How was your Olympics?

Yet there were fantastic wins, fine displays of sportsmanship, and enough moments of drama and humor to give viewers a truly entertaining Games. Many athletes celebrated their wins in heartwarming or smile-inducing fashion. More athletes cried. Even ads upped the inspirational storytelling ante:

This is Where it Starts

Social media brought an overflow of reactions from celebrities, everyday spectators, and competing athletes. Here are some words of wisdom from an Olympian, and tweets from another Olympian’s blanket. One person even posted a Lego tribute to Malaysian diver Pandelela Rinong on Instagram. Blink-and-you’ll-miss it talking points also happened aplenty. For example, random flags. My brother pointed out many Irish flags at events, even when there were no Irish athletes nor athletes of Irish heritage competing. Maybe they were secretly claiming territory from the English? Was the German flag in the stands for the US-Japan women’s soccer gold medal match waving for the German referee?

It was also a good time to check out sports outside the major events. Fencing proved to have the most dramatic staging, while I couldn’t bring myself to watch more than a minute of racewalking. Indoor track cycling looks like the sport of the future, while trampoline is unexpectedly, in the words of my coworker, “awesome.” There is probably an event for any body type and nearly every age: A 71-year old Japanese rider competed in dressage, and five-time Olympians competed in archery. This was the first time every country sent at least one female athlete, and a defining moment of the Games occurred when Kirani James, who won Grenada’s first gold medal, traded number bibs post-race with South African double-amputee runner Oscar Pistorius.

The Olympics bring us not only excitement, but inspiration, and bad coverage can’t take away from the athletes’ achievements. More options bring about a personalized viewing experience.

How did you watch the Olympics?

Did you put up with the networks, mix it with online options, rely entirely on streaming, or just “watch” via gifs and video links?

Diandra Rodriguez

Proudly Latinasian NorCal American.

3 Responses

  1. amy says:

    I watched it on ESPN during the first weak, then I gave up on television, and did all my watching online. I’m a little bummed that the IOC didn’t upload the competitions on their YouTube channel, instead only uploading highlights. :(

    I think the major problem with broadcast, for me, was that I was interested in different teams China and the US were easy to follow coz everyone were interested in them, same with home team GB, but there was no coverage to Canada here because… well, it’s Canada xD But it’s my bias. There was also little coverage to any of the Koreas, and Japan, mainly because since we’re in Latin America, the broadcast followed the Latin American teams competing, so it was understandable.

    There was too much negative media for my taste this year T_T like, it didn’t have anything to do with GB’s politics (like when the Beijing games happened LOL), but the actually lack of organization by the events. This much controversy made it a little sour for my family, we just sorta tuned out.

    Having said that… love weights – nerve-racking and all for the love of iron xD, love diving, table tennis, swimming (thought it did get bitter at times…), and… I think they should’ve covered for some of the ‘extreme’ sports like Kajak and Motocross ~~ I also love volleyball and handball xD

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