Well that’s the overblown, overwrought opening ceremony out of the way and now we can get down to the business of the sport, if that’s not too much of an impediment to the nationalistic jerking off that’s epitomised by such ceremonies?
I’m looking forward to these games more than any others I can remember, not because the competition will be any keener or cleaner or because the nebulous ‘Olympic Spirit’ will burn any brighter in the competitors but purely due to the advances in the media. The BBC, bless their little cotton socks, always tried hard to make time for coverage of some of the minor sports on show at previous Olympics but, during the first week whenever someone was thrashing up and down the pool or, during the second week, monotonously pounding around the track, that was it, coverage had to go to the swimming or the athletics and the supposedly lesser sports, no matter what the state of the contest, were ditched and, if you were lucky, you could seek out the conclusion of the event by sitting through an hour or more of the highlights package. This should no longer be the case with the Beeb offering 6 channels via the red button on satellite, hopefully something on the HD channel also, Eurosport with a couple of channels plus HD and various webfeeds finally offering the sort of exposure that the Olympics deserve.
I’ll watch a little of the track and field and the swimming but I’m really looking forward to the coverage of the badminton, table tennis, boxing, shooting, archery, rowing, weightlifting, basketball and, of course, baseball. And some others I haven’t even thought of.
And I’m on holiday for the next two weeks.