Oh The Olympics

As a whole I've been pretty dedicated to watching a few of the sports in the Olympics - gymnastics (women), diving (men), swimming (men and women). And I have periodically watched track and field and women's volleyball. I realize that this is not enough to make an overall statement about the Olympics, but it is enough coverage to say two things that have really disappointed me.

First, need it even be said, women's gymnastics has been nothing less then a disaster. Seriously, even if athletes handed in a visa, if enough suspision has been raised with some textual evidence from within the own country, you check it out. Otherwise you lose creditability. And let's be honest folks, there have been some times that the Americans have just been straight up robbed. The uneven bars and the vault. Ugly. To their credit, the coaches and athletes haven't said much, but goodness it was evident that the scoring was no where near unbiased. The same can be said of diving. And anything with subjective scoring for that matter. Last night in the men's diving finals, one dive was so flawed, the execution was sloppy and it was too far from the board (diving is something you quickly learn to critique in my family with as many swim meets as we have collectively attended). Yet the diver received not one but two 10.0. We need to re-evaluate subjective scoring. And give credit where credit is due. If two gymnastics have the exact same score give them both the same medal, it's done in other sports. Save the creditability of subjective scoring sports.

Second, sometimes respect needs to be learned by camera people and field interviewers. Why people are interviewed immediately after their race (especially in track or swimming when they are obviously out of breathe) is beyond me. It would be more meaningful to interview them a day after winning the medal, like gymnastics did with Shawn Johnson. And give athletes space when they loose. When LoLo had her defeat in track it was unnecessary to zoom in on her crying, not once but twice! We need to start showing the golden rule in tv coverage.