's gymnastics team yesterday? If you didn't see it, they were in line to receive the team silver medal, behind China (of course) and just ahead of Ukraine, and Japan in fourth place. From what they said, no one alive has ever seen the British men win a gymnastics medal at the Olympics. The crowd was going wild, of course. Then the Japanese team filed some appeal on the spot (before the actual medals were awarded) because of the scoring, and the scores were then changed so Japan jumped to second place, pushing the British down to bronze. It seemed to deflate the air in the room.
I only read about it but did see it. I thought that they were awarded the silver after all was said and done anyway. No? That's too bad, but getting a medal, any nedal, after 100 yrs is still something to be proud of.
Awesome, two more big things for the USA we won't see on TV until this evening spoiled by Drudge and others. Doesn't anyone say *spoiler alert* anymore, or do they only do that with movies?
Here's really hoping they show the rowing now..preferably this evening. GB is doing great. Made the finals in the men's 8, quad, double, and single.And the GB women's doubles won a........
You can also watch Olympics on TV through the day on CNBC, MSNBC, and Bravo, in addition to NBC. I think you can also watch online if you subscribe to those cable channels.Anyway, I heard that the host country normally gets a 50% boost in the number of medals they receive. I guess there is a home-field advantage in these events.
NBC Olympics webpage gives the TV shcedule for the 4 rowing finals today. Says all 4 will be televised between 3:45 and 4:45. NBC only showed one. Signed up to watch it online instead, but the feed was really slow (even the taped feed). Awesome job NBC. ::)
They should be OK with that. Afterall, all they are showing it seems are Olympic basketball games.The thing that irked me most about the rowing, other than the misleading TV schedule, was that after that one televised race they went to like a Bulgaria vs Lithuania handball semifinal. Maybe it was a US team, I could understand NBC airing, but really. The track and field coverage was good though. How about that Jessicca Ennis? She didn't have to win that last race to keep the gold, but she did anyway. The British crowd went wild!
I also heard that NBC put a picture of a U.S. woman swimmer with a gold medal just before showing the race itself. So much for surprises! And did you hear about the "racism" accusations because they put on a monkey commercial doing gymnastics right after Gabby had won the all-around for the U.S.? Two things - first, after Gabby had won it, Bob Costas went on some politically-correct spiel about how now maybe other African American girls will think they have a shot at it as well. I thought to myself - why in the world does race have to be a part of this? Why can't we celebrate a win for the U.S. without celebrating race? Political correctness injected into yet another thing. And secondly, the people accusing an Obama-friendly network like NBC of racism is kind of absurd. You have to wonder why politically correct people read racism into just about anything. Sometimes, they just need to "get over it".
The track and field coverage was good though. How about that Jessicca Ennis? She didn't have to win that last race to keep the gold, but she did anyway. The British crowd went wild!
What a great athlete. I didn't understand why in the final 800 m run the second place woman from Lithuania fell to the back of the race and was so far behind. Did she get hurt or something? She wouldn't have won gold anyway, but I think she missed the podium altogether because of that.
I saw that picture and quickly closed it. But this has been par for the course for NBC. The NBC pages on Facebook were notorious for this but I guess enough people complained because they haven't done it the past few days.Just saw British...Scottish if you're one of those seperatists...tennis player Andy Murrray beat Federer to win a gold. That was huge. What's going on over there? They must have put some superman potion in the Thames because the UK athletes have been medalling like crazy lately. (unfortunately, the British soccer team must have missed it)And what an ending to Michael Phelps's Olympic career!Based on my viewing hours, and despite NBC's lame coverage, this has been one of the best Olympics I've ever watched.
Really, Ski…the article is all of about 4 1/2 paragraphs…so I went ahead and read it all! 🙂 Anyway, YES I agree that the U.S. has a great advantage over other countries in ability to support athletes, facilities to help them train, organized competitions, etc. And YES, I do think it is a bit like cheering for Goliath at times. But what the author of that article fails to answer is this: what are we supposed to do about it? Stop training our athletes? Give the Third World athletes a head start in races? Sometimes you just have to accept the hand that you were dealt in life and deal with it.Life becomes problematic when one moves from feelings of "it would be nice to see the underdog win for a change" to "we're going to punish the bigger players or help the lesser ones". I think that liberalism tends to do the latter, backed by the force of law. This is really what socialism is all about at its core, isn't it? Guilt over one's success.Oh, one other thing - the U.S. is hardly favored in every sport, and the ones they typically show on TV are likely intentionally ones the U.S. does well at (women's gymnastics, track and field, swimming, etc.). African countries rule in long-distance running, Jamaica rules in sprinting, China rules in diving, and so forth. I wonder if the author of of that Salon article roots for the U.S. guilt-free in those sports.
I was not thinking Gabby was black, colored, or A-A, when Costas made those inane and unnecessary racial remarks. He would have been a better man if he said Gabby inspired all short people — like himself. The leftist media will never allow a post-racial society to exist.