I watched a 30 minute clip of the events held yesterday. No LZR there, no worlds records, a couple of Canadian records. It is good to see a few records broken without LZRs.
A very nice 100 m butterfly by a tiny young lady.
Former Member
On the commentary, I definitely hear what you're saying, the commentary is extremely formulaic and in most cases you could substitute the commentary from any race for that in any other race except for names, but isn't that the nature of swimming races? Really, the only variable is time.
Ya, they need the Don Cherry of water sports!
Putting the commentary aside, I thought the coverage was excellent, three and a half hours of solid swimming coverage, and the 800 was the only race that wasn't shown in it's entirety.
On the commentary, I definitely hear what you're saying, the commentary is extremely formulaic and in most cases you could substitute the commentary from any race for that in any other race except for names, but isn't that the nature of swimming races? Really, the only variable is time.
Anyway, any time I can get three and half hours of swimming coverage on a national network I'm pretty pleased.
Putting the commentary aside, I thought the coverage was excellent, three and a half hours of solid swimming coverage, and the 800 was the only race that wasn't shown in it's entirety.
Wait till you see how much they've massacred the men's 1500 free.
On the commentary, I definitely hear what you're saying, the commentary is extremely formulaic and in most cases you could substitute the commentary from any race for that in any other race except for names, but isn't that the nature of swimming races? Really, the only variable is time.
I have it on videotape. Maybe this weekend I'll time how much time has been devoted to commercials and how much to interviews. Thank God for FastForward.
Luckily, with swimming on TV, I can turn the sound off. This makes the experience a bit better than watching tennis (where you absolutely need to hear the sound but are trying to blank out the inanities of the commentators, *** Enberg, J. & P. McEnroe, C. Drysdale and Co.)
Anyway, any time I can get three and half hours of swimming coverage on a national network I'm pretty pleased.
I agree with you there; it was a bit better than sitting through shot after shot of the CBC staff sightseeing in Manchester and Barcelona.
Isn't that the nature of swimming races? Really, the only variable is time.
No, the variable is the human element... That is quite complex. The announcers should know details about the athletes, and portray the drama that is behind the scenes. They should bring home to the viewer something that can be related to, the struggle for accomplishment.
No, the variable is the human element... That is quite complex. The announcers should know details about the athletes, and portray the drama that is behind the scenes. They should bring home to the viewer something that can be related to, the struggle for accomplishment.
I agree, with respect to commentary between races, and to give him some credit Byron did give little tidbits about various swimmers. It's got to be tough when you've got hundreds of swimmers racing eight at a time sometimes only for 20s or a minute. The annoying thing about Steve is the commentary during the race, and that is where it is hard to see exactly what original you are supposed to say in the 22s that it takes for a 50free. The IMs seem to be the most engaging to watch and easy to comment on. I don't know, perhaps you could skip the whole "horse race" style commentary and just calmly continue to talk about the swimmers, I don't know if that would detract from the excitement or not. I suspect the current approach works better in the Olympic context where you are getting bits of coverage from multiple sports instead of an entire week of racing shown in relatively non-stop 3.5 hour coverage where the repetitiousness can get grating.
