Timing issues
If Beijing showcased the most amazing sports technology available, London has been shown up as error ridden. This was shown best in the women's epee when Shin of South Korea was left inconsolable and crying at the end of her semi-final bout against Heidemann of Germany.
The official clock stuck at one seconds at the end of sudden death time. In this time there were two doubles hit (both fencers hit at the same time) Heidemann scored to win. Three points scored and at the end of the bout one second still showed on the clock. Later it would be revealed that Shin had incurred a penalty on the second double which reset the clock to one second.
75 minutes later, after a long argument between judges and coaches, Shin was escorted from the piste, still in tears. She then had to come back to battle the world number one in the bronze medal match.
A clock that only has one second increments means that as soon as it starts then one second should be taken off and the game ends. Of course the clocks go to smaller decimals than one tenth, but we don't see it. And so I can understand the Koreans arguing for as long as they did as three points(or technically two) in one second does seem very wrong.
If this was the only issue then it might be acceptable, but it wasn't.
During the swimming the start sound went off early. During the boxing a fighter lost a bout, as his opponent knocked him down a full five seconds after the bell should have sounded and ref called the fight off (he would've lost on points otherwise). There have been numerous delays as judges struggle with the scoring systems. Then of course the starting system breaking down in the rowing.
Just as accurate as the London trains I suppose.
More media stuff
After giving the media a hard time the other day I need to give them some kudos. As someone who had to learn a complex new sport (roller derby) I understand that you can't just step in and be a genius. Though some of them could tone down the enthusiasm a tad.
But recently all of the commentators glowed like microphoned Gods:
- John McBeth suggested we start a eugenics programme in order to breed ourselves some amazing swimmers. He was so into it his co-commentator finally agreed to the plan.
- This genius tweet from Scotty Stevenson.
- Speaking of Sumo, he is easily the funniest commentator on the crew. His deadpan reaction to a random shot of a horse during the gymnastics was hilarious.
- Both the equestrian and rowing commentators complained about the footage that they (and we) were being shown. The cameras will follow British competitors completely or in the case of the rowing, focus closely on the leader with no shots of battles further back in the pack.
And finally, don't worry about Prime cutting off the Olympics to show stupid, vitally important, rugby or league. That'll be on Maori TV now.
Ps. Sorry this was meant to go up yesterday, so obviously a bunch of stuff happened last night (like the equestrian bronze, yay!), feel free to go at it in below.
