‘Olympics’ Posts(3)

The quick brown fox jumped over the good, but lazy Parker family.

the olympics so far …

Sunday, 28 February 2010

[Vancouver Olympic Centre -- Photo Courtesy Chase N. via Creative Commons]

while the rest of the world is watching the closing ceremonies, the lady sparkler and i still way back on day 9 (ski-jumping). i have watched every single medal event so far, but that approach has pretty much ruined any chance of finishing up before april.

here’s my olympics so far:

alpine skiing — definately my favorite olympic sport, ever since i snuck out of bed as a 9 year-old to watch the mahre brothers during the 1984 olympic games in sarajevo. i’m a little over Lindsay Vonn’s shin, but glad she (and Bode Miller) both picked up a win as nothing is worse than seeing nbc sports commentators blabber after watching their network-picked olympic stars fall flat on their faces.biathlon/cross-countryfire al trautwig. seriously.

curling — what the bejezus happened to the u.s. olympic curling teams this year? what is the point of having minnesota and wisconsin in the union if they can’t produce decent curlers?

figure skating — the men’s program was more flamboyant than ever, and i am seriously still trying to wrap my head around the thinking behind Johnny Weir’s pink corset number. i have no idea if he is gay, but if he is, the GLBT community needs to give him a lifetime award for “worst contribution to stereotypes by a gay man.”

ice dancing — normally, this is my place to slam ice dancing … but you know what? it’s better than pairs ice skating. at least the result wasn’t determined by who fell down the least. i’m all for going out and giving it your best, but if the programs have gotten so hard that only *one* pair can make it through the whole thing intact … maybe it’s time to rethink things.

freestyle skiing — moguls. i would love to hear the backstory behind the creation of this sport. pound your knees into your jaw a dozen times, pause for a flippy-twisty thing, more pounding, more flippy, more pounding. i’ve got a wide view of sports, but this seems more inline with bush-era interrogation techniques.

luge — i’m pretty sure this is the first time i’ve ever had the “honor” of watching doubles luge. all i can say is that you’ve got to really, really like your partner.

short track speedskating — watching this year has made me realize that i have developed an unhealthy dislike south korean athletics. it started back in 2002 with the reaction to their speedskater Kim Dong-Sung getting disqualified for cutting off Apollo Ohno, and made worse during the FIFA World Cup that summer when a goal-scorer (forget which one) celebrated the tie-ing goal by pretending to speedskate.

actually, it may date back to 1988 when South Korean boxer Park Si-Hun was given the bout over American Roy Jones, Jr., despite Jones out punching Park 86 to 32 … though at least during *that* controversy Park later apologized to Jones for the loss. anyway, the animosity lives on.

skeleton — i’ve got an idea … luge isn’t dangerous enough, so let’s do it head first.

ski jumping — every olympics has to have a sport that’s like the equivalent of watching paint dry. what really trips me out is that determining the winner by distance jumped isn’t enough, they have to use some utterly uncomprehesible, esoteric artistic judging to make sure it is completely unwatchable for the average lay person. oh, and if i hear Simon Ammann refered to as the “Harry Potter of ski jumping” one more time … pow! right in the kisser.

snowboarding / snow-cross — i’ve got to admit, i’m all about the snow-cross thing … any even which sends four people down the same course at the same time (rugby-style) is what i call a sport. i’m not looking forward to 2014 however, because Linsey Jacobelis fell *again*, which means we have to endure another four years of “redemption” coverage.

snowboarding / half-pipe — i eat this stuff up, and it’s a great addition to the olympics. that said, two small complaints:

(a) i saw the coverage of shaun white face planting on the pipe edge at least two dozen times, which was about three dozen times more than i needed to.

(b) the tricks are becoming so ridiculous — the Double McTwist 1260 involves two flips and three and a half spins — that it’s near impossible for the naked eye to figure out what’s going on. either nbc’s got to figure out how to telestrate these things, or we need to go back to the days where a backside 540 was the shiznit.

between travelling for work next week — not to mention a baby — i’ve got no clue when/how i’m going to get through the rest of the olympics, but i’ve got two years before i need to clear off the tivo for the London olympics.

fire al trautwig

Thursday, 18 February 2010

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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.

live: opening ceremony for the vancouver winter olympics

Saturday, 13 February 2010

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It’s the most wonderful time of the Olympiad, and while I’m not exactly where I thought i would be right now (e.g. marooned in Austin waiting for DC to thaw) I’m still clearing as much of my calendar as i can for the Games. Thank God i had the sense to setup my TiVo before I left for Austin.

A few thoughts about tonight’s Opening Ceremony:

5:42 pm Wait, Jim Carrey is Canadian?
6:13 pm Is Lindsey Voss’ shin the new Dwight Freeney’s ankle?
6:38 pm Lindsey Jacobellis is never going to live down that awful, showboating mistake from Torino. I hope she gets a gold, just to shut the media up. Seriously, people. She was like 14. People make mistakes.
6:44 pm Wait, Michael J. Fox is Canadian?
6:44 pm Wait, Ryan Renolds is Canadian? I’m sensing a theme to my posts so far …
6:45 pm Wait, Erick McCormack? Kim Cattrall? I feel like the Canadians are an alien species, walking among us … unknown, undetected.
6:50 pm If I could rip on the new version of “We Are the World” without being a callow, heartless bastard … I would.
7:02 pm The opening ceremony starts with an video, which (*surprise*) ends with the virtual snowboarder actually *entering* the stadium. Who saw that coming?!?
7:05 pm This is going to be a long, cheesy night.
7:07 pm Rocky and Bullwinkle has completely ruined my ability to look at the Royal Canadian Mounted Police with a straight face.
7:08 pm Wait, Canada has a military?
7:09 pm “O Canada” as a jazz ballad? Thank God there are no fundamentalist, patriotic Canadaians … else there would be rioting in the streets of the Canadian heartland tonight.
7:18 pm After the dance-inspired welcomes from the Aboriginal nations of Canada, who else was looking for the English tribes to dance in with tea, and the French tribes to dance in with pea soup?
7:39 pm It might have been the editing, but Georgia didn’t get quite the standing ovation that i was expecting after that horrific accident (the footage of which NBC has now shown three times in the last two hours).
8:12 pm The U.S. enters, looking not quite as jingoistic as i was expecting. Is this a reflection of the post-Bush humility?
8:19 pm Nelly Furtado and Bryan Adams. Insert your own punchline here.
8:33 pm Giant spirit bear emerges from the floor. Giant spirit bear is hungry. Giant spirit bear will now eat the dancing gnats before it. Mmmmmmm.
8:37 pm As screwed up as the United States is, at least we don’t count Sarah MacLachlan as one of our national treasures.
8:53 pm Tap-dancing, neo-punk wearing fiddle-players with sparklers coming out of their shoes. Now there is a stereotype of Canada that I missed somehow.
9:12 pm Canada has a beat poet. They found him on YouTube. I wish I was making this stuff up.
9:15 pm Maybe it’s too soon for perspective, but all the memorials for Nodar Kumaritashvili (the aforementioned Georgian slider) seem really forced. I wish they had found one really poignant way to remember him, instead of sprinkling in lots of superficial attempts.
9:33 pm Wow. k.d. lang. I didn’t know she was Canadian, but I’m really glad to know she’s not American.
9:39 pm Hey, i just *knew* Anne Murray would get dragged out before too long. Wayne Gretsky’s got to be next.
9:58 pm Gretsky. Spoke too soon.
10:00 pm One of the four pillars of the Olympic cauldron didn’t make it out of the floor, so one of the four torch bearers (Steve Nash) get’s screwed. Shouldn’t one of the other three bearers invited him over to “help” light their pillar? So sad.
10:07 pm Even worse, Wayne Gretzky gets to light *two* cauldrons? Now I feel REALLY bad for Steve Nash.
10:09 pm Who thought five minutes of Wayne Gretzky carry a torch on the top of a pickup truck was good television?
10:15 pm It’s over. It wasn’t great, but at least it didn’t feature thirty-six pickup trucks full of cheerleaders roaring around the stadium.

PHOTO: Courtesy of Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic Winter Games.

i love hope solo, and harry redknapp, and not necessarily in that order…

Sunday, 26 October 2008

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after a lovely Saturday of belated anniversary present shopping (we settled on a one-third off console table from pottery barn) the lady sparkler and I settled in for a long evening at home … watching two-month stale coverage of the Beijing Summer Olympics.

a couple things, looking back two months:

  • it’s been at least a week since I had heard any one say “michael phelps,” which made me wonder if he had fired his agent considering his best post-Olympic gig has been for Rosetta Stone.
  • It seems like (back then) John McCain actually ran ads that weren’t entirely focused on trashing Barack Obama. heck, August was so long ago that I didn’t even know that MILF had a political context.
  • I once again contemplated changing my celebrity exception clause to be U.S. Olympic indoor volleyball team silver medalist Logan Tom, but quickly realized I am already married to some one who can kick my @$& so what would the point be?
  • Whichever Olympic scheduler put synchronized swimming, canoeing, water polo, and rhythmic gymnastics in the same four hour block should be fired … or shot.

  • I got to thinking about politics, the economy and my 401k, and actually got nostalgic for a minute, thinking “wow. that was a simpler time, wasn’t it?!?”. yeah, way back in august.

so, back to the present. much of our weekend was spent on the couch watching soccer.

the taped USA vs. Brazil woman’s gold medal match was one of the best this year. goalie hope solo (I heard she is Han Solo’s niece) pitched a shut out over 120 minutes, making her world cup benching last year — and USA’s subsequent 4-0 drubbing at the hands of Brazil — that much more inexplicable.

but perhaps the best news of the weekend came from the English premier league, where my team (Tottenham Hotspur) finally won their first game after nine attempts (that, and the midnight firing of the entire management structure.) while the win wasn’t enough to get them out of last place, they are now just one win away from a once unthinkably-good 15th place. (weeee!)

to be fair, Tottenham could have actually been the second best news of the weekend … the best may have been the news that the Anchorage Daily News endorsed *Obama,* saying something about “putting her one … heartbeat from the leadership of the free world is just too risky at this time.”

in the words of conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan, the Anchorage Daily News editorial board is obviously filled with “goddamn East Coast elitist hippies.”

a surprise of epic proportions

Friday, 29 August 2008

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i have to share… right now, if you google “nbc gymnastic commentators,” the search results feature my rant about the Olympic coverage from earlier this month as result #7. if you google “a disaster of epic proportions,” i’m result #5.

i don’t think i have ever been this cool in my life.

wait, the olympics aren’t over yet …

Thursday, 21 August 2008

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unlike the rest of the world, the Olympics aren’t wrapping up this weekend for the lady sparkler and I.

we’re only 200+ hours into the coverage, and have a solid 80 hours still to be watched on our tivo. (i know 200 hours sounds like a lot, but remember that one third of the coverage was commercials, and i swear another 20% was rowing or handball.)

from what i have heard, every one seems to think that the games were a solid “A+” for China, and so far I absolutely to agree.

unfortunately, i have started to hear some rumblings that the Olympics are starting to lose meaning. common talking points include:

the Olympics are from a more simplistic time — Since the 1972 Madrid crisis, national politics have mattered nearly as much as the sporting events themselves, and this year the games were held in China despite their miserable human rights record.

the Olympics promote rampant nationalism — there was an obsession about the total medal count (USA vs. China), an “our country is better than your country” measure if there ever was one. NBC’s coverage was pro-American to the point of being jingoistic (except for gymnastics, which was pro-Chinese once Al Trautwig finally shut up about the age of their women).

maybe there is some truth to this, but it seems to me that this is a bit simplistic. each of us watch the Olympics and take away exactly what we want to:

the internationalists see a great coming together of cultures to promote cooperation and understanding. the nationalists see a chance for us to prove our dominance in yet another arena. mommy-figure liberals see a reason to break out the kleenex box. daddy-figure conservatives see a reason to spend 2 weeks exploring the other 236 channels on their television.

george w. bush sees a chance to be relevant (and human) again.

sure, the coverage could be better. sure, the little sports (high jump, javelin, shooting) should get their due compared to the big sports (diving, beach volleyball, track). sure, tivo should be able to record all seven olympic channels at once and should be able to record more than 86 hours of coverage at once.

but, in the end, it’s been a kick-butt two weeks … even ignoring Michael Phelps (which a dark, hidden side of me was trying to do after medal five or so). i discovered a version of the Star Spangle Banner doesn’t sound like the British drinking song that it is. i discovered that the Chinese know how to party, and are freaky good at coordinated dance moves.

but, most poignantly, i discovered (finally) why every field hockey player i ever knew could crush me with their pinkie.

the olympics so far

Friday, 15 August 2008

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a couple of observations from seven days of olympic coverage so far:

 

  • archerythese bows have technology that rivals most nuclear missle silos. where are the purists that are complaining about the competative advantage of the new swimming suits?!?

 

 

  • badminton — i some how managed to watch the u.s. lose all four of their competitions, and wasn’t able to muster much interest after that.

 

 

  • beach vollyball — i swear. i am rooting for the men’s teams as much as the women’s teams. really. i promise.

 

 

  • cycling — the woman’s road race was held in the worst rain storm i have ever seen. at one point towards the end, you couldn’t tell if they competitors were on a bicycle or a kayak.

 

 

  • equestrian — dressage (the sport of walking a horse around a ring) is the most ridiculous “human” competition i have ever seen. they should give the medals to the horses, not the people holding up the top-hats.

 

 

  • fencing — absolutely addictive. so far, this my curling for the beijing olympic games. bonus: the bulky outfits that the competitors wear helps “prove” that my interest in beach volleyball and field hockey have nothing to do with their sexy outfits.

 

 

  • field hockey — awesome. i never knew this sport existed, outside of seeing girls at my high school in their pleated skirts. the worst player for worst team could put me in a hospital with their pinkie. that’s my kind of sport.

 

 

 

 

  • shooting — my first “cheer out load” moment came when an american snagged the bronze in trap shooting. unfortunately, it happened to be while i was “multitasking” at work.

 

 

  • soccer — the men flamed out in the group stage, the women have advanced to the medal rounds. it’s nice to know that some things never change for the u.s. national teams.

 

 

  • table tennis — despite all of nbc’s attempts to glamorize this sport, it’s still ping-pong. it will *always* be ping-pong. except it doesn’t have beer. (not a good thing.)

 

 

 

the serious winner from the olympics so far is the divine marriage of my tivo to the lady sparkler’s HD tv. it’s amazing how much difference the high-def “experience” actually makes, and (more importantly) how quickly you can watch a 24 hours worth of Olympic coverage when you “tivo” out the fluff pieces, the commercials, and the awful commentary…

nbc’s gymnastics commentators: a disaster of epic proportions

Wednesday, 13 August 2008

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just finished up the olympic women’s gymnastics team all-a-round competition … and we are *done* with the manic-depressive rantings that spew from nbc’s gymnastics commentators.

update: for 2012’s NBC gymnastics coverage — live commentary is here, or follow on twitter.

some snapshots:

  • when Alicia Sacramone fell on a floor routine, it was a “a catastrophe of epic proportions.”
  • when an men’s gymnast fell off the apparatus: “High bar 101, grab the bar.”
  • apparently, japan and romania’s women “don’t show the proper respect for the olympics” by enjoying themselves on the gym floor, and they would be ultimately unsuccessful because they were “unfocused” (romania went on to medal).
  • they won’t shut up about the age of the chinese gymnasts, saying at least three times that “nothing more need be said” about the controversy (if they would only *heed* this themselves).
  • when the chinese started their final routine: “Pick your measure of pressure and multiply it by one point three billion.”

really, people. they weren’t negotiating a peace treaty. they weren’t transporting nuclear waste. this is a sport. frankly, Sacramone going to have all sorts of undeserved shrink bills even without your drama queen commentary. (we still love you, alicia…)

turns out that we aren’t the only haters. their are tons of nasty commentary about NBC’s lousy commentary.

anyway, we’re using the mute button from here on out.

where are the pick-up trucks?

Friday, 8 August 2008

[Photo]
2008 Olympics Opening Ceremony by cavenli2008.
i love the olympics, and have ever since the 1984 Winter Games in Sarajevo. i was nine, and sick at home, and my parents put a 2-inch portable black and white tv in my room, and i watched the games just about 24 hours a day.

but the olympic moment i remember the most? it was the summer of 1996, and i was in moscow for a summer abroad program.

it was horrifying.

i missed much of the games, but happened to check into a moscow hotel during the opening ceremonies. we walked into the lobby, where a handful of russians were gathered around a tiny black and white green television.

suddenly, on the tv a fleet of pickup trucks roared into Atlanta’s Olympic Stadium, with their truck beds filled with scantily clad cheerleaders. the russian men started howling, and we were looking for any rock, log, or carpet to crawl under.

not an olympic ceremony goes by that i don’t marvel at how little culture our young nation actually has.

melbourne olympic stadium

Wednesday, 5 March 2008

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[Melbourne Olympic Stadium]
with an apparent genetic predisposition to sneaking into sports venues, the lady sparkler and I talked our way into the Melbourne Olympic Stadium today.

being an Olympiphile (sounds dirty, huh?) I wasn’t going to pass up an opportunity to checkout a venue, and so I led us on a walk around the city that “conveniently” went past the stadium.

unfortunately, it’s now a private training venue.

not to be denied, I marched right up to the security gate and proceeded to barrage the (60+, toothless) lady with how honored i was to be at the Stadium, how incredible the 1956 games were, how I reveared Australian national icon (and three time Melbourne gold medalist) Betty Cuthbert, and how important the games became when they were the first to allow all the atheletes enter the closing ceremonies together (as opposed to marching in by country).

needless-to-say, she was confused by my knowledge and excitement which it became obvious that, as she stammered to keep up, she didn’t share.

(what I neglected to tell her was that I had watched a two hour documentary on the Melbourne Olympics on the flight over … details, details.)

finally, I assume out of boredom or desparation, she waved us through and asked us not to wander too far.

and while the stadium itself doesn’t look too different from the track at my college, seeing the same venue from the documentary (only less scratchy, and less black-and-white) was incredible.

not that i need an excuse to Become more obsessed with the Olympics, but it’s nice to have one regardless.

See All the Photos on Flickr:
melbourne olympic stadium