Sunday 5 August 2012

The Olympics 2012 Coverage in AUS

If you are living or currently staying within Australia, you will know the frustration that the whole country seem to be having with Channel 9s coverage of the games. On social media sites, there has been so much anger towards the coverage within the first few days of the Olympics; only showing the swimming, the replays of swimming, rowing and equestrian. 

At least we didn't do the massive balls up that NBC did with not including the tribute to the victims of terrorism but instead cutting to Ryan Seacrest interviewing Phleps yes? Well...we did get Eddie annoying 90% of the viewers with his incredulous comments and borderline sexist/racist/idiotic comments (which by the way is present in his commentary on Foxtel). Many countries weren't shown marching into the arena but our athletes doing stupid dances and not behaving well was. I know I definitely missed Russia and Japan entering, who aren't exactly no name countries either.

On the Saturday after the opening ceremony, there were events such as gymnastics, football, archery, badminton, volleyball, table tennis, basketball, judo, cycling, fencing, handball, tennis, shooting, boxing. If you don't have Foxtel because you can't afford it, I bet you had no idea all those events occurred before the swimming heats started. Even Channel 9 has status updates such as


When I got up specifically to see these events, they were not showed. I saw swimming instead and nothing else. Oh wait, they cut to 1 goal scored by the aussies in the water polo then more swimming.

Don't get me wrong, I love swimming, it is my favourite event of the games. I even lifeguard where VIS and AIS quality swimmers train so I feel even closer to the swimmers. But even I am getting a little over re-watching the 4x100m relay every single day. The reasoning behind the epic amount of swimming coverage is probably because within Australia it is known as our best event. This year we haven't gone so well and frankly I think the amount of confidence and cocky attitude that has been forced down our throats has also been our undoing. We should be thankful to be in the top 20 countries, and coming second in the Olympics should not be scuffed! That is the general feeling Channel 9 is producing to everyone which is pissing people off further. The person who wins the award for worst commentator of the games has to be James Bradshaw, who instead of commentating on the rowing, decided to talk about AFL poaching from other sports. He talks in absolutes such as "MAGNIFICENT" and "Fantastic position" and "They are definitely coming through" while the Aussies he's talking about are in 5th place and loosing ground not gaining it. It's as if he is looking at a wall while commentating. There is another word starting with "I" that he says all the time but now I can't remember it...

Now that the Athletics has started, we are seeing more events shown. Maybe because they finally heard our cries? Who knows. Not only is the limited showing of events frustrating, the only showing 30 seconds of a gymnastic routine or just showing a slow motion replay of someone crying is driving everyone insane. We didn't even see the event but we hear about the epic tension that happened. Don't even get us started on the poor commentary for the rowing. 
I am happy to say that if you want to see extensive coverage, don't bother trying to watch it live. Watch "London Gold" because it covers more events than the live coverage shows.

If there is something you definitely don't want to miss, I highly suggest finding someone with foxtel and crashing at their place. Bring snacks and if appliciable, try this drinking game:


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