TV
THE OLYMPICS (2XL SPUDS)
KNOW YOUR SPUDS
TWO XL SPUDS — Absolute Must See
TWO SPUDS — Definitely Worth Checking Out
1.5 SPUDS—Worth Checking Out, But Don’t Expect A Ton
ONE SPUD – Not Worth It, Except For The Hardcore Fan
NO SPUD 4U – Just Plain Sucks
THE OPENING CEREMONIES
Over the past few weeks I have been watching all the news & information shows I can on China and from all that watching one thing is clear…I don’t know squat about China. It seems like everything I see about this amazing country is a real eye opening bit of news. I won’t go into detail about all the stuff I never knew about China other than to say that while they have been keeping a smoggy veil over their country for the past half century or so, they have developed into an economic, and more relevant to the Olympics, sports superpower. The don’t have everything perfected yet, but one thing you can count on is that they will never, ever quit trying to be the biggest, the best, the fastest and the strongest.
So when I sat down to watch the opening ceremonies of the 29th Olympics, I was blown away with the sheer spectacle of it all, but one thing I wasn’t was surprised. I think the Chinese see hosting this Olympics as kind of a ‘coming out’ party for the country. And if these ceremonies are any indication, these people really know how to throw a shindig.
First of all, the venues they created to house the events are all amazing. The opening ceremony was in the track and field events venue called The Bird’s Nest. It was designed as much for showcasing the ceremonies as it was for staging the events.
I won’t go into detail about the opening program itself, other than to say that it was probably the most spectacular thing that’s ever been done in a stadium. Up to now, my standard had been the Pink Floyd Berlin presentation of The Wall, which is, now, sadly a distant second.
This show revolved around some of the stuff China was responsible for creating like gunpowder, paper and moveable type. Bringing that to life in a presentation is a formidable task. But when you have a busy beehive of more than a billion energetic souls, anything is possible.
In my last column I said that this left me with a scary feeling and it did. For while you can sit there in your comfy chair in your bourgeois palace (at least that’s how I think of Spud Central), and marvel at the level of entertainment on display, there is also something else being amply demonstrated and that is the ability of the Chinese people to work collectively to achieve whatever the hell it is they want to achieve. Right now they are working to achieve recognition and turn their country into a kind of ‘controlled capitalist’ state. And frankly that’s only the first step. Because once the world creates a level playing field, which it pretty much already has, it’s only a matter of time and energy before China becomes king of the world. And China has plenty of both time and energy…all you have to do is watch the Olympic ceremonies to see that amply on display. The people who participated in these ceremonies, practiced 8, 10 and 12 hours a day for nearly a year to pull this stuff off.
Do you know any other place on earth where the people are that dedicated, energetic patient and persistent? I sure as hell don’t. And that’s the scary part.
USA VS THE WORLD…NOT SO MUCH
I guess it’s just because we live in the northern suburbs of the USA that we get so much spill over of The Great American Sports Ethic. But in most every major sporting contest it always seems that the horking big USA propaganda machine is always geared up and vividly painting ‘a USA against the world’ struggle. I wonder if it’s the same in some place like Uzbekistan.
Understandably, next to China, the US sends the largest number of gold medal capable athletes to these games and this Olympics is no exception. Our Olympic TV experience consists of flipping around between TSN, CBCHD and NBCHD. I much prefer NBC because they have Bob ‘Sports Boy” Costas who is really witty and urbane, and is not afraid to take a shot a the opposition or even toss out a political question or six to President Georgie Bush, who spent a very uncomfortable segment with Costas on day 3. Bush has been a ubiquitous figure at these Olympics, casually dressed and in all the right places at the right times. In the segment he did with Costas, the Wife was heard to remark that this was the first time in a long time that he (Bush), hadn’t sounded like some sort of a-hole. I proceeded to give the Wife a long-winded opinion as to why that is, but she just rolled her eyes and continued to watch the Beach Volleyball.
One of the things I did notice about the USA vs The World syndrome that usually plagues the televised coverage of these games is that it has been toned down quite a bit during this Olympics. Almost as if the USA is now willing to acknowledge that there are other countries who actually have world-class athletes too. However, they compensate for this by covering only those events in which the USA is expected to do well. They leave the rest of the Olympics for the Canadian stations. So in order to get a well balanced feel for what is going on with the myriad of sports in which the USA is not a big factor, like rowing, weightlifting, boxing, cycling etc, you really do have to jump around a bit.
Granted, the USA does own some of the bigger stories in the early days of the Olympics. Like Michael Phelps, who is out there making genuine Olympic and sports history, the US men’s and women’s gymnasts who are giving the Chinese a real run for their yen, and the track and field stars who should also do very well in the medal department. But with the emergence of China on so many fronts, I can see why the normal high volume of jingoism has been dialed back on the part of the US. Because they really don’t own the show like they used to, and I for one think that’s a good thing for the Olympics and maybe even the world in general.
It’s also interesting to note that as of Day Six, our home and native land of Canada who probably sent more athletes proportional to its population, has not, as yet, copped a single medal of any kind.
AQUAMAN FOREVER
There are a lot of big stories generated by any Olympics, but by far the biggest, maybe even of all time so far, is the story of Michael Phelps, a 23 year old swimmer who has, so far, proven himself to be unbeatable in seven of the eight races he has competed in. In six of those seven he has set new world records, and is, as I write this on Saturday morning, the most gold-decorated Olympian of all time. I’ve seen a lot of stuff on Michael Phelps recently. And why not? He’s the pride and joy of America, along with the petite little gymnasts who won gold and silver in the woman’s all around. The weird thing about Michael Phelps is that he doesn’t really seem to wear his passion on his sleeve like so many athletes, pro and amateur. Instead he’s exactly the kind of aw shucks hero that Americans love. Not too slick, Not dashingly handsome. Even a bit awkward. But when that dude hits the pool, he’s all business, as focused as Tiger Woods, as graceful as Michael Jordan and as fast as a frightened dolphin.
It’s really hard to fathom greatness, especially when you are watching it on TV from 10,000 miles away, but if you take a deep breath, and really relax, you can feel the excitement that guys like Michael Phelps generate when they hit the water.
The beautiful thing about this kind of legend building is that it tends to take a lot of the politics out of the sport. When people cheer for Michael Phelps, they aren’t just cheering for a swimmer or a country. They are cheering for the sport itself and the joy of being present while a part of modern history is being made. Other than 41 year old swimmer Dara Torres, who is making a different kind of history, nothing at the Olympics is this big, not even, I would argue, the men’s 100 metre dash. I’m sure that a new world record will be set by Jamaica’s Usain Bolt, but 100 metre records come and go. What Michael Phelps is doing will probably never be matched again in my lifetime, so I want to make sure I get every second of it burned into my brain. Because, at the end of the day, this is why we watch sports in the first place, to see people do what’s never been done.
It’s Sunday now and last night Michael Phelps won his eighth gold medal along with the rest of his team in the mens’ 400 medley. I feel really honoured to have seen it happen. So, by the way, does the Wife.
THE LONLINESS OF THE LONG DISTANCE RUNNER
Yesterday, we also watched the Women’s marathon, which was won by Romania’s Constantina Tomescu-Dita. The weird things about it was that about half way through the race, Constantina opened up a better than one minute lead marking between herself and a pack of 7 women running behind her. The commentators were going on and on about just how difficult it is to run a marathon, pretty much all by yourself as this woman did and I had to agree, racing or any kind is as much a group sport as it is an individual one. In order to know how you are doing it’s important to have someone close to you that you can either follow or lead. But when you’re running out in front in a race where you can’t actually even see the people running behind you, it becomes kind of like a sensory deprivation tank—I mean, you know you’re out ahead, but you have no idea of just how well you’re doing in the race. So you have to really admire anyone who can manage their race without that critical piece of information as Constantina obviously did. Watching her, which we got to do for the better part of an hour, was completely mesmerizing. You wouldn’t think it would be, but there you go. It’s the Olympics and just about everything that happens there is interesting.
THE GAME THAT MAY HAVE SAVED WOMEN’S SOFTBALL
I was flipping around trying to find out what Olympic sports will be on today when I stumbled upon the last half inning of the Japan Vs USA softball gold medal game. If you follow the Olympics you will know that the US team has won all three gold medals since the acceptance of woman’s softball as an Olympic sport. And because of their extreme dominance the IOC is now threatening to remove it from the Olympics altogether.
But this morning something really strange happened. The USA, who was extremely heavily favoured to win their gold medal contest with Japan, lost 3-1. Now this is something that was never expected to happen. But then that’s why sports is the ultimate reality show. Because at the end of the day, you never really do know what will happen. The miracle value of this win by the Japanese team was made even more miraculous by the fact that in the past 24 hours, Japan has played the US in a 12 inning game, Australia in a 12 inning game and then the US in the gold medal game. All in the heat and steam bath-like humidity of Beijing. Talk about pooped out.
Anyway the heroics of something like this is a big part of why I watch the Olympics in the first place. The second reason is to watch how ‘Sport Boy’ Bob Costas will spin this tonight when he comes on to try and make some sense of it all.
VOODOO ON THE TRACK
The other night we were sitting and watching the 4 x 100 relays and thinking that these might be interesting because both the Americans and Jamaicans were performing very well. But a very strange thing happened. Both the American men and American women’s relay teams were disqualified for bad baton passes in the last pass. Whoa, that’s weird. All I could think of was that somebody down in Jamaica was sticking pins in a doll at just the right time. I know that sounds kind of spooky but at the time it made the most sense. Then, in the post analysis, of which there was a lot, somebody suggested that this sloppiness had to do with the fact that because the American relay squad was made up of individuals who ran a number of separate events, it was all just the function of not having had enough time to practice their handoffs. Yadda Yadda. I just thought it was the spookiest thing I had seen on the track throughout the whole Olympics.
NO BASKETBALL…WHAT’S UP WITH THAT?
Maybe I’m just watching at the wrong times, but I have yet to see a single basketball game, in prime time. My theory is that the churn of events in both prime time broadcasts (CBC & NBC) is immense, because of our ever shortening attention span as a people. About the longest thing you will see is a volleyball game, and they are usually over in less than an hour. Guess the age old paranoia about delivering on the high commercial time charges is at an all time high here, and both networks are working like hell to keep you glued to their coverage. But the simple fact is that reality is completely different. I hung in to watch all the new American commercials and even some of the new Canadian spots for the first few days. But after that it was a one-way trip to flip city. My network brand loyalty is pretty much zero as I’m sure yours is too. I go where the action is…why…mainly because it’s so damn easy to get there.
BASKETBALL…IT WAS WELL WORTH THE WAIT
Last night I taped the whole of the Olympic overnight program, hoping I would get all or part of the final gold medal game between the USA and Spain. Well I did and it was a humdinger. It was pretty much a done deal from the get go that nobody was gonna beat the US “Little Dream Team”. I mean this is the most awesome collection of NBA talent available these days. But I have to tell you, the Spaniards handled themselves extremely well and even though they couldn’t keep up at the end. They gave the US more than its share of fits and starts. But for the viewer (me), that just made it all the more exciting and it spoke volumes about the bigger point…namely that there is world class basketball being played in just about every corner of the world now, especially in Europe. The US won the gold that they deserved and for me the Olympics ended, pretty much the way it began.
FINAL THOUGHTS
We watched a bit of the Closing Ceremonies, but not a lot. I was pretty much Olympiced
out by then.
So here are my observations in a nutshell.
The polluted air of Beijing didn’t seem to have much of an effect on the shorter running events. But the heat
and humidity prevented the longer runs from re-setting any world records.
There were a number of real hot spots. Michael Phelps, Usain Bolt. The US Woman’s Beach volleyball team. Eric Lemaz taking gold in show jumping. The Chinese athletes who took the lion’s share of the gold medals. Our Canadians who copped a few more medals than the Olympics before. And most of all the Chinese people, about a million of them who volunteered to give up a year of their lives to run the show and perform in the opening and closing ceremonies, which will go down in history as the most spectacular events ever staged by a b bunch of human beings.
While we were watching the closing ceremonies, Bob ‘Sport Boy’ Costas mentioned that the estimate overall bill for staging these particular Olympics was something in the neighbour hood of $40 Billion. And you know what, I saw it all up there on the screen, each night as we sat down to watch. It was truly an amazing feat, and all so that I could sit back in the comfy chair at Spud Central and repeat with astonishingly frequency the two words that sum up my perception of these Olympics best….Holy Shit!
