How closely will you be following the Olympics?

I didn't ask about you. I notice most sports writers who complain about the Olympics are those who will never have a realistic shot to cover them.

 

I'd like the events NBC is showing to actually be live. Too bad NBC hasn't figured that out yet, and insists on pre-packaging prime time.

 

I would guess some journalists here dislike the Olympics because it brings up bad memories of covering dull, lower-tier prep sports such as swimming...

 

How will you show swimming, volleyball, soccer, archery, badminton and tennis all live when they happen at the same time? I got up before dawn to watch the cycling road race live. Then I watched archery and basketball live, then indoor volleyball, then beach volleyball. There's plenty of stuff live.

I could see showing some stuff live and then doing a prime-time highlights show, like CBC used to do. But since 8 pm ET is 1 am in London, you have to show SOMETHING during your peak hours.

 

And transportation. I took public transportation to get to the media center because it was twice as fast as the media bus.

 

The same way NBC already is showing all those things live, via multiple cable channels and alternate platforms.

NBC lost what little credibility it had left when it cut from the swimming venue to Bela Karolyi growling semi-comprehensively in a studio just before the men's 400 IM final.

I saw that race live via NBC's iPhone app, but it should have already aired on television. Pretending events didn't happen so they can miraculously unfold in prime time isn't news. Given the zillions of ways of getting the results (and video), it isn't very entertaining either.

 

They could hold the Olympics on my block, but there would still be a language barrier with the coaches and athletes that don't speak English.

 

so again to recap, the downside of the Atlanta games were transportation and language barrier, not the terrorist attack?

 

Sounds like a plan. But they had me anyway.

 

I'd forgotten how irritating that is.

I'm going to be watching a lot more online than I will on TV, I know that.

 

was that a general assignment type of thing, or were you covering somebody specific?

 

I was answering Stich's question about covering the Games, the good and bad sides. I wasn't covering that. I do remember watching the TV coverage from the apartment (it happened at 1 a.m.; I was done for the day and back home watching swimming on tape from earlier that evening).

I just remember going to the venue the next morning and it was raining. No one was talking much, everyone seemed pretty numb. None of us were sure if they would suspend the Games for a period, like was done in Munich in 1972. We were all just sort stunned. We were told not to change how we covered events, not to ask specific questions about the bombing, but if an athlete wanted to bring it up in a press conference, that was OK.