Olympic Frenzy

With a couple of days left I have to confess to be a bit Out-Olympicised. I've been really looking forward to it, and it's been great. But it does seem to be dragging on a little now. I've found the television coverage to be of a lower quality than previously. The visual package, Sweden doesn't have much control over. They have to buy the package from someone and clearly this time it's been a supplier with a heavy interest in the home nation. I remember it was the same for the Los Angeles and Atlanta games when NZ television bought a package from the US networks. 3 weeks of Mary Lou Retton was about 2 and a half weeks too long. The Swedish commentary has been a bit amateur, to be frank. Especially on the main channels. It seems like they just picked up the local newspaper each day and proceeded to repeat it word for word at every interval. Not terribly knowledgeable. I've ended up watching most of the action on Eurosport. Same picture package, and still Swedish commentators, but a commentary team who seem to have at least heard of some of the athletes before. A significant improvement.

I think that London beaurocracy has struggled with these games. It seems quite disjointed and you get the feeling that there's a group of 20 people who have to approve and sign off on each line of text before it can be posted on-screen. Certainly on the track there's been a fair greater presence of officials doing God knows what (apart from annoying the athletes) than at previous events. If the aim was to make things smoother, it's been a masive overkill. On the positive side I think that they have done well to host an event inside an existing major city which is already tight for space and transportation. That must have taken some logistical working. Fortunately the weather has been good, and there have been no major traffic failures.

High points for me so far have been 3 events. Ye Shiwen's swim final was great to watch. Lots of finger pointing and wailing about doping, but that always rears it's head when one of the pre-race favourites doesn't win. All medal winners are tested, as are countless other athletes. If she was "hiding" some kind of performancing enhancing drug, then you have to throw the same blanket of suspicion over every athlete who returned a negative result. Ye Shiwen was class to watch. Drugs might help your time, but they don't give you flawless technique.

The women's 10,000m track race was an absolute ripper, thanks largely to 3 Japanese and one Irish runner. One thing that has annoyed me over recent years is the preference for so called elite track athletes to turn every race into a 100m sprint. They all crawl around for however many laps and then it's a mad dash with everyone for themselves. Whatever happened to winning by running fast ? Times at major sporting events have been getting slower over the years, not faster. I'm talking middle and long distance here, the sprints are what they are. Anyway, thank to those 4 legitimate athletes, who had a genuine crack at the race right from the start, I got to see a proper race with no parasites hanging around near the back of the pack waiting for the finish sprint. The women were sorted from the girls pretty early on, and the final lap was a real classic. Well done to those ladies, made my night.

Finally, and this has to be hard to top, the 800m mens track final. David Rudisha of Kenya is one of those rare athletes today who does not question his own ability. He's been a real pleasure to watch over the past couple of years. In an era when highly paid pacemakers and equally high winning purses have completely ruined competitive athletes, David has risen above that. He runs fast because he can. You can see just how much he enjoys his sport. When did the rest of them lose that ? I read a great comment the other day about there being a world of difference between fighting to grab a medal and winning one by going away. They should have had a category between Gold and Silver in that 800m event because coming second implies that they could have come first. This race was a rare display that I don't think we'll see again at an Olympic Games.

Sporting disappointments for me starts with Nick Willis in the 1500m track final. That was probably the weakest final in decades and it's hard to find an excuse. The great miler, John Walker summed up  Nick's effort pretty well when he described him as "being beaten by a bunch of bunnies". A wasted opportunity that was giftwrapped. You're not going to get many chances like that again, Nick.

The NZ Olympic selectors disappointed me in picking too many athletes on name, instead of on form. Selecting someone because they won a Bronze medal 4 years ago is not a good enough reason. That was 4 years ago, for goodness sake. They need to get tough and start looking through realistic eyes.

Swedish television, I'll never forgive you from cutting coverage of the final stages of the women's marathon to show a replay of a sailing match. Yes, it was Sweden, and yes they had won a Gold medal in sailing, but the marathon ? That's one of the cornerstone events of the Olympic Games. That's like cutting away from the 100m final to show the 4th place run-off in lawnmowing. The medal wouldn't have been any less won 10 minutes later. You don't cut the marathon, you just don't.

Preferential treatment given to home nation athletes. It happens at every Olympic Games and only serves to devalue to event globally. You don't stick 2 Jamaicans, 2 American, and two Russians in one heat and then stick 3 UK athletes in the other heat together with a one legged goat herder from Ghana. At least try and be discrete about it. The cross country stage of the equestrian event was blatantly obvious. Whereas every other horse and rider struggled around the course, every UK rider and, more importantly, their horses, seemed to know exactly what was around each corner and anticipated perfectly. One, you could accept, but not the whole team. Clearly they had spent quite a bit of time training on that course and over thsoe same jumps. That's not on when it costs countries so much money to send athletes across the world. The least you could ask for is a level playing field.

The Opening Ceremony just confused me. I guess it made sense if you knew what was going on, but not sure that it made a "wow" impression on potential tourists. Basing an entire segment around an old television series (as I later learnt) which was only shown in the UK was a strange choice for a global event. A bit too Trainspotty for me. I get that there were points to be made with each segment, but I started to get a bit bored waiting for them to get to that point as I had no idea what was going on in the meantime. A bit of a publicity opportunity lost, in my opinion.

So, just a couple of days left. It's been a lot of fun and filled in my evenings well. Not the "Best Games Ever", but not the worst either. Pretty good over all. We'll see what Brazil can come up with in 4 years time.