The best and most exciting Olympic coverage yet (TV Coverage of the Winter Olympics 2002)

Member Name: stevedpark

Product:	TV Coverage of the Winter Olympics 2002
Date:	15/02/02 (43 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Lots of Snow, Lots of Air, Lots of Speed

Disadvantages: Curling, Curling, Curling

The TV coverage for this Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City has got to be the best yet. With the BBCi service running 24x7, coverage on Euro-sports and also on normal terrestrial TV ensures that you don't miss out on anything. From catching the live action to being able to watch it again later on replays.

It is good to see the British competitors making a good effort and with Chimene Alcott getting into 15th position in the downhill in the Women?s Combined event, although with her special funding, private coaching - separate from the British Squad and with her Father having a senior position within the English Ski Council - she should have done a bit better really.

Some of the events are as spectacular as ever such as the Half Pipe Snowboarding, Arial and Mogul events. When you watch events such as the Half Pipe compared to Alpine Downhill the HP competitors appear just to be having so much fun. If one should crash out, when they get to the finish they are just laughing about it, where as the downhill etc appear to be so serious.

Still on about the Half Pipe I think it is new to the Winter Olympics and there doesn?t appear to be any dress codes for it. None of the competitors that I have seen have been wearing helmets and they are all just dressed in the normal baggy clothes that you associate with snowboarding. When they jump into the air they are not even tucked in and you can see their midriffs!

For some reason we still don?t have many British competitors in the Winter Olympics, surely the British squad must train abroad all year as we are lucky to see a foot of snow here for more that a day. So they really have the same advantage as all the other countries. I think we entered quite a few people into it but it would appear that many of them didn?t even get past the qualifiers to take part in the games.
When the summer Olympics are on, these get much more TV coverage than the winter games. I suppose this is due to the f
act that you can practice running, jumping and rowing anywhere at anytime and it is quite cheep for parents to get their kids involved in this sort of thing. Where as with any of the Winter Games activities, you cannot practice anywhere at anytime, you need special equipment that is very expensive and special coaching to even get started.
There are dry slopes around and about but these are few and far between and cost a great deal of money to use. Perhaps the government should make these more accessible to young school children as well as their swimming and athletic activities!

Only thing that I cannot understand is the event curling. Sorry but this is just so boring to watch and it gets so much air time on all channels showing the Olympics. I tuned into BBCi the other evening and it was playing on two of the three channels, on one it was live and the other was reply from earlier in the day. It?s like when there is a large football match on and BBC and ITV screen the same match at the same time with exactly the same camera angles. It would be more fun to watch snow falling than watch this activity, I know for sure I am not the only one who thinks this, but is there actually anyone out there who enjoys watching this?

A list of the British squad and other information such as the TV Event Schedule can be found on the Olympics.com website.

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