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Post by I-Ballz on Aug 17, 2004 18:26:36 GMT -5
Delisle has a different opinion and position on the subject, therefore he is an idiot!
Fuck you guys are idiots. Who cares what Delisle thinks, he is has his own opinions that you do not share so that automatically makes him stupid and ignorant. GROW UP.
Also US,
"wow...spoken like a Canadian! "
Ummm, like a canadian? Do you mean spoken like ONE person. Why would you label them a true canadian based on their own opinion?
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Post by FutureMarathoner on Aug 22, 2004 15:41:36 GMT -5
A few things:
1) about a week ago, after the games had begun, I arrived home to find a piece of snail mail from the COC. Opening it I found a heartfelt plea from Perdita asking for my financial help to help support our athletes. "Your membership will help send Canada's Olympic Team to Athens" they claim. Well, I fail to see how my donation half-way through the games is going to help get a single additional athlete to Athens (although I would have gladly chipped in for Nicole Stevenson's flight). What a waste of money that campaign is. I got the exact same form letter with the same plea not 3-4 months ago. Again, I fail to see how my donation would have helped get any one to Athens. When is the COC going to learn that you can't develop champions overnight? It take years not months or days. The best thing we could do as a nation is develop the largest and healthiest population possible so we have a greater base/pool of young athletes to draw upon for all sports.
2) NBC's coverage continues to baffle me. Why they paid so much for the rights I don't know. It was awesome to watch the men's 10k without commercial and the women's marathon with only a few interuptions, but otherwise the games are hardy ever on (maybe 8:30PM to 10:30PM on weekdays at best) and nothing is shown live. They even skipped the men's 100m final in favour of taped volleyball today. They do have better sound quality than CBC though.
3) CBC's coverage has been poor at times as well. Why on earth they had to show a highlight package of beach volleyball after they had just shown the match in its entirety particularly when there was live events featuring Canadians excelling in their sport (women's PV for example!) baffles me.
4) Mark Tewksbury's comments the other night about the status of the swim team were right on the button. We don't necessarily need more money we just need people to start taking responsibility.
5) Where the heck did they get that version of O'Canada they've been using today? Maybe it is just me but it sounds like it was played by a class of grade 6s learning the recorder it is so out of tune.
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Post by jeremy on Aug 22, 2004 20:52:46 GMT -5
good points... I couldn't believe today that NBC wasn't covering the 100 final when three americans were in it. I think we, as canadians, are lucky to have CBC, CBC french, NBC and TSN covering the olympics. Between those stations you can usually find some track on. NBC didn't cover the high jump either when they had two guys in the top 4. Its too bad about Boswell, he was jumping awesome until 2.32...
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Post by FutureMarathoner on Aug 26, 2004 19:57:00 GMT -5
Other than the obvious monetary and celebrity status reasons, if participation in competition at the highest level is the only thing that matters in the Olympic ideals/charter, why is it that athletes compete for medals and represent a country at the games rather than just competing for the sake of competing?
Perhaps a better system of athlete selection would be to have an international standard/criteria set by the international governing body of that sport (which would eliminate the need for wasteful structures like the national Olympic committees). That would also level the playing field for everyone so you don't get people like Nicole Stevenson sitting at home when they meet the international standard.
Each international sport body would then select, to a maximum of 3 per nation, the athletes that meet that best fit that criteria. The athletes would then participate as Olympians, rather than as Candians or Americans.
Moses Znaimer had a good idea for a really unique games - have each sport hosted by a different country and link them by telecommunications - the first truly global games. That would reduce the burden of what the games have become being soley placed on a single country (and you could have 24 hours of live coverage!).
Final thought:
As outrageous as this might be to consider: what do you think the national and world reaction would be, if, under the current selection structure, Canadian athletes who make the international standards, but fall short of the COC standard (eg. Nicole Stevenson), were permitted to enter the games as official Canadian entries provided they pay their own way?
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