China Olympic Television coverage

Frank, Interesting article - thanks for sharing! As I said in an earlier post, businesses from what country are footing most of the commercial bill for the Olympics? Probably the USA. While I can't blame the IOC for wanting to cater to the hand that feeds them, if the U.S. TV audience is so important, then maybe its time to have the Games in the U.S. every 4 years, or at least a TV-friendly timezone. Any soccer fans in the Hizzouse? The coverage of the World Cup this summer was awesome. Germany is 6 hours ahead, and while it was a little wierd watching games at work at 10am, TV showed most games live. And I think audiences were bigger than they ever were. Bottom line - if TV was such a problem for the IOC, why did they choose China in the first place? Things like this are things that should have been considered before awarding the bid.

I think that the iOC had no real choice. the article is very good read.

There is some very interesting discussion about this over at the Race Club website. I find what Gary Hall and Nick Brunelli, both National Team members and Gary being a 3 time Olympian, saying interesting things coming from an athlete competitors perspective. I will link the discusion here and see what people think. www.theraceclub.net/.../viewtopic.php

What time finals are contested just seems like such a gnat's ass concern to the sport overall. I still think the main thing people are upset about is the fact a TV network more or less gets to dictate the schedule. But they've been doing this all along for the major sports. Day games are moved to night and vice versa all the time to fit better into TV schedules and no one seems to get too upset about that. If the swimming community can't deal with something as trivial as this maybe we don't even deserve to be on TV.

Great link Frank. I agree with Gary Hall Jr. I don't think it's so "trivial" to be told to re-train your sleeping and competing habits for NBC's benefit. I'm also glad that the medical research helps explain my aversion to early morning exercise. I'd be just as happy watching tape delay and letting the athletes do their thing at night.

I agree with Gary Hall Jr. I don't think it's so "trivial" to be told to re-train your sleeping and competing habits for NBC's benefit. Since the Games are in Beijing wouldn't they have to retrain their bodies anyway? With the huge time zone difference the U.S. athletes could actually derive some benefit from the morning finals.

KirK: This may be true. But are you saying they should stay on US time or switch to Beijing time? If they re-train their bodies to Beijing time anyway, wouldn't the huge time zone difference benefit be eliminated?

I really think they have to switch to Beijing time just because it would be too hard not to. Here's a question for those of you out there who think swimming performance is dependent on time of day. When you set your goals for a meet--say Nationals--do you look at when the event is likely to be swum? I know I don't. I assume I'll be able to swim as fast at 8:00 a.m. as I would at 6:00 p.m. You just make the mental and physical adjustments you need to swim fast. And I know if I can do it, Olympic athletes sure as heck can. I'm always amazed at how fast these swimmers can swim mid-season. They're in the middle of heavy training and are still able to swim incredible times. If they can do that, I really don't see how swimming finals in the morning rather than at night is much of an issue. If there's one thing that separates these people from the herd it's their ability to step up when they need to. Great athletes swim fast in the Olympic finals because they're the Olympic finals, not because they're at night.

Here's a question for those of you out there who think swimming performance is dependent on time of day. When you set your goals for a meet--say Nationals--do you look at when the event is likely to be swum? I know I don't. I assume I'll be able to swim as fast at 8:00 a.m. as I would at 6:00 p.m. You just make the mental and physical adjustments you need to swim fast. I am 100% convinced that I swim better in the afternoon or evening. I get up to go to meets that start at 8:00 am if I have to (although wasn't there a late warm up at nationals this year after the 500s and 400 IMs?). But I'm happier at afternoon meets. Much. I am not a morning person and I am groggy until I have :coffee: in the morning. I actually have tried, for years, to make physical adjustments. Doesn't work for me. So I make them mentally as best I can and swim on less sleep. Aspiring Olympians can hopefully make these adjustments. But Gary Hall Jr. did not sound thrilled about getting up at 4:30 am either.

One other thing I forgot to mention. I think it's a little strange that swimmers are complaining about having to swim in the morning because swimmers are almost legendary for having to roll out of bed at 4:00 or 5:00 a.m. to practice. Yet, for some reason they're concerned racing at 9:00 a.m. is going to hinder their performance?