GYMN-L Digest - 24 Jul 1996 - Special issue
There
are 19 messages totalling 654 lines in this
issue.
Topics in this special issue:
1. Looking for scores
2. Women win gold!
3. Dom M w/o the fall
4. tv
Alert
5. NBC Coverage
Good
6. The US CROWD
7. USA team
8. Olympic Questions...
9. If I hear one more complaint about
NBC....!
10. UNSUBCRIBE ME!!!
11. NBC's coverage Tues. 7/23 (LONG)
(2)
12. various
gripes about whiners
13. 0.2
deductions
14. Recording of
yesterdays optionals
15. AA Qualifiers
16. Life During Wartime
17. Canadian Coverage (Not CBC vs NBC)
18.
Comments on NBC (constructive and otherwise)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 12:33:07
-0400
From: ***@AOL.COM
Subject:
Looking for scores
HELP!!!!!!
I am very frustrated because NBC did not give the scores for
Moceanu's beam
and Kerri's floor. My
daughter and I were keeping very
careful track of
scores and were really aggrevated!!! Does anyone have the
scores? If so,
please E-mail them. Thanks so
much. I wish NBC had shown
the competition a little earlier instead of making us stay
up until all hours
of the night. I couldn't get my 13 year old unglued
from the TV and of
course she still had to go to
gym early this morning! As much as
I hate to
see any gymnast get hurt, and as much as
I hate to see Kerri miss the chance
at AA that
she's been waiting so long for, I think her vault will go down in
Olympic
history. She will be remembered
forever, as she never would have
been before. Things work in strange ways!
CONGRATULATIONS
TO AMANDA, AMY, DOMINIQUE D., DOMINIQUE M., JAYCIE, KERRI AND
SHANNON ON A
JOB WELL DONE! THEY WERE
SOLID!
Janet Lynch,
still awed in Vermont!
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 11:38:29
-0500
From: ***@MAIL.COIN.MISSOURI.EDU
Subject:
Women win gold!
I was really excited to be able to watch the United
States team claim the
gold medal. When I was
watching the Team Finals on TV, I couldn't help
but
notice the electricity that emanated from the crowd as the Mag-7, as
they were called, entered the Georgia Dome.
>From
the beginning, these athletes competed as though they were posessed,
sticking every move they attempted. After the first rotation
when the US
ladies overtook the Russians, it
seemed that that competitive drive
doubled
itself.
Even onto the last rotation, the US women were clearly in
control of that
night. I thought it interesting
that they quoted the Russian coach saying
that he
didn't really care for the venue because the people were so loud
there. But, that is what you can expect when you have the
home-court
advantage, I guess.
But the
real story of the night were the efforts, and ultimately the gold
medal-winning efforts of Kerri Strug.
I don't know...it seems as if the
people whom the
media crown as being the best hopes for gold on the team
are
the ones who are overshadowed by the oft-unmentioned teammate (e.g.,
Shannon
overshadowed by Kim, Kerri overshadowed by Dominique and
Shannon). It was
her performances that seemed to cap the evening off.
When she
performed her second vault, I was having feelings of both joy
and concern for her. First, she captured the gold medal for
the team
(which it later turned out that she did
not even have to do the vault),
but ultimately it
was the concern for her physical health. When she
landed
from that vault, you could tell she was really hurt...she
mentioned later on that she was hurting even before the
vault, but she
chose to do it anyways so as not to
let her country, her teammates, and
ultimately
herself down.
For this, I commend Kerri. She is the true hero of these
Games.
--Michael :)
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 11:39:53
CDT
From: ***@PROCTR.CBA.UA.EDU
Subject:
Dom M w/o the fall
Intersting note.
It
seems that Dom M would be in 2nd or 3rd place going into
all-around
finals without the fall on vault and about a 9.70 score,
which
would be safe to say(she is capable of it). A 9.80 might
would have put her in first or close to it. So, let's see how the
all-around will go.
Another interesting note and
for those Bama fans out there, U of A won
the NCAA National Championships this year with the same
rotation order as the
USA women's team. They started on bars and ended on
vault.
Shawn
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 12:51:16
-0400
From: ***@AOL.COM
Subject:
tv Alert
Today,
Wednesday, July 24, 1996, there is going to be gymnastics on Day and
Date which airs on CBS at 4:00. It is supposed to be about
gymnastics,
including the contoversies,
so it's probably based on Little Girls in Pretty
Boxes. Maybe we'll
actually be lucky and it will show more than one side of
the
controversy.
Yours in Gymnastics,
Shari
Congratiulations to the US women's team for job well done.
P.S. I really
hope Kerri is going to be OK since she certainly was a key
player in the US chance for winning gold. Look what she's
done for the USA.
Congratulations Kerri!!!!
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 10:50:50
-0600
From: ***@CSN.NET
Subject:
NBC Coverage Good
NBC is doing a fine job of covering the
Olympics.
What those of us who want more gymnastics with a diminished
focus on the US
discount is that NBC paid an
enormous amount of money for this premier block
of
entertainment programming. They've
got stockholders that demand they
break even or
make a profit on it. If this were
PBS, you'd probably get
more balanced coverage but
I'll bet there'd be quite a few more pieces on
Atlanta
& the history of sports.
(Side question: If this were
on PBS, who
would take John Tesh's
role? Would we have the Laughlin
Group covering
gymnastics?)
There are
very few truly knowledgable gym fans in the
audience. I estimate
that less than 1 1/2 million potential viewers have had
enough technical
exposure to gymnastics to tell a
Jaeger from a Geinger. Meanwhile, there
are
millions of people who like watching gymnastics because they think it's
pretty and shows the incredible skill and dedication of
these athletes.
They *want* to think they know what's going on but they
need a connection
that can explain it to them, on
a level they can understand.
John Tesh is
that link. He acts as a fan of U.S.
gymnastics and people can
feel that they've got
him in the living room to interpret what Elfe &
Tim
have to say. Sure, he's repetitive and keeps talking
about the beam being
four feet high and four
inches wide. That's his
job--because he's there to
make gymnastics
accessible to people who would love to appreciate it but
don't
see enough of it to be able to follow or determine which routine was
best. Heck, if
you listen to football & baseball commentators, they're
always doing some things to educate novice members of their
audience,
although they have the comparative
luxury of knowing their audience can
usually tell
a touchdown from a turnover.
Four years ago, NBC gave us the
tremendous gift of the TripleCast. It was
supposed
to make money but it tanked.
Although I can see a number of
marketing
mistakes that were made with the TripleCast that
could be avoided
in the future, enabling a network
to make money on such an offering, NBC was
burned
badly by the experience.
I'm afraid that some of the more vocal of us
are comparing current coverage
with the TripleCast.
We're getting so much in terms of gymnastics now that
I know basketball , baseball and tennis afficionados
who are pretty ticked
off about all of the
gymnastics. Which pleases me
because we don't get to
see gymnastics like this
except during the Olympics.
Yes, it's not the TripleCast. Yes, it's focused on the US
gymnasts. That's
for two reasons.
1. NBC is broadcasting within the US. They'll lose folks on the
commercial
breaks if there isn't something
interesting to bring them back. So
we see
US gymnasts, a few outstanding gymnasts from other countries, some
focus on
the most competitive teams and we see the
big mistakes. All of these are
interesting to a partisan U.S. audience.
2. This year we've seen the men's team
improve tremendously with some great
individual
and team efforts. They're going
places. This year the women's
team is great!
With the continuity on team from Barcelona, the audience
wants to see Shannon, Kerri & Dom. They know that Amanda just barely
missed
out on Barcelona & there's all of the
hype about Dom M. Even the
coaches
seem to be more cohesive, less locked in
their ego trips. The team is
working together rather than competing against each
other. In the past,
when the US has not had strong teams, there's been more
coverage of other
gymnasts. This year, the viewing audience wanted
the gold and the glory.
I hope that there will be a number of great
tapes made of the gymnastics
competition at the
Olympics. NBC has terrific raw
footage that they can
polish and sell (but why not
take orders for it now?) or license to other
organizations.
I
do appreciate the amount of gymnastics coverage that we're getting from
NBC
and the sport should see a popular boom because of it. Now, if USAG
would
only go to work on maintaining this Olympic coverage of gymnastics as
a popular spectator sport, we might be able to look forward
to meets that
are broadcast on the day of
competition rather than being delayed for months.
My
$0.02 worth. Flame
away!
Cindy
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 12:55:21
-0400
From: ***@UMICH.EDU
Subject:
The US CROWD
I
remember reading somewhere at Sabae that there were
cheering
sections for a lot of the countries
composed of school children. Talk
about
hospitality.
There wasn't any
"Southern Hospitality" at these Games.
The solgan
for 1996 is :
Atlanta Come share the dream. Yeah right.
It was nice to see Japanese, Russian, Brazilan, Greek, British and Dutch
cheering
sections.( I was watching CBC and SRC not the NBC ) It was also
nice to see matches that feature athletes that were not from
the US (
again I wasn't watching NBC) For a minute I thought that the US was
the
only entrant in the games and everybody else
was just there for show.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 10:03:33
+0100
From: ***@ASUCLA.UCLA.EDU
Subject:
USA team
I must admit that I was skeptical when I got the results...
USA won...
right...
anyway,
after watching the coverage I must admit the US looked good..
however, we have NOTHING to compare them to, because NBC
showed nobody
else... Its like, I like my car and
I think its powerful, but then I drive
another car
and I'm like wow, my car lacks bigtime... the same
goes here...
Of course the US is going to look strong if they dont show anybody else....
so
now Im even more skeptical...
However, I am
so impressed with Shannon Miller... she is the hero of the
team... she was so strong and so solid... such a leader.. and she actuall
emoted in her floor routine... she is the best competitor
I've ever seen..
such a rock...
Love,
me
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 13:01:50
EDT
From: ***@COMPUSERVE.COM
Subject:
Olympic Questions...
Well, I have the same question others have had
regarding the Olympic
coverage or lack of coverage
in this case. Does anyone know if
Frank
Endo or some other merchant is going to offer videotapes of the gymnastics
at the Olympics?
I would kind of like to see some routines by gymnasts
from other countries.
Does anyone have a copy of
the CBC or SRC coverage? Would you
like to
trade for NBC's coverage or another
meet? I have been recording
gymnastics
meets for about 14 years, so I have a
lot of meets on tape and I would be
willing to
trade.
NBC showed all 24 US routines last night (women's team final) and less
than
10 routines from other nations. I think I can actually remember the
ones
they showed - one Romanian on vault (don't
remember her name), Marinescu on
beam, Milo on floor, Grosheva on
vault, Khorkina on beam and bars, and
Lilia on floor.
I believe those were the only non-US routines NBC aired.
I
understand NBC can't show every routine from every rotation, but they
could
have at least aired highlights from the
earlier rounds. I got to work
this
morning and someone asked me why only 4
countries competed in the team
finals? I don't think NBC even mentioned that
the other 8 countries plus the
individuals
competed earlier in the day.
I'm glad the US won. I was rooting for this team (which is,
BTW, the first time
I have ever rooted for a US team in the Olympics). However, I would like to
know if they really deserved the win. Were the Russians, Romanians and
Chinese
underscored or were the scores
accurate? The US seemed to get some
slightly
elevated scores, but overall, I didn't
think the scoring was too bad. I
do
know the Romanians and the Russians were
devastated, but I don't know if they
were upset
because they didn't do well or if they were upset because they didn't
agree with the results.
Does anyone have any comments on this situation?
I was a little
miffed about the audience in Atlanta.
The Americans were
doing great, but the
audience seemed to totally ignore routines by gymnasts
from
other countries. I realized that
there was no clapping or cheering
for Khorkina after her beam routine. I thought that was odd... It appears
that
the crowd in Atlanta for the gymnastics was not a very gymnastically
knowledgeable group overall. I have a feeling the US won't be getting
any
major gymnastics meets, like the World
Championships or the World Cup, for
quite a few
years.
I would have liked to have seen the
Romanians and Russians get their medals
along with
the Americans. I'm curious if they
were congratulatory towards
the AMericans or if they were ambivalent.
Another
question-- NBC
mentioned that the Romanians were complaining about
everything,
but they never really went in to detail about the complaints.
Does anyone
know the nature of their complaints? I read today that the
Chinese have
had a lot of problems with the accomodations,
transportation,
food, etc...
in Atlanta.
What are the complaints of the Romanians?
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 13:11:06
-0400
From: ***@POND.COM
Subject:
If I hear one more complaint about NBC....!
Ok
listen, we all know that you would like to see more
gymnasts covered on
TV. And
that's completely understandable, but do we have to reiterate EVERY
time we see the broadcasts? I mean think about it, in all of NBC's
other
Olympic coverage, do they really show more than the United States
athletes?
No, and gymnastics is not an exception. The majority of the people watching
in the US are not familiar with the world's gymnasts and
therefore are not
willing to watch
non-Americans. We all have to
understand the aspect of
interest for NBC, which
is the American gymnasts. Besides,
they are the
best team in the world right now. I hope you all will stop beating a
dead
horse and realize that they're not going to
change so enjoy the coverage you
will get.
Mol
********Go Kerri Strug!
What a trooper!*********
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 13:20:56 -0400
From: ***@POND.COM
Subject:
UNSUBCRIBE ME!!!
Not too be rude or anything but I can't stand the opinionation and the
complaining
that goes on in this list. Every
single time I read it, I get
really upset at the
pessimism that is all over the list.
I've tried
unsubscribing before but the
computer wouldn't let me, so please let me off
this
list, somebody. I'm sorry to those
people who this does not refer to.
Mol
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 12:14:07 EDT
From: ***@BBN.COM
Subject: Re:
NBC's coverage Tues. 7/23 (LONG)
Suzanne L asks whether I'm sure the
men's team optionals competition
was only "plausibly live." The schedule I saw for it listed the
final
session starting at 4:41 p.m. (Eastern), so
I'm pretty sure it would have
been over by 8:30,
long before they started covering it.
Same thing with the
women's team finals;
the last group started at 5:11 p.m. (Eastern)
so
it should have been well over by 8:30 Eastern time.
Ann K. Reed
comments about Civil War pieces and Tesh's intro
comment
about "little girls
dancing." I actually tried to
bet a friend of mine
how many days in it would
take before we got an excruciating Civil War
piece,
but he was smart enough not to take the bet! And did you notice
that the music under Tesh's intro
was the Amish tune "Gift to Be Simple"
(as
part of Copland's "Appalachian Spring")? Odd choice of music.
Joy
Bauer mentions San Fujimoto competing with his broken leg
at the 1976 Olympics; NBC also mentioned this (with
accompanying
footage) in their post-Leno
show.
As for NBC goofing up on whether Kerri needed to do her second
vault:
They mentioned that they were telling us was the score needed
under the assumption that any Russians left to compete
would
all throw 10.0 sets on FX. Obviously, that didn't happen,
and wasn't likely, given the judging to that point, but
that's
where the 9.4xx benchmark came from.
I
had been hoping that Miller, Strug, and Dawes would
end up being the US
qualifiers for AA, but this
was _not_ the way I wanted it to happen.
Even
if Kerri can't safely continue
competing in Atlanta, I'm looking forward
to her 4
years of NCAA competition for UCLA.
What a gutsy team player!
And maybe now the NBC folks will finally
be able to get her age right
(18, guys, not 19, at least
until November). Can you
sell the rights
for your made-for-TV biopic
without endangering your NCAA eligibility?
Interesting that the US had
only two major breaks in the team
competition (not
counting Kerri's first vault in finals), and
that
they were from the two youngest team members--Phelps on
compulsory
beam and Moceanu on optional vault. The "old ladies"
came through for us.
How wonderful that Borden saved the best beam
routine
of her life for team finals, and that Amy Chow threw
the
great UB set she's capable of.
BTW, did I miss something about
Miller's optional UB routine?
It seemed underscored to me, and the
commentators said nothing.
Now for the not so wonderful aspects of
NBC's coverage:
Optionals shown
scorecard:
US
all 24
Russia
Khorkina on beam and bars, a couple of vaults,
a clip of
a major bobble on beam, and snatches of BB
routines
in the background of US FX routines, when the
camera
happened to be pointing that way. (4-5)
Romania Milosovici
on floor, Marinescu on beam (2)
Ukraine Podkopayeva
on floor (1)
This is ridiculous.
What about Amanar's FX, the high score of the
day?
Only one routine for Pods, the World and European AA
champion?
Nothing from Gogean,
the 5th place individual finisher?
No Romanians on vault or bars, no
Russians on floor?
Surely we could have watched a non-US routine instead of
having the
lengthy coverage of Miller adjusting
her wrist tape after UB.
They actually ended up with less coverage of the
team optionals
than the
team compulsories!
I missed NBC's morning coverage; did they show
anything of the
earlier sessions, such as the one
with China and Belarus?
>>Kathy
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 13:26:23
-0400
From: ***@KENT.NET
Subject:
Re: various gripes about whiners
>I am so sick of hearing all of
the complaining going on on this list. The
>people
on this list probably represent 1% of the serious gymnastics fans in
>the world and that IS NOT NBCs TARGET AUDIENCE. The average US viewer...AND
>NBC
IS A US BROADCASTING COMAPNY...watches gymnastics during the Olympics
>and not much more than that. These people do not know much about
gymnastics
>and probably don't care much about
the other countries, this may be sad to
>you,
but it is true.
But part of the job of a broadcasting company is to
educate the public
about the sport and it's
stars. NBC didn't do that. I hope they do better
in the AA, and show the gymnasts who are the best in the
world but
may not be American. I mean, people who don't watch
gymnastics
regularly probably have the impression
that the only good gymnasts in
the world are
American, which isn't true.
>And the fact that Bela...and
others were coaching from the barrier, so
>what!!!
It is not like all of the Russians ans Romanians even
HAVE
>individual coaches that they leave
behind. They are
coached by one person,
>not 5 individual
coaches.
>As for the American fans screaming the whole time....I AM SO SORRY THAT
>AMERICANS ARE MORE LIVELY than the quasi-dead crowd in Barcelona, which
may
>have cheered in an unpartisan way, but the
whole time they sounded like they
>were
cheering for a badminton match.
The Americans are more
lively? Yeah,
but only for their own team.
I mean,
the other gymnasts could have least
recieved polite applause for a good
routine. And
this isn't just happening in gymnastics.
There are a lot of
other sports I've seen
covered where the American fans failed to
awknowledge foreign athletes.
Did you watch
any of the 1994 Winter Olympics in Norway?
The
Norwegian fans cheered loudly for EVERYBODY, Norwegian or
not. I
thought
this was very classy and sportsmanlike of them.
NBC could at least awknowledge that other gymnasts are there and are
doing well.
>I don't know how anyone can
feel worse for the tears of the Russians than
>for
a gymnast in pain either. I am
sorry that only one team could win the
>gold,
but in Barcelona when the American's finished what people considered
>to be a disappointing 3rd...I didn't see them bawling all
over the
>place!!!!! Part of competition is losing too. The
US DESERVED THIS. I am
>sorry that the Romanians drew the first comp rotation, but
it happens.
I don't think anybody's saying that the US shouldn't have
won. What they're
saying is that the other teams also performed well and
should be
awknowledged
for it. And that maybe the
competition would have been
a little closer if all
teams had the same conditions.
I saw a piece
on
the American Team and where they were living and training before
the competition.
They were living in a fancy college fraternity house -
by themselves - and training secretly for three hours a
day. I'm SURE that
the other teams didn't have that advantage. The other teams also had
to put up with the noise generated by the American fans and
not getting
any applause when they hit a
routine. Was it just me or was the FX music
louder
for the Americans than for the other teams?
>And compared to all of
the 9.9s and 10.0s that were flying around in
>Barcelona, I think that
the scoring here was much more consistent and
>correct. The US was not overscored
nor were the others underscored.
If
>anything, some of the US scores DID
seem to be too low.
>In closing, I have just one thing to say....SUCK IT UP AND QUIT WHINING!!!!!
>LMM
>Flame
at will, but privately please.
>
>
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 13:35:28
-0400
From: ***@GNN.COM
Subject:
Re: 0.2 deductions
>The 0.2 deduction for
not being American and competing at the Olympics in
>Atlanta....in a team event is this deduction per person, or per
team?
>
>If it were per person, then per team that would mean a
1.0 deduction, in
>which case if this deduction
was not made Russia would have claimed team
>gold!
>
Except
for that other deduction, the one for not being American and
competing at the Olympics in Atlanta and FALLING OFF THE
APPARTUS
thats
still a .5 deduction, so Russia would still get the silver
Most people
had thought the Russians would place 3rd or 4th -- they're my
favorite team and I'm thrilled they got the silver. Its a
shame they didnt
feel
the same way
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 10:50:15
-0700
From: ***@CCIT.ARIZONA.EDU
Subject:
Recording of yesterdays optionals
My
VCR went *KAPUTZ!!* yesterday while
I was at work so I missed
everything! Did anyone record yesterdays
gymnastics?
Nikki
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 12:53:08
-0600
From: ***@IGLOBAL.NET
Subject:
AA Qualifiers
Could someone please e-mail a list of the women's AA
Qualifiers? I can't
seem to find a list of
them....
Leah
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 11:09:06
+0000
From: ***@IGC.APC.ORG
Subject:
Life During Wartime
One of the touted joys of the Internet is that it
allows people who
live in nations where
"news" is only state propaganda to get the
real
scoop from the outside world, free of the heavy hand of the
nationalist media. In that spirit, this news-deprived
U.S/NBC
resident would be extremely grateful if
any of you who attended
the Games, or who live in
countries where TV showed what actually
*happened*
at the Womens Team Comp rather than just the USA
routines, would
report to the forum *any news* on the performances
of
medal winners Russia and Romania, and anyone else.
Did people REALLY
not cheer loudly for Sveta K? Was it that
bad? I am ashamed. What ungracious hosts.
--Mary
Lynne (who wants to grow up to be like Kerri Strug)
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 14:20:03
-0400
From: ***@UMICH.EDU
Subject:
Canadian Coverage (Not CBC vs NBC)
Could someone please explain to me what were the numbers flashed at
the
bottom.
I saw flags and numbers and I was wondering what the
numbers represented. Was it the team's compulsory score of
each event?
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 14:20:48 -0400
From: ***@CORNELL.EDU
Subject:
Re: NBC's coverage Tues. 7/23 (LONG)
At 12:14 7/24/96 EDT, you
wrote:
>Suzanne Lainson asks whether I'm sure
the men's team optionals competition
>was only "plausibly live." The schedule I saw for it listed the
final
>session starting at 4:41 p.m. (Eastern),
so I'm pretty sure it would have
>been over by
8:30, long before they started covering it. Same thing with the
>women's team finals; the last group started at 5:11 p.m.
(Eastern)
>so it should have been well over by
8:30 Eastern time.
A
related question... USA Today mentions that we've been seeing
"plausibly live" because part of the European broadcast
deal was to show the
events live in European prime
time, which is why they've been going on
early. I just looked over the times for men's
and women's EFs... they're
scheduled to go during
OUR prime time... so does that mean there will
actually
be REAL live coverage coming up soon?
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 11:48:32
-0700
From: ***@LELAND.STANFORD.EDU
Subject:
Comments on NBC (constructive and otherwise)
First off, my
congratulations to all of the competitors, especially Team USA
and Kerri, but also Russia and Romania for hanging in there
despite a crowd
that is about as clost to hostile as you will get outside of a
Georgia-Alabama dual meet. I agree that the U.S. has
probably lost any
chance of getting a major
championship here for quite some time.
Next, I think the ushers at the
Olympics should be supplied with
pea-shooters to
take out any moronic fans who ignore repeated pleas to stop
using their useless flash cameras.
On to NBC (I
will try to be constructive):
Either get rid of John Tesh or take the time to educate him on something
other than the personal lives of the gymnasts and the
dimensions of the
beam. I'm glad he lived up to his promise to
keep quiet during one beam
routine in
compulsories, but he needs to make and keep this promise more
often. Also, these are not "little girls"
anymore. They may still be
small
young women, but there has been a strong
trend toward maturity in women's
gymnastics
lately, and it's about time John ackowledges it.
What
ever happened to the days when the commentators provided a bit more
education than the dimensions of the beam? I gained a new appreciation for
pommel horse when Tim pointed out how much more difficult
single-pommel work
is, and I'm sure that viewers
found it interesting to know that Jaycie's
vault is named for her.
It seems, however, that there is a force in place
to
discourage gymnastics-related information in favor of repeating the same
comments over and over. (They can probably stop telling us
that Jaycie is
named for
her parents' initials.) Elfie noted the height of Dom Dawes'
release move on bars, but it was as if she was making a
point of not saying
that it's called a Hindorff, and perhaps I missed it, but were either of
the
compulsory vaults called by name at any point
in the competition? Please
encourage your commentators to provide more of this type of
information.
I could be wrong, but if you want to keep viewers in non-olympic years (God
knows the
rest of us would like to see something get enough viewership to
knock the Greater Smallsville Golf
Championships off the air.), educate them
in
lasting matters when you have their attention. To borrow from another
sport, note that nowhere in the MacDonald's commercial do
they mention
"Pocket Hurcules." As interesting as he may be to these
games, the guys on
the street are discussing the
finer points of the Clean and Jerk, which will
remain
long after the 1996 games are in the books.
And for heaven's sake,
lose the features that have nothing to do with the
Olympics. If I want to learn about the Civil War,
I'll read a book, watch
the History Channel (they
aren't *that* big a rating threat, are they?), or
rent
the video series myself. Don't whine about cramming coverage into a
limited amount of time when you're wasting it on this and
then still going
over time on non-live coverage.
The Olympics are not about Atlanta as it was
or
even as it will be; they are about the people and events taking place
during these 16 days.
Sorry to clog the list with
this, but I thought people might want to know
one
opinion sent to NBC so that they can either reinforce or rebut it.
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End
of GYMN-L Digest - 24 Jul 1996 - Special issue
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