by Grahaml » Fri Aug 22, 2008 7:02 pm
I have no problem with any of the sports that are in the olympics. They all demand excellence and while we mightn't like some of them, they are massively popular in other countries.
I don't like motorsport being there. I think it's too prohibitive for all countries to be able to compete. Sure, some sports require a lot of money (equestrian for example) but not that much money that motorsport needs. There are so many forms of motorsport (open wheel, touring car, motorcycling, rally et cetera) that deciding which to use would favour one country over another unfairly. Nascar would favour the yanks, F1 the europeans, rally the europeans and in all the poor asian and african countries would be left miles behind. It's also too easy to win by investing more money into technology and support crew.
Perhaps cricket and Rugby (real rugby not 7s. Do it properly or not at all IMHO) can feature because I see no reason why we can't expand the olympics more and more. The money made means it's viable and clever programming can make a longer event more appealing. I think athletics needs to be strung out more. Let's face it, athletics is the number 1, so let's feature more of it. The guy who won the 110 hurdles is one of the greats but I think he was ignored too much. By elongating the athletics events to stretch over a few more days I think we can make more of events like we already do with the 100, 200, 400 and the relay events. The gaps that might appear can be covered by more events in other disciplines IMHO.
However, any sport that is not "elite" should be culled. The olympics should be about seeing who is the best. Not the best outside the best, or the best under 23s. The IOC should negotiate with FIFA and the other big world team sports to figure out a way to get the best out there, or cut the sport. Having the olympics as the contest for the under 23 soccer teams plus a few older hacks is not what the olympics are all about IMHO.
On another note, if I was in charge of a network I would attempt to reduce the talk and endless replays of selected events. The web offers a brilliant way of letting people see the events they want to whenever they want. Sure, show replays, but how many times do we need to see McLellan or Rice win? If I need to see it again then I'll be more than happy to look it up. Setting up a great web site to show footage of all Aussie medallists and other selected events should be easy as anything. Instead, I'd try to show every aussie competing. Live if possible, but at least show snippets of even the ones who go out in round 1 of the wrestling at some point. And the fact that I didn't see anything of the sailing until the medals were basically decided was a little disappointing. Maybe they showed some of those events, but not to the extent I would have liked to. Showing some of each sport, showing every Aussie in action and setting up a decent website would be the 3 things I would do first. Then I'd talk to SBS and work out how to complement each other rather than force SBS into showing things hours later and sports that 7 don't even show. Having said that, though, I've actually really enjoyed watching the USA men's volleyball team. SBS have done well IMHO to follow a team's fortunes like that rather than jump on once it looks like something might happen.
)MUST KEEP - maybe it could be sponsored by durex instead.
