Skip to main content

I got David V'd

Today I was discussing with commenter David V about how'd he accidentally learned the results of the men's 4 x 100m freestyle relay yesterday before he'd seen the race on TV. At first, I didn't even believe him that the race wasn't live, thanks to some annoyingly deceitful tactics from NBC. (If my fact-checking is accurate, they did it again tonight. The "LIVE" graphic was up in the right-hand corner through the men's 100m backstroke, in which Americans Aaron Peirsol and Matt Grevers went gold-silver. But judging from the times on NBC's website (which say the event took place at 10:31 a.m.) and online world clocks (which say it was about 11:30 a.m. in Beijing when I was watching) the race was tape-delayed here by about an hour.)

One reason I didn't believe him was that I'd thought I'd checked ESPN.com frequently before the race Sunday night but had seen nothing of the American team's victory. I couldn't imagine what ESPN could have to gain from not spoiling NBC's surprise, other than not pissing off their own readers, which would actually be kind of sweet. I had to know if they put it up before the broadcast. My curiosity got the best of me tonight and I went to the site before when I thought the race would be televised and immediately saw the main story, that Phelper had won his third gold in the 200m free.

However, I couldn't (and, as far as I can tell, still can't) watch the video online yet, and I somehow miscalculated and missed watching it live. So I feel kind of screwed but can't tell for sure. Since I missed it, I guess it's possible NBC really did show it live...anyone know what's going on here?

As a postscript, I really liked a quote from another cool New York Times article about the Olympics and American swimmer Branden Hansen:

“In the United States, we raise the bar so high on ourselves,” Hansen said. Then, referring to Michael Phelps, he added, “Now to even be noticed, you’ve got to win eight gold medals. The poor guy’s swimming his mind out. And everybody’s saying, ‘Okay, one down, seven to go.’ Let him enjoy the one. You don’t know how hard it is to get on the blocks and do what he’s doing.”

Let him enjoy the one. I love that. There is such a small margin for error in the Olympics. We see this when we watch someone who barely qualified at trails make the finals of an event, or we hear about some veteran who missed out four or eight years ago for the smallest-sounding reasons. The one that always gets me is when a world-record holder can't quite break through for gold. Considering all that, it's amazing Phelps has even gotten as far as he has already, especially in a sport that lends itself so well to specialization.

Comments

Anonymous said…
You bring up a great point and I think most people are going to miss it. As of last night Phelps tied for most decorated athelete yet the majority of olympic viewers will think that these olympics were a failure if he doesnt beat Spitz.
4:58 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Who cares?

So we finally got done with the NBA playoffs after nearly two months of stretched-out play, and tomorrow's the draft. I really couldn't care less. I'm so burned out on the sport. Sadly, there's nothing else going on worth mentioning, so we might as well get into it. (Yes, baseball, Pugs, but I haven't really started following that this year yet, sorry.) Would the NFL hold its draft five days after the Super Bowl? Of course not, and not just because the league doesn't want to distract from the highlight of its annual calendar, the Pro Bowl. Of course, the NBA's situation is a little different. College play ended two and a half months ago, and the teams want to get draftees ready for the all-important summer league play (because the kind of guys that need the summer league always end up players). Not that when college basketball is over is relevant, anyway-the league is overrun by a bunch of high school players "just months removed from their prom" (...
12 comments
Read more

And now that it’s gone, it’s like it wasn’t there at all

I never thought this blog would last longer than Jay Cutler's career with the Denver Broncos. He was a talented young prospect so good that the Broncos, a powerhouse organization only one game removed from the Super Bowl the season before, traded up to get him—or, in other words, a player whose upside was so huge, the team sacrificed its present to get his future. And now? He's gone . How did it come to this? * * * Often I'll play devil's advocate with a move like this; you know, I'll try and explain how it makes sense from the other side of the table. Today, during the most disastrous Broncos offseason in memory—and the draft hasn't even happened yet, so settle in—I just don't have it in me. I don't think move is really defensible from a football standpoint. But what the heck: as the article above says, the Broncos are sending Cutler and a fifth-round draft pick this month to the Chicago Bears for quarterback Kyle Orton, Chicago's first-rounder in t...
11 comments
Read more

Payback

It's a nice little coincidence. Sunday the Broncos face the Steelers, who knocked them out of last year's playoffs. Tomorrow night the Nuggets play the L.A. Clippers, who knocked them out of last year's playoffs. Friday the Avalanche host the Anaheim Mighty Ducks, who knocked them out of last year's playoffs. (All right, the part about the Avs was a complete fabrication, but you believed me, didn't you?) Forget the Steelers game. The last thing I want to talk about right now is Denver's football team. (Seriously, what was that Sunday? I finally start to fall for the defense, and voila! Peyton Manning, for the first time ever, gets the better of it. You win some, you lose to the Colts.) I'm not so excited about the Clippers game either, per se, but I am glad the NBA is back, especially after this week. So what has changed from when we last left the squad? (Not that much.) New guys: The Smiths, Joe and J.R., might be Denver's most effective sibling duo...
4 comments
Read more