Monday, August 23, 2004

Clearly, NBC has one goal for this year's Olympic coverage, and that's to put The Rockwood 2004 Olympic Watch out of business by giving me nothing to write about. Well played, Ebersol! Well played!

• Look at that chart up there! Look at it! Ten minutes of fluff! And guess who half of it belongs to? Jimmy Roberts and his "Chevrolet Olympic Moments" tonight present us with his most worthless story yet. It's all about rivalries. Oh, so like, a specific rivalry that's coming up tonight that's particularly noteworthy? Nah. Just rivalries in general. They're exciting! Whee! I can't believe that NBC is spending $700 odd-million on these games and they let Jimmy take up five minutes of air time a night. If I wasn't actively reporting on what he said, I'd be in the kitchen every...single...time one of these time-fillers came on.
  
  
• We get brief coverage early about the decathlon that looks like fluff to the untrained eye. However, just because some of it's in slow-motion doesn't necessarily mean that it's not an event. In this case, NBC was showing us event footage that had been previously unaired, and none of it was about how an athlete felt. Yes, this was actually news, just pretty. I'll let that slide.
  
  
• Finally! We finally get to see the other U.S. Olympic Beach Volleyball team, featuring Holly McPeak and Elaine Youngs. Now we'll see if NBC was presumptuous by showing us only the Misty May-Kerri Walsh team all week long.
  
  Ooo. Straight sets. I guess NBC was right. Well, I'll admit when I'm wrong. Good call, NBC!
  
  
• Bob leads us into a highlight-filled recap of the U.S Women's soccer and softball teams. Again, it looks like fluff, but since it's all about what happened earlier today, it counts as events. The soccer team puts itself in the final game. Yay! The softball team wins the gold, making Jenny Finch cry! Umm...yay to winning, boo to crying! Come over here, Jenny, let me console you!
  
  And, in what for me is a perfect end for the U.S. Softball team, as the Star-Spangled Banner plays, every one of the American women is singing. Awesome!
  
  
• American decathlete Tom Pappas, whose great-grandfather came over to America from Athens, grew up on a commune. Allllrighty then. In any case, I'd rather see more of him competing than of his family life. This was three-and-a-half minutes of fluff taking up space that could have been showing us more decathlon competition.
  
  
• Al Trautwig's been begging for a "10.0" to be given in gymnastics all week, and Romanian gymnast Marian Dragulescu finally gets it done on the vault--
  
  Oh wait. He doesn't. He only gets a 9.9. Well, I guess judges know best, right? Nothing could convince them to change their minds, right? Well, well... you just go right on believing that.
  
• Justin Gatlin gets his medal tonight for winning the Men's 100-meter dash last night. He looks kind of non-plussed by the whole thing until he's about halfway through the national anthem, when apparently it hits him and he starts smiling. Both he and bronze-medalist Maurice Greene start singing at "O, say does that Star Spangled..."
  
  Yeah, it is pretty cool now, isn't it Justin?
  
  
• Back in gymnastics, Al Trautwig compares one gymnast's performance to an "IPO like Google, through the roof!" Did Google's IPO really go through the roof? I thought it just did okay. In any case, any gymnast's past performance is no guarantee of future results. Buy gold now, ask me how.
  
  Oh, and nothing would ever happen in gymnastics that would make something go through the roof, right? It's just been a nice, sedate little building. Heh, heh, heh...
  
  
• Former 400-meter runner Michael Johnson spends a minute getting all fluffy about his favorite recruit, Jeremy Wariner. It turns out he was right to do so, as Wariner cruises to gold, with two other Americans right behind him. A one-two-three U.S. finish! Excellent!
  
  
• By the way, the last two entries as well as this one were part of a 47-minute block of events uninterrupted by commercials. And NBC has saved the weirdest for last.
  
  Back at gymnastics, the audience is getting restless. After witnessing crucial judging errors all week, they're not going to take it anymore. So when Russian gymnast Aleksei Nemov did an admittedly spectacular high bar routine yet got a low score, the crowd let the judges have it.
  
  Some boos and whistles are to be expected whenever someone gets a low score, but the crowd would...not...stop. Paul Hamm, due up next, had to sit back down because the audience was whipped up into such a frenzy.
  
  Now, since this whole thing was tape-delayed, NBC obviously could have cut all of this out, but they wisely chose to stay with it, as what happened was unprecedented. During the hail of boos, the head of the gymnastics committee went over to the booed-judges table and got them to change the scores! I'm sure there was a more official explanation. You know, something like, "The judges did forgot to consider the frambulation score adjustment factor in computing the Russian's score," but the truth is, the crowd got to them, and without the video proof, you never would have believed that a booing crowd could be so influential.
  
  
• A little later in the Men's High Bar, Igor Cassina of Italy performs some very difficult maneuvers. Tim Daggett says, "This is outrageous gymnastics!" Tim, I believe the word you're looking for is EXXXXXTREEEEEME!!!!! Oh, you crazy kids and your Mountain Dew.
  
  
• Seven more minutes of decathlon footage. You know, even though I know how the decathlon is scored, I'm sure a lot of people do not (it's not the easiest thing in the world). It might be nice if NBC spent 30 seconds or so explaining how it works, and if, for instance, Tom Pappas' deficit is insurmountable or not.
  
  
• Finally, Jeremy Wariner picks up his gold medal for the 400-meter run. It looks like he's trying not to smile on the medal stand. Finally he gives in and just enjoys the moment. Go with it, Jeremy!
  
  

What to say, what to say. My entries keep getting shorter, because NBC is giving me nothing to complain about. More and more it's looking like there might not have to be a Rockwood Olympic Watch in the future, as NBC has apparently reformed themselves to the Olympic Watch's wishes. I know, they've still got six more days to mess it up, but I'm starting to feel confident now that they won't. We'll find out, won't we?

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