"I'll cover the Olympics this year," my big-mouthed fingers typed into an email to the editors ever in charge of my content and prose. I was proud as a peacock. For I had not only spent many hours as a child watching the Olympics on a small black-and-white television with a grainy picture, I also, ahem, have been giving wide coverage to Fox's current reality series, Skating With Celebrities.
If the above didn't make me expert enough for the job, I also watched the Salt Lake City opening ceremonies so there you have it.
The editors smiled down upon me kindly and life was good.
First problem, the time thing.
Torino, Italy is evidently in some sort of different time zone, duh.
Now throughout the years I've watched plenty of Olympics in various time zones so the concept is not foreign. In this 2006 year of our Lord, the confusion is rampant.
For the competitions are televised live at times. Those same live events are evidently broadcast later from videotape. Across the wild and wooly Internet, "spoiler" warnings abounded. On those occasions when I did sit down to enjoy NBC's prime time coverage of the Olympic events the coverage itself caused my head to spin. One minute I was watching skaters shooting around the ice, the next I saw skiers barreling down a mound-covered mountain.
The editors expected an intelligent and insightful report on the Olympics while I felt I was in some time warp with Olympic events swirling around me. In due course I totally lost track of what was real, what was tape and whether Dick Cheney really shot a fellow quail-shooting Olympian or was I hearing things.
To appease the gods of the editors I decided to compose a post on the Olympics from the perspective of, well the perspective of an Olympic idiot.
I did, then filled with the enthusiasm of the task, sit down and watch the opening ceremonies. I still do not know whether I watched the opening ceremonies live or on tape but I was undaunted. I understand the concept of each nation's team marching into the ceremony under their country's flag.
Article comments
1 - Matthew T. Sussman
I'll let you in on a secret: as an editor, I don't even have high expectations for my own stories. You did just fine.
2 - Lefteris Mermigas
For all of you ignoret dummies let me give you my prospective of the Olympic games:
This amazing event was a gift from the Greeks to all of you to compete in sports, yes sports that the whole world enjoys. No American barbaric football no boring baseball both of them not an Olympic sport. I was in Greece for the 2004 summer Olympics as an interpreter the American attitute and negative advertizing not to support the Games showed that we as Americans lost touch of the rest of the world, no we are not better than all other Nations, do you know that we only speek English and we make fun of others if they don't? Torino's name in Italy existed for thousand of years so the advertizers for the Ford Torino car never read History. Sophia Loren is an icon for the whole world when Americans opposes wars are unpatriotic? In the 1940's our USA was the most respected and loved Nation, today we are the most hated, so please stop underminding the purpose of the Olympic Games. Time zone maybe some of you still think that the World is flat!!! Thank you Italy for housing this sporting event for the athletic Nations!!!