Hiro11

I'm a swimmer and a cyclist, so I'll take swimming and cycling.

In all seriousness, for aficionados both the men's and women's road cycling races were simply phenomenal. Whoever designed those courses knew what they were doing and the results were spectacular racing. The men's race in particular was unbelievably tough.

The swimming has been a huge improvement over the relatively slow 2012 games. Ridiculously fast times this year and the return of world records. Peaty's swim is likely the most dominant 100m swim in any stroke in Olympic history. It's an absurd time.

As a fan of swimming, I've been aware of Ledecky's domination for years. It's great to see a once-a-generation athlete like Ledecky get some mainstream recognition.

Hiro11

People said the same thing last Olympics.

1. The US has good athletes in most events so the comparison isn't exactly fair. If you're covering swimming, track, volleyball etc in Germany or the UK, you're going to have to show athletes from other countries because there simply aren't Germans or Brits to focus on. In contrast, the US can show 8 channels of all US athletes.

2. In fairness, other countries are highly focused on the performance of their own athletes to be fair. There's nothing wrong with that. For example, there's a whole lot of GB athletes on this page:
Rio 2016 - Olympics - BBC Sport

If you look at a British newspaper, it will similarly be almost entirely focused how the British athletes are doing. For example, every single article on the Telegraph's front page is about British athletes right now. Perhaps you just didn't notice in Britain and now that you're in the US you notice?

BritishGuy36

I disagree.

Of course every country is going to weight the coverage around their own peeps but most don't do it at the almost total exclusion of all others.

When I was watching the gymnastics last night I saw about 15 performances of the US team and maybe 2 of non-US gymnasts.

It's precisely because Britain doesn't usually do that well, that British TV coverage usually includes those who are the Brits' competition.

Of course I haven't seen an olympics on TV in Britain so 2008 so maybe it's changed.

Or maybe you are thinking about the blanket coverage of the Brits in 2012 - because they did so well on home soil and produced a collection of performances that will not be equaled for 50 years or more.

Hiro11

Again, not really a fair comparison when you've got limited time and the best gymnasts in the world are Americans. They simply destroyed the competition last night, to a historic degree.

That's precisely my point.


Imagine if the UK had the opportunity to win over 100 medals, I think the TV coverage might be heavy skewed towards showing the Brits winning medals. Again, there's nothing wrong with that.

Anian

It has to suck that you missed out on a medal purely because the only two people better than you are from the same country as you.

SultanOfSwing

Track and field is my favourite Olympic event, but it doesn't start until Friday so I'm content to watch what's on until then for the most part. I like the weightlifting and the archery but they seem to be on during the day while I'm not at home to watch.

Not sure if it was to do with the time difference last year and I just wasn't home but it felt like I didn't get to see much of the athletics last time round, hopefully with Rio being closer in time, I'll get to see more. Actually, it doesn't seem like US TV shows much athletics in general, which is a shame because I enjoy watching it when it's on. Maybe I'm not looking in the right places

Steerpike

I found a decent resource last night - go to google, and type in 'Olympics tv coverage'. Google has constructed a special 'results' page, such that you don't have to choose a result. On the page you see, it shows what's coming up on the main channel (NBC), and then on all the other channels - NBCSN, USA network, MSNBC, CNBC, Bravo (tennis only), and coverage from specialty channels for soccer, basketball, etc.


I used this to find the 'rugby sevens', which I am looking forward to watching. It would have never occurred to me to wade through USA network, CNBC, MSNBC, etc but they are all showing different stuff. A DVR is a great resource here!


I imagine you can find all manner of wonderful stuff in you are willing to stream from the web.

SultanOfSwing

Nice one, there's weightlifting (and table tennis ) on tonight at 7 on NBCSN. Good to know.

Can't be arsed scrolling through to Friday to find the athletics just yet.

markonline1

Awesome!!! I had no idea all these channels were showing olympics stuff. Thanks

Steerpike

Maybe true of the 'prime time' coverage, but if you look at the link I just posted, I can see all manner of coverage on the 'lesser channels'. Example for today (I've cut and pasted, leaving out the channel designations for simplicity so what you see here is a merge ...):

petitefrancaise

Rowing has been fairly exciting. Quite a few unexpected capsizes due to wind and waves.

markonline1

I like watching the rowing and cycling from the velodrome. As a golfer, I'll be watching that, even though I think golf in the olympics is daft. My favorite event from London ended up being the BMX racing, so looking forward to watching that again.

anotherlimey

You can get the NBC olympics app that has more streaming options and replays if you miss something.

anotherlimey

Women's gymnastics, but I won't spoil it in case you want to catch it on primetime...

penguinsix

This is my favorite Olympian right now. A 20-year-old Chinese swimmer who shocked herself by swimming a personal best in the semifinal.

Chinese Swimmer becomes Internet sensation after she surprises herself with personal best in semifinal.

She then swam in the final, finishing third, but she didn't even know it until she was interviewed by TV.