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Channel 7 marked Libby Trickett’s gold medal in the women’s 100m butterfly by showing a clip of the Australian Olympic swim team singing a trite song composed for the occasion, “Live it, dream it”, with cuts of Trickett and Stephanie Rice winning their medals.
How very twee.
I watched this item while reading John Huxley’s compelling story about how Trickett felt like vomiting before her event, with her vicious attack of nerves only staunched when she told herself she had prepared well, and all she really had to do was perform well and the elusive gold medal was hers.
There was also the melodramatic troubles that her teammate Jessicah Schipper had with trying to zip up her full body Speedo suit.
Another suit had to be used in the end, and Schipper still looked traumatised by this malfunction, even after she had finished third in the event.
I’m still waiting for Channel 7 reporters to give us this intriguing back-story. But story-telling doesn’t seem to be part of their coverage.
We have the over-hyped, cliched commentaries, the inane questioning after the events, and the very short, bland little pieces of filler that give us no idea of what is really happening at these ‘Glum Games,’ a term coined by The Australian’s Caroline Overington.
We hear a lot about world record times in the Water Cube swimming stadium.
But nowhere have we seen the detailed analysis provided, once again by the Sydney Morning Herald, on why the advances in pool construction and swimsuit technology will provide “life in the fast lane.”
One example of the detail about why the Beijing pool is fast is that, although the required depth of a pool is 2 metres, the Beijing pool is 3 metres: “a deep pool is a fast pool … Swimmers are further away from the base of the pool reducing wave reverb.”
Too many times the expert commentators are asked questions like, “What would Michael Phelps be feeling like now?”
Memo to the producers: if you want to know, or think viewers should know, what Michael Phelps is thinking, ask him. It’s called reporting.
Watching American television I discovered that there are fears about cheating by a particular judge (an Argentinian) in the gymnastics events; that the crowd went quiet at the opening ceremony when Putin’s photo went up on the big screen; and that this was before the real impact of the invasion of Georgia was known.
That the Iranian team was booed when it came into the stadium.
That ordinary people living in Beijing are having a tough time with cars being on a two-day cycle and prices for vegetables going up by 100 per cent.
The Glum Games indeed.