Wednesday, February 24, 2010

EuroSport Live - Olympic coverage

It feel so good - several days now - without dressing in long-johns, wool socks and ski-pants. As much as I love the skiing part, I do get tired of wearing the same thing over and over (yes, we wash the necessities as needed). I almost have all the laundry done. Yippee! Just in time for this week's piles to overflow.

While we were in Wengen, the Olympics had begun. Thanks to the cable TV access we were able to watch a great deal via EuroSport Live - in Deutsch of course. At first I wasn't thrilled since the Opening Ceremonies were in the evening Pac Coast time and therefore we were sound asleep in our beds and I didn't see anything but a 5 min. recap. But then - the events started and we got to watch a good part of those we were interested in seeing during the evenings (morning PacC time) - and have continued to do so since coming home.

Only now (thank you satellite dish) it's in English - the Queen's English to be exact with a little Irish thrown in. It cracks me up to listen to their play by play on downhill/super G, etc... in an accent and using words/expressions that you wouldn't hear at home in the States. I think they've done a great job at not taking things too seriously but serious enough where it's warranted.

What we also like - we get to see all of the participants and very few commercial breaks (maybe one/two an hour). There is also very little in the area of human interest stories - some people like that, some don't. I'm lukewarm - I like to see the competition personally. I also like getting to see all the participants - ex. we watched all the women ski the Downhill - every single one.

Curling? No curling here! It's on at like 2am - Whew!

And I never see the newsreporters, only hear them. Which is fine - they're not in the Olympics!

So thank you EuroSport Live. The Olson family is enjoying the Olympic games and enjoying the difference in coverage.

Note: although we were in Switzerland during the Bejing Summer Olympics it was during holidays, we were in Italy and there was nooooooo cable TV. :(

4 comments:

Susan said...

I also love the Eurosport coverage - for all the reasons you listed. I'm happy to hear it in English, without the frills. And during the afternoon they show the repeats, if I haven't had a chance to watch it the day before. Or if I want to relive it :-)

Megan said...

I'd love to hear the Queens English/Irish commentary of the half pipe!!!

Olson Family said...

We were just watching women's ice-skating and the commentator's talked about the hi-tariff on a jump vs hi-point/score value = it's a great brain exercise!

jplamanna said...

I'm going to jump in here as an American expat in Vienna and say that I'm mixed on my feeling about Eurosport coverage. I'm seeing the same races the next morning that they played the evening prior. Hello!! I was awake last night!! Too many repeats and not enough variety. I like the lack of background stories and appreciate the focus on the competition. However, I think they don't need to show all the competitors because the bottom 25 are often not even close to qualifying, and they could use that time to showcase the best athletes in other sports that aren't getting any attention. I saw no coverage of freestyle skiing, moguls, and barely any snowboarding beside halfpipe.
And they show absolutely every permutation of cross country skiing in their entirety.
By the way, has anybody else noticed how the medal-count table at eurosport.yahoo.com and sports.yahoo.com show different countries on top? A noticeable bias against/for the US, depending on where you're from!!