Here in the UK, the BBC have rights to show the Olympics. They have mulitple channel coverage of different sports on the digital TV platform and their website. Sports covered include rowing, sailing, tennis, golf, table tennis, archery, shooting, fencing, rugby, hockey, volley ball, beach volley ball, football, gymnastics, diving, boxing, water pollo, swimming, weight lifting etc. So, there is wide spread coverage of a number of sports. And, whilst they concentrate on GB competitors when they are competing, they still provide coverage of sports when there isn't a GB competitor.
However, what frustrates me is:
1. The continued use of sports commentators who specialise in one sport but who are expected to be able to provide inciteful commentary of another sport. For example, tennis commentators being expected to commentate on table tennis matches. I like them when they cover "their" own sport but they can annoy me with their observations on table tennis. For example when an attacker misses a smash against a defender, it's always an error by the attacker. The defender is given credit for great movement and tenacity but little credit for working out an attacker and then drawing them in to a mistake. Or, when the ball clips the net and the returner makes a hash of the return - what a terrible mistake they'll say, or it was a careless return. But come on, anyone who plays table tennis knows when the ball clips the net it does all sorts of things to the spin on the ball making it very unpredictable and extremely difficult to return. Only occasionally have I heard Donald Parker commentating.
2. Everything in the UK is drivn by UKSport, Sports England funding. If you don't meet engagement targets, if you don't meet performance targets, if you don't meet medal targets you risk loosing your funding to another sport. That's not always a bad thing. Table Tennis England were driven through an organisational change as a result of a need to meet the standards set by those with the purse strings and nothing breads success like success.
But success sometimes isn't about winning medals. It's about performing to the best of your ability. The Olympic motto (from Latin) is "Faster, Higher, Stronger". It's not win gold or you're a failure. It's not "have at least 2 finalists in your event" or we'll cut your funding. What type of message are we sending out to kids and people who start up in the sport now? TV, Funding bodies consider you a failure unless you're a medal winner?
3. Why does the BBC only have a medal table. One of the great things about athletics coverage used to be that after each race it would list all the finishers and show if they had achieved a seasons best, a personal best or a record of some type. You could appreciate all the competitors. Why isn't there a table kept of
- Personal bests
- Best achievement by a competitor in that event
- Seasons best
Who's achieved more? The person who wins gold but is 0.5 of a second slower in their race, or the person who comes last but smashes their personal best by 2 seconds?
Apply that to table tennis. Paul Drinkhall lost in the last 16 of the mens singles. No medal, no interview. No recognition. That's an improvement on the last olympics when he reached the last 32. Everyone gets hung up on China winning the gold medal all the time. How about focusing on those other players too who improved and finding out what they did to improve. There's a saying, if you don't come first, you come last. When there can only be one winner. Do we really want to promote a world of sport where everyone else is considered a loser?
And apply that to yourself. How do you judge if you're improving? Is it how far you get in an event compared to last time? If you do, then the draw for the event can have a massive impact on how far you get. That's out of your control. How much training, or how well your opponent plays, that's out of your control too. The only thing you control is what you do. I don't enjoy league play because it's results driven and I get obsessed with my averages. What I should be doing is concentrating on how well I'm playing rather than the solely the result or how much fun I'm having.
Right now, watching the Olympics in the UK, I get to see lots of sports and lots of different nationalities winning medals and lots of high speed footage of facial expressions. I don't get much information on anyone else outside the medals or how well they are doing. I miss that.
Mmm, bit of a ramble and drift on to different topics but, take what you want and chuck the rest, I'm off to watch some Olympians compete.
|
