Olympic binge-watching
with a dollop of sunshine
The sun came out! If you live in Britain, and/or you know me even a little bit, you know that when the sun comes out and it is summer, you drop everything and run outside to enjoy it while you can.
In the evenings we’ve been watching the Olympics, which as you know started with the VERY LONG opening ceremonies in Paris last Friday night. I’m a sucker for opening and closing Olympic ceremonies—I LOVE the music, pageantry and glitz—but my goodness, four hours is a long time to watch. Not to mention a very long time for all those poor performers and athletes in the torrential Parisian rain! Thank goodness the ceremony ended with the professional Celine Dion singing from the Eiffel Towel. That was impressive.
Except for Wimbledon, the Olympics are my every-two year sporting binge activity. Since I grew up in the US, their version of commercial television broadcasting was my idea of how sports coverage is done. I didn’t question it; merely got annoyed sometimes at the relative amount of time spent on stories about the athletes, rather than the competition itself. Then I moved to the UK.
The first sports competition I remember watching was Wimbledon and I was astonished at the restrained narration, which was relatively calm and quiet. I wondered where all the noise, extra stories and busy visual graphics had gone. I soon realised the coverage here generally sticks to the level of noise and drama created by the event itself. There were no extraneous explainers and cut-aways to provide supplemental information. Narration and quick clarifications during breaks were provided, but not much else.
And now, having said all that about restraint, I’ve noticed over time the UK has been moving closer to American-style presentations in its Olympic coverage. For example, this first week the BBC have gone bonkers in telling personal stories about a few of the swimmers. One night, for example, they showed a clip of four GB men’s freestyle swimmers—who went on to win the gold medal in the 4 x 200 freestyle relay—getting together beforehand to paint very amateur portraits of each other as a way to show what great buddies they are. Really???
For obvious reasons, television coverage in the UK for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London was massive, and every UK athlete competing got loads of airtime. Since my daughter was coming to join us from the US, and based on her Vancouver Olympics experience two years earlier, she figured out how we could use both the UK and US ticket lotteries. SCORE! We got tickets to beach volleyball, which ended up being loads of fun to see in person. The event was located in the beautiful central London Horse Guards Parade.
Eventually we realised the event wasn’t going to be in the Olympic Park, and of course we wanted to soak up the atmosphere in the main Olympic Park, shop for Olympic ‘merch’, and try to spot the athletes wandering around. Once they released more tickets, we managed to get tickets to the UK-Netherlands women’s field hockey game one early evening in the Park. Since I played field hockey in high school this was particularly exciting for me!
Needless to say we had a fabulous time on the days we attended each event. We spent the entire day within the Olympic Park before the evening hockey game. We didn’t see any famous athletes, but we spent a long time in the official Olympic store finding exactly the right Olympic Merch. We lounged on grassy knolls watching large screens dotted around the park, broadcasting the live events. We were thrilled to share the relaxed, happy vibe alongside thousands of other sports fans from around the world. 🌍 🌎 🌏
The last Olympic-related topic I’ll leave you with is the curious case of why Americans call ‘Track and Field’ what everyone else in the world calls ‘Athletics’. I scoffed when I learned ‘Track and Field’ was called ‘Athletics’ after I moved to the UK. Athletics are all the sports, I insisted. But, it turns out, only the US calls it Track and Field1. Why is this? Even the International Olympic Committee calls it Athletics. Harumph. If anyone knows how this deviation started, please feel free to share it with us in the comments!
Thanks so much for reading today! I hope you are enjoying the Olympics if you watch that sort of thing, and/or you are spending your time doing the things you love and that bring you joy. If you enjoy watching the Olympics, let me know what sports are your favourite. And if not, what are you doing whilst everyone else is distracted?
See you next week!
xx Sabrina
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From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Track_and_field
Athletics (or track and field in the United States) is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping events. Track and field is categorized under the umbrella sport of athletics, which also includes road running, cross country running and racewalking. In British English the term "Athletics" is synonymous with American "Track and Field" and includes all jumping events. In all countries other than the United States [emphasis added], Athletics is the official term for this sport with 'track' and 'field' events being subgroups of athletics events. In the United States, the term 'athletics' is often used in place of the umbrella term 'sport'.
Great to hear about the sun beaming down on your little island! Regarding media coverage of the Olympics, I have a pet peeve that may be especially relevant in NZ. It concerns our national obsession with the "medal count," as if one's concern for this bald numeral is a key motivation for us being a humble, grateful spectators of these sports events. I know that is clearly not why you, dear Sabrina, love to watch the athletes perform, but for some, this motivation seems almost overriding? The NZ media, in particular, continually harp on the "count." At the moment, we Kiwis should virtually be in mourning because the absolute value of this tally is embarrassingly low (most gallingly relative to our big brother Australia). Implicit in this mind set is that one only really enjoys great performances if they are accomplished by our own clan. Ok, I'm done with my peeve now (thanks).
Your London experience sounds fabulous! And TBH, I think the London Opening Ceremony has to go down as one of the greats, along with Beijing. Who can ever forget that amazing drumming sequence? I watch it today and still get shivers down the spine. And with the London opening - The Queen and James Bond - brilliant British humour.
Because of the time lag, I didn't watch the Paris Opening. Not even highlights because I was bingeing the equestrian telecast. It is, as you say, restrained commentary. Which is perfect in my mind.
Husband is overseas so I get to indulge my own tastes - horses, hockey and rowing. Maybe I'll watch soccer in the top end games. Despite that I used to competition-swim, I've watched nothing from the pool. Swimmers in Australia have superstar status and egos to match in my mind. There's no humility and I stopped watching two games ago. I suppose one could argue that they're so successful in the pool, they deserve the egos and attention and yet I look at other Australian sportsmen and women and see none of that.
Oooh, and I remember something fantastic that came out of Barcelona - Freddy Mercury and Montserrat Caballé singing Barcelona. I play that on my car radio at full volume and LOVE it!
There's no doubt the Games, like the Tour de France and the Giro d'Italia that are a brilliant escape from a rabid world.