it’s winter olympics season at the sparkler household, and that means it’s time to get angry and the god-aweful commentary for olympic sports. here are some of my favorites:

for some, this morning started with agony and shock.

someone had fallen off the cross-country track.

these are biathlon fans. they know when to cheer … when the target is hit!

piercing insight there, friend.

spillane looks solid for the gold if he can stand up right here. spillane’s got it … america breaks through!

actually, spillane did *not* get it. in all the jingo-istic excitement, the commentator seems to have missed that a frenchman came in first.

in the previous three olympics, this man has left with nothing but the memories.

… nothing besides a gold medal.

we have a deep russian team. then, the americans. then, the russians … that’s your trilogy.

russians, americans, russians. yup, that’s three.

he’s a bit the germaphobe … always taking purell around with him. he doesn’t drink except for the occasional swig of cognac to cleanse his mouth of germs.

tmi. not quite to the clintonian/jacksonian/woodsian level, but seriously … he can sleep upside down in a hyperbolic chamber, and it’s none of my/our/your business.

i wish i could just blame NBC as a whole (and i may later) but each one of these linguistic “gems” was said by the same man … NBC olympic commentator al trautwig.

if the name sounds familiar, it should.

he is the same #*&%$ who brought you grotesquely over-wrought commentary for NBC’s gymnastics coverage in Beijing (including his 2008 pièce-de-résistance, lamenting “a catastrophe of epic proportions” when Alicia Sacramone fell on a floor routine).

seriously, NBC … you’ve paid $3.5 billion for the rights to cover the Olympics since 1999, so maybe it’s about time you read the founding principles of the Games:

The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well.

i don’t think it’s much of an exaggeration to say that mr. trautwig’s over-wrought hyperboles are undermining the very games he’s covering.

exiling trautwig from gymnastics to cross-country/biathalon coverage (while quite the statement about his perceived worth) isn’t enough. the problem is, he doesn’t have the commentary skills to cover little league matches in the Parkersburg, West Virginia.

if he’s under a contract you can’t get out of, let me suggest you transfer him to KXGN in Glendive, Montana. as a parking attendant.