olympic obscurity

My favorite thing about the Olympics is always the really obscure sports, the ones you usually never see, but only read about happening in the previews when some publication picks the medalists in every event.

As the Olympics have gone on, each year there has been more time devoted to televised sports (I remember when it was a big deal that NBC was going to be showing events on more than one channel for the Games) but all that time is still filled with things like gymnastics, swimming and the rest of the sports I'm not particularly interested in (although this morning I did actually get to watch part of a team handball match, which is possibly the most obscure of all the Olympic sports, in this country at least).

But tonight I've discovered the live video feeds on NBCOlympics.com. As I type, I'm watching a qualifying round of team archery. Just a live video feed (thankfully with multiple camera angles, rather than just one camera turned on and left) with out any announcers. Just a little text box of live updated play-by-play. In other words, perfect.

I'm going to have to see how the live video works throughout the games, but for now it appears to be exactly what I've always wanted - the ability to watch whatever sport I want, with no annoying voices except the venue's PA announcer, and some unobtrusive informative commentary in text form.

(And I've been typing long enough that China has now beaten India in the team archery match).

It's this sort of thing that makes me wish I was still in college, when I could have shifted my schedule and devoted large chunks of the calendar to watching the Olympic stuff I've never seen before. (Seriously, have you ever seen archery televised? And it's interesting to watch. It quick-moving, and the scoring is easy to understand.) Now I'm going to have to do with sneaking in some watching here and there, during a week when I'm already going to be sleep-deprived because I'm working a day job and covering tennis every night this week.

What I'm really looking forward to, though, is the next winter Olympics. If I don't make it to Vancouver, you can bet I'll be watching all the curling rounds online.