This is just stupid.
http//www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2004/08/18/SPG5589MPB1.DTL
"An ugly international incident occurred Monday in Athens and received no media play because the perpetrators were members of the U.S. and Dutch press, who strangely chose not to write about it."
A bit sad really - next time, they should have some burly bouncers to keep premature athletes out until it is their turn and also boot out rude journalists from any nation.
Journalist meet fist would be quite satisfying....
This seems like a nice summary of this.
http//davejustus.blogspot.com/2004/08/press-coverage-of-olympics.html
"This article gives an example of some rude behavior by some American journalists at the Olympics.
Ever since my father brought it to my attention years ago, I have noticed how the American press covers the Olympics. And I don't much like it.
My dad once told me a story of which I don't remember all the details now. It was probably from the '84 games. An American was favored to win a race and didn't, he came in second. A huge disappointment. The press ran up, immediately asking how he felt and how disappointed he was. In the same race was a Canadian athlete who finished last. The Canadian press rushed up to him as asked 'You just achieved a personnel best at the Olympic games? How great does that feel?"
What a difference.
It seems that all Americans are expected to win and when they don't the press are very happy to rush in and find out how devastated they are. Sure, sometimes the athletes in question are favored to win and losing can be devastating. But we all know that. We don't need the quote from the moment of disappointment.
I would like to see more coverage of athletes that score a personnel best at the Olympics, whether they win or not. Athletes who overcome amazing odds to get there. Sure we should celebrate the winners. But lets make it about the struggle to be the best, rather than purely the struggle to win.
Oh, and it would be ok to focus a little bit of camera time on non-Americans too."
I'm watching more and more of CBC's coverage because they allow a little more time to look at other nations - not much more but they do. The comment section of the above post nails it with "They also show athletic competitions as competitions between athletes, not maudlin movie-of-the-week sob stories of folks 'overcoming the odds' only to 'lose gold medals'."
I do quite like those athlete bios they do on nbc except for the way they portray the American as being so deserving, how they retired once, had so many injuries, went through so much and hav enever won gold. I'm sure that's the case for almost every athlete there.
I quite enjoyed the mens shot put. )