Summer Olympics 2020/1

[MichaelB]

The US women’s soccer team fell to Canada, who went gone on to win gold. The Canadians must feel somewhat vindicated after losing their 2012 match in part to a poor call by the referee.

Watching the Mexico - Brazil men’s soccer match, one of the announcers kept saying this was a “rematch for Brazil” after Brazil’s loss to Mexico in 2012. I thought a rematch was a follow-on encounter between the same two competitors, and these teams are totally different. Same country but different players = not a rematch.

 

[RunningBum]

Really good marathon coverage. Kara Goucher is a natural at this, with a ton of credibility. And I really liked that they kept giving 5K splits so you can get a sense of the race tactics. Incredible run by Molly Seidel.

 

[Car-Guy]

Incredible run by Molly Seidel.

+1 Really an outstanding performance (winning the bronze) for such an inexperienced marathon runner. I was on the edge of my chair the last ~15 minutes of that race... I think she was really lucky that one of the 4 leaders in the last few miles "hit her personal wall" and dropped out. And then I thought for sure that runner in 4th place from Ethiopia was going to catch her... In the end, only 26 seconds separated the top three runners in a ~2 and 1/2 hour race...

 

[cathy63]

+1 Really an outstanding performance (winning the bronze) for such an inexperienced marathon runner. I was on the edge of my chair the last ~15 minutes of that race... I think she was really lucky that one of the 4 leaders in the last few miles "hit her personal wall" and dropped out. And then I thought for sure that runner in 4th place from Ethiopia was going to catch her... In the end, only 26 seconds separated the top three runners in a ~2 and 1/2 hour race...

Yeah, that was a really amazing race! Even if she'd come in fourth it still would have been a huge accomplishment, but I'm super happy for her that she got a medal.

 

[Car-Guy]

In the final track events today, the US men's 4x400 relay team won Gold, which happened right after the US women's team had won Gold in their 4x400 relay too. Impressive...


Video highlights of both races in the link below.


https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/new...400m-relay-gold-in-final-track-event/2918811/

 

[nap470]

Watched the last hour of the closing ceremony this morning. Not very well attended by the athletes, but I expected that. The hand-off to Paris for the 2024 summer games was well done.

As I always do, I had some "water in my eyes" as the flame was extinguished. I really do enjoy Olympic competition. Nicely done Tokyo!

 

[REWahoo]

Hard for me to wrap my head around the fact the winter Olympics start less than six months from now: February 4. Hope NBC learned something from their confusing coverage of Tokyo and come up with a more consolidated and streamlined way to allow viewers to see the events we want to watch in Beijing.

 

[MichaelB]

Hard for me to wrap my head around the fact the winter Olympics start less than six months from now: February 4. Hope NBC learned something from their confusing coverage of Tokyo and come up with a more consolidated and streamlined way to allow viewers to see the events we want to watch in Beijing.

+1, but I think this is optimistic. NBC has broadcast every Olympic Games since 1988 (summer) and 2002 (winter). They have more experience than everyone else.

I suspect part of the problem is NBC builds their Olympic coverage with more focus on advertisers than viewers.

 

[Yoheadden]

Watched the last hour of the closing ceremony this morning. Not very well attended by the athletes, but I expected that. The hand-off to Paris for the 2024 summer games was well done.

As I always do, I had some "water in my eyes" as the flame was extinguished. I really do enjoy Olympic competition. Nicely done Tokyo!

I haven’t seen the closing ceremonies yet, but I agree, I really enjoy Olympic competition as well. I watch sports that I would never watch, but just marvel at the level of talent.

Hard for me to wrap my head around the fact the winter Olympics start less than six months from now: February 4. Hope NBC learned something from their confusing coverage of Tokyo and come up with a more consolidated and streamlined way to allow viewers to see the events we want to watch in Beijing.

Wow, that is unbelievable. I had to stop and think about this when I read it. Lol
The different streaming services make it a lot easier to watch overviews and find certain events.

 

[tmm99]

Wow, that is unbelievable. I had to stop and think about this when I read it. Lol
The different streaming services make it a lot easier to watch overviews and find certain events.

Can you believe we had only one channel to watch the Olympics in the old days and we actually had to sit there and watch right then (no playbacks!)?

I watched the men's volleyball final when I was in 7th grade or 8th grade - The game went to the 5th set and it was 4 AM by the time it was over! I still remember the excitement of my team winning the gold medal.

 

[cathy63]

...Hope NBC learned something from their confusing coverage of Tokyo and come up with a more consolidated and streamlined way to allow viewers to see the events we want to watch in Beijing.

What part of this year's coverage did you find more confusing than prior years? I watched a lot of NBC and a little of USA and thought the network coverage was exactly the same as every other year -- dipping in and out of a lot of events, focusing for a little longer on those that are of interest to Americans, and telling the occasional human interest story from everything else. The pandemic meant there was less of the local travelogue stuff and less of the pre-filmed athletes' life stories, but otherwise it seemed very much as usual to me.

The one thing I thought was vastly superior this year was the ability to stream every event in its entirety. DH likes track cycling, and in past years it was always "call me if you see it" or "record everything that might include it" and then you just get the finals, or worse, the last two laps of a long race. This year it was super easy to find and watch an entire session in the order that it occurred via streaming. He was delighted to see the entire men's Omnium and Madison races, which maybe got 2 minutes of primetime coverage otherwise.

I think the regular network coverage for Beijing next year will be better just because the Winter Olympics have fewer events, athletes and venues. They are normally somewhat less scattershot than the Summer Olympics.

 

[Midpack]

Hard for me to wrap my head around the fact the winter Olympics start less than six months from now: February 4. Hope NBC learned something from their confusing coverage of Tokyo and come up with a more consolidated and streamlined way to allow viewers to see the events we want to watch in Beijing.

Wow, that is unbelievable. I had to stop and think about this when I read it. Lol
The different streaming services make it a lot easier to watch overviews and find certain events.

Can you believe we had one channel to watch the Olympics in the old days and we actually had to sit there and watch right then (no playbacks!)?

My thoughts as well. We used to watch on one channel at night only. This time we could watch almost 24/7 on NBC, NBCSN, CNBC, USA, Olympic Chan, Golf Chan & Peacock - plus almost 2000 YouTube highlight videos (before airing on networks in many cases). I don't get the complaints about this years coverage, though I respect the fact that many viewers did complain. Not having fans there was sad from an economic standpoint for Japan, but I never watched the Olympics to see fans and when present they certainly aren't the main event or a reason to watch IMHO? The only missing fans IMO were the parents and close friends of many athletes who weren't allowed to attend - that was sad.

 

[Sojourner]

Apparently, the Tokyo Olympics this year had the lowest TV viewership ever for the summer Games. Quote from an article at Yahoo! Sports:

Have you been watching the Olympics? If so, you’re part of a much smaller community than in Games past. Ratings for the Tokyo Games are down significantly from Rio 2016, London 2012 and prior Games — like, losing-half-the-audience significant.

NBC’s overall TV audience for the Tokyo Games is down an average of about 45 percent from the comparable Rio Games in 2016. Prime-time viewership — which consists of both live and delayed events — is down by 51 percent.

Individual days are even worse, with last Saturday’s audience of 14.9 million ranking as the lowest ever recorded for a Summer Olympics, breaking the record of … the previous Wednesday.

I didn't watch a single moment of TV coverage this year, which is the first time that's been the case for me since I was old enough to watch TV. Apparently, millions of others also chose to tune out completely this year. I wonder why...

 

[Midpack]

I didn't watch a single moment of TV coverage this year, which is the first time that's been the case for me since I was old enough to watch TV. Apparently, millions of others also chose to tune out completely this year. I wonder why...

Honestly not looking for an argument (frankly I watched more of the Olympics on YT than broadcast networks) - but why didn't you watch this time around?

 

[Car-Guy]

What part of this year's coverage did you find more confusing than prior years? I watched a lot of NBC and a little of USA and thought the network coverage was exactly the same as every other year -- dipping in and out of a lot of events, focusing for a little longer on those that are of interest to Americans, and telling the occasional human interest story from everything else. The pandemic meant there was less of the local travelogue stuff and less of the pre-filmed athletes' life stories, but otherwise it seemed very much as usual to me.

I think coverage was at least as good as it was in the past too, although I'm not sure I remember past coverage well enough to compare exactly... I watched more on USA than NBC but both were pretty good IMO.

About the only complaint I have on the coverage was some of the announcers that were so called "experts". Maybe some were, but when they start saying, oh they should have done this or should done that or now's the time to make your break... Some went overboard, IMO.


All in all, pretty dang good stuff.

 

[RobbieB]

I watched about the same, turn on and watch a couple hours before lights out and go to sleep.

 

[Popeye]

Apparently, the Tokyo Olympics this year had the lowest TV viewership ever for the summer Games. Quote from an article at Yahoo! Sports:



I didn't watch a single moment of TV coverage this year, which is the first time that's been the case for me since I was old enough to watch TV. Apparently, millions of others also chose to tune out completely this year. I wonder why...

I wonder if with the new ways of watching you can even compare ratings anymore. Do you just add up all the streams, on demand views, and regular views? Do they have a good sense of all of this? Of course, if you’re NBC the main thing is what you can present to sponsors when selling ad space!

 

[Popeye]

Watched the last hour of the closing ceremony this morning. Not very well attended by the athletes, but I expected that. The hand-off to Paris for the 2024 summer games was well done.

As I always do, I had some "water in my eyes" as the flame was extinguished. I really do enjoy Olympic competition. Nicely done Tokyo!

I think the protocols forced the athletes to leave shortly after completion of their sports. I read different rules ranging from two to five days. Feels like last night was the opening ceremonies and now they are wrapping up already. Always passes quickly for me.

 

[Sojourner]

Honestly not looking for an argument (frankly I watched more of the Olympics on YT than broadcast networks) - but why didn't you watch this time around?

I'm not exactly sure, TBH, but I have some theories. I would say it's a combination of things. First, the Olympics were delayed and delayed and then fraught with all kinds of issues surrounding COVID. And given the gravity of the pandemic, the enormous loss of life, all the suffering, along with the political and social angst and unrest, the Olympics just seemed like a very "trivial" thing to me in the grand scheme of things. Also, quite honestly, I think there is far less of a sense of national pride, unity, and brotherhood this year than ever before, which IMHO makes the concept of rooting for the American swim team or the American volleyball team—just because they happen to be American—seem very quaint and old-fashioned. My two cents, for what they're worth.

Oh yeah, and I almost forgot the biggest reason I didn't have any real interest and didn't watch... I got married this summer!

 

[REWahoo]

I think the root of my complaint about NBC's coverage this year is my perception that the network continues to increase its treatment of the "Olympic Games" more as entertainment rather than as sports competition. The talking heads and all those human interest stories seek to create far too much drama where none is needed. Let us watch the athletes compete - plenty of drama in that.

And yes, they also need to get off my lawn.

 

[harllee]

I enjoyed watching the Olympics. I have YouTube TV and they had an easy way to record every event and group the events by sport. So everyday we would look at the list of what was recorded and watch bunch of stuff. I watched some sports I had never seen before like Dressage, Race Walking and Rhythmic Gymnastics. A great way to watch. I will probably continue to watch events I recorded for the next few weeks.

 

[Car-Guy]

Looks like we have a final medal count. The US won 39 Gold, 41 Silver and 33 Bronze

(Complete details in the link below)

From CBS Sports:

The 2020 Tokyo Olympics have come and gone. Overall, 339 medals were handed out across 33 sports and Team USA was the big winner collecting one third of all of the medals that were awarded.


https://www.cbssports.com/olympics/...bronze-and-overall-with-more-than-100-medals/

 

[Dtail]

Looks like we have a final medal count. The US won 39 Gold, 41 Silver and 33 Bronze

(Complete details in the link below)

From CBS Sports:

The 2020 Tokyo Olympics have come and gone. Overall, 339 medals were handed out across 33 sports and Team USA was the big winner collecting one third of all of the medals that were awarded.


https://www.cbssports.com/olympics/...bronze-and-overall-with-more-than-100-medals/

It was nice to pass China in the gold count the last day.

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

Honestly not looking for an argument (frankly I watched more of the Olympics on YT than broadcast networks) - but why didn't you watch this time around?

I know you asked this of Sojourner, but I also didn't watch much. I honestly think it was the lack of crowds which drove a lack of excitement. Secondly is the broadcasters. They seemed to be much more annoying to me than in the past. I am not sure why, but they were. I very much did enjoy the recap shows that was done by Kevin Hart and Snoop Dogg...very funny and entertaining. I hope they do that for the winter games, too.

 

[CardsFan]

I know you asked this of Sojourner, but I also didn't watch much. I honestly think it was the lack of crowds which drove a lack of excitement. Secondly is the broadcasters. They seemed to be much more annoying to me than in the past. I am not sure why, but they were. I very much did enjoy the recap shows that was done by Kevin Hart and Snoop Dogg...very funny and entertaining. I hope they do that for the winter games, too.

I guess the Olympics has fully evolved to "entertainment", as opposed to sports coverage.

No, I don't want Snoop Dogg, or any other celebrity, analyzing the Olympics. Really, why should I care what he thinks of an Olympic event or athlete?

So, I watched very little. Only when DW had it on. Never turned it on myself.

I would say more, but then Porky will come along.