08-08-08 The Olympics: Sport or National PR?

Can't say if it matters or not but I'm looking forward to it. As always.

When I visited Beijing in 1992, they had 11 million bikes and very few vehicles. Now they have 11 million cars and very few bikes. They're killing themselves from their "economic success" by their increased pollution.

I'm trying to overcome some extreme jealousy I have towards a colleague of mine, a fellow interpreter who does Russian as well as Latvian. He's not only going to Beijing for the Olympics, he's actually getting paid to do it.

I hope you have convinced him to send back some personal accounts of what he sees.

It's not only the pollution. About ten months ago a team was sent from the US to scout out places to buy food supplies for their athletes. They found the steroid levels in the chickens in the markets to be off the charts.
The USA is bringing all of it's own food.

Joe(wow that's why it's called Kung Pow Chicken)Nation

YOU ARE A HOOT!!

The US Trials are on right now!

Joe(NBC)Nation

Did you hear about the locust problem heading towards Beijing? For all their planning this olympics for good luck, they're having their share of bad ones.

Wha? The locust problem?

What next?

Joe(toads?)Nation

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-locust3-2008jul03,0,5361489.story

Jayess.

Meanwhile, the smog is SO THICK you could bundle it into a bag.


I wouldn't want to run a mile in such soup let alone a marathon.


Joe(please pass the O2 mask)Nation

I wonder how much of a handicap the Beijing pollution is going to hamper the athletes - if any?

They are doing things (too late I'm afraid) like shutting down factories in areas surrounding the Olympic arenas in order to get the air a bit clearer.

Reporters under fifty years old have never seen such air, even in LA on a really bad smog alert day, I remember reading a report which said that the viewer was reminded of Pittsburgh PA in 1938.

Joe(The slogan for the Chamber of Commerce in those years was "We're for Smoke.)Nation

Re: 08-08-08 The Olympics: Sport or National PR?
Has the Olympics changed China?

No, it has not, but in long terms probably will, just as it happened with Moscow 1980

Will you be watching any particular events?

I will watch a lot, everything I can, I am great Olympics fan

Will you be there in person?

Nope.

Does watching the Olympics inspire you in any way?

I wouldn't say that it inspires me, it's more like makes me think about some deviations in world and society today, because like no other event they put together all nations, colours, religions...and unlike other sport events, there are almost never any conflicts.


What do you hope for your particular country's athletes?

I have quite a big hopes. For a very small country (4,5 million) Croatia has huge team of 104 athletes. We are favourites to win a medal in athletics (female high jump, Blanka Vlasic has 35 wins in a row), waterpolo, team handball, rowing (male double sculls) and swimming (male 50 and 100 meters freestyle)...and have great athletes and possibility for a medal in tennis, yachting, basketball, taekwondo...


What event will bring the most surprises?

hopefully men basketball - would like to see USA missing gold again. and Croatia winning a medal, bronze would be just fine


Is the Olympics more about national pride or athletic success?

I think, unlike other sports events, it's about both. on other events, at least for spectators, it's more about national pride.


Does the Olympics bring the world together?

yeah, but in very short term.

If it does, how long can the moment last?

during Olympics, not a second longer.

Thank you for your responses, Username, now I will have someone to root for in the female high jump, Blanka Vlasic. I will definitely look for that event.

I think you will have a very good chance in the basketball as well.

How are the Olympics broadcast in Croatia? Do you have public and private television stations?

Here in the USA, the broadcasting corporations -ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox bid for the rights to put the games on the air. Some of the programs are live but, because of the time difference, this year almost everything will be taped and edited for showing during primetime (7PM to 10PM).

Good luck to Croatia!

Joe(Salut!)Nation

Has the Olympics changed China?

-Not yet, but they will.
They changed Mexico. For the better.

Will you be watching any particular events?

-As much as I can grab.

Will you be there in person?

-Nope. Too damn expensive and I work.
But I enjoyed throughly both Olympic Games in Mexico and Barcelona.

Does watching the Olympics inspire you in any way?
How? And what have you done with the inspiration?

-They are in themselves an act of (sometimes savage) beauty.
And we have several stories that tell you a lot about human will, human envy, human complexity (not the ones you poor Americans get to watch on NBC)


What do you hope for your particular country's athletes?

-Little. This year we're not strong (as usual, but there have been exceptional years).
Now that Ana Guevara's retired, our hopes are in Tae Kwon Do, diving (behind the Chinese, we imagine), canoeing, race walking... and dimly in shooting, boxing and archery.

What event will bring the most surprises?

-I hereby predict San Marino will win a medal in shooting.

Is the Olympics more about national pride or athletic success?

-It's more about the Western canon (now slowly revised) being imposed to the rest of the World.
National pride -alongside GNP- plays a roll here.

Does the Olympics bring the world together?

-Yes, during the opening ceremony everybody goes WOW!

If it does, how long can the moment last?

-About 3 hours
(with a lapse during the nations' parade: "Damn Gringos! They're so many!"... "Damn Chinese, they'll get a load of medals"... "Damn Jefferson Pérez (Ecuadorian racewalking champion and certain flag bearer of his country) hope he faints this time")

Joe, haven't you seen Blanka Vlasic?
She's gorgeous!



I will now run to a site who claims to have nude pictures of her!

I still haven't gotten over Franzen's article re finding birds, any birds at all, in China. Talk about depressing. I suppose a book is coming out, as I can't give a full article link.

I don't really give a hoot re the Olympics although I've followed the construction for at least a couple of years. More interested in what happens
re what I take as near hilarious efforts to do some kind of zapping pollution zoom.

well, we are hoping to get back to glory of our basketball from 90's (just as we become independent we played Olympic Gold Medal Match with one and only real Dream Team in Barcelona 92) - we should easily come to quarter final and then it's mostly all about that game. problem with Croatian team today is that they can beat almost everyone (USA is probably only team we can't defeat at this Olympics) but they can also lose from everyone (Iran is probably only team that we can't lose from - luckily they are in our group). It's a very very weird team - in three European championships Croatia was only team to beat team that eventually become champion. And we finished 6th, 9th, stuff like that...



As for Olympic broadcast, if there's anything why it's great to live in Balkans that's Olympics I think that we have one of best, maybe even best coverage in the world - Croatian TV itself will have all main events (like athletics and swimming) and all the events where we can have important role - rowing, table tennis, team handball, waterpolo, basketball...then there are always final rounds of boxing, taekwondo, and in 'smaller' sports they always try to cover croatian athletes (yachting, canoeing on wild water, etc...). Basically, one channel of Croatian TV (public) will have almost 24 hours of Olympics every day with everything LIVE but also in delayed during afternoon and night, because of time difference (for example, if Croatia plays Russia in basketball at 6am it's live on TV, but then at night they will broadcast game again for those that were at work)

But, we also can see TV stations from neighbouring countries, so Serbia for example will have football and volleyball, probably a bit larger coverage of shooting, a lots of tennis, they have some good competitors in wrestling...Slovenia will have better coverage of rowing, plenty of gymnastics...and then there's Eurosport (almost everyone has it in Croatia) that always cover a lot of 'smaller' sports - judo, weight lifting...and those sports that are impossible to be on national television because they are too long and we would miss a lot of other events, like road cycling for example. They also have field hockey.

Basically, only thing I am interested in and I probably won't be able to see is baseball. Although I hope that maybe people on NASN will get wild and show some games (it's european channel for american sports, I have it on cable, they have plenty of MLB, but they rarely have internetional games, although they covered World Classics, so who knows...)

I doubt there is a country with worse Olympic TV broadcast than the USA. The descriptions I've heard all coincide in its dopey nationalism, little actual sport coverage and plenty of "heartbreaking" personal stories and commercials. And only a handful of sports are shown.

I don't know about Australia, but European coverage is certainly very good. Plus in Europe, even in pre-cable times, you could receive signals from very different countries.
In 1976, in Northern Italy you could watch the Olympics via RAI (Italy), TVMontecarlo (Monaco) in Italian, French TV, Swiss TV (in Italian) and even Yugoslav TV (in Italian with Slovenian subtitles: Telecaposdistria, in Koper). All very much set into actual sport events.
In 1992, in Barcelona, I watched both TVE (in Spanish) and Canal Olimpic (in Catalan), which had obviously very complete coverage, and Eurosport (in English, quite complete too, tough a little too focused on British competitors).

In Mexico, almost every sport is covered. And every single Mexican competitor is followed. Luckily this time neither the men or the women footballers qualified, so that leaves plenty of room for other sports. I think we are the only country to follow throughly the 20K and 50K race walks, with side commentators every 2 miles of the circuit and all (well, perhaps Ecuador in the 20K).
The drawback of Mexican coverage are the "side shows", aimed to keeping non-sports fans in front of the TV. If the US uses "soap opera" stories and sticks to "pretty" sports like gimnastics or synchronized swiming to go along, Mexico goes to slapstick comedy, so a bunch of comedians travel to the host country to make sketches over there. Sometimes the comedians use Mexican hopefuls as sidekicks, and this goes against their concentration. I do hope the Chinese cops send some of those comedians to Communist jail: they will deserve it.

I've also been describen Cuban coverage. It is full and impressing. The big drawback is, again, sheer nationalism. In 2000, when they lost a round baseball game to the Netherlands (of all countries), they got in such a rage that when the game was over, they closed transmission until the next day.
In the last inning, the Dutch sent one of their outfielders as relief pitcher. The Cuban commentator screamed: "This is outrageous, the Dutch are making fun of us!".

Since I often root for the underdog, I want the US to lose in so many events. Not in baseball.

JE JE JE JE JE

During the last World Cup when Televisa had a group of prestigious figures of soccer that they hired on for commentating. They brought out that damned compayito for comedic relief. You could see the look of annoyance on these people's faces.

Al bote comunista con el pinche compayito!