I’m not sure who’s doing gymnastics announcing for NBC – Al Trautwig? – but he just dropped this doozy:
Chen Yibing doing one of the most difficult things in sports: Winning when everyone thought you would.
This would be true, if everyone was high on LSD and started picking extreme longshots to win. But usually if everyone thinks you’re going to win, it’s because you’re really likely to win.
As a long time New Yorker and childhood watcher of Al Trautwig and his penchant for pomposity and grandiosity, I love that NBC digs him out every two years to announce the Olympics. My favorite example of his ridiculousness was his narration of the long form recap of the biathlon from the last winter edition.
At least Frightwig hasn’t goofed on the Chinese people tonight…like he has been.
But..it’s early.
Whoever was doing the swimming announcing said after Phelps got his eighth gold that it had never been done before and may never be done before.
I think it was Lou Holtz who described radio work as talking until you think of something to say. I think the same can be said of most television sports, too.
i think his point was to emphasize the added amount of pressure that comes with being the favored athlete/team.
i myself thought it was a pretty good line.
I had the same reaction, Keith. Probably wouldn’t be favored to win if they hadn’t already proven they could handle the pressure. Also, I’m pulling as hard for the U.S. as anyone, but I don’t need the constant subjectivity anyone other than Bela Karolyi, whom I love. Trautwig questions every single score, and even had the gall to ask if the uneven bar champion knew that she didn’t deserve the gold medal.
OK, seriously, how often is the announcer/commentator/play by play man any good? I can’t think of any other profession, except for politicians where you can blantantly fail at the most simple aspects of your profession. We get keen insights into the obvious -“The _____ are really looking to win today” to color commentators completely wrong. I love sports, but the quality of commentating is so poor it makes it hard to watch. In a related note, TBS lost the sound feed from the booth the other day for a whole inning, all you heard was the actual sounds of the game, and it was amazing…
Joe Buck earlier this year:
“The Cubs are very hard to beat when they get out to a big lead”
I think they should get Trautwig to announce the most inconsequential events after the results are already known. It would be like an ironic sendup of the old style of NFL films. How great would that be? And they could have everyone else in on the joke except him.
Last week, he mentioned how everyone fell in love with a certain German gymnast in Athens because he looked so much like a little boy.
Al’s got some problems.
Jason,
I doubt that what he was trying to do was missed on Keith. It was still a ridiculous line, however.
Grant,
I don’t know if you’ve seen this, but on digital TV (whether over the air or cable or whatever), many sports broadcasts have an English audio channel and a Spanish audio channel. Except much of the time they don’t happen to have Spanish announcers.
What ends up happening is that second audio channel becomes the sounds of the game. It’s wonderful for baseball, and I’ve also seen it with NASCAR, where you can crank the volume up to hear the engines whizzing by without getting an earful of gibberish at the same time.
I heard the same thing and I said “That something Tim McCarver would say”
I look into it, but I’ve yet to see something like that. I get the MLB Extra Innings package, and I’d pay five times as much just to have a few channels not have commentators. Baseball is great because it is a simple game. It doesn’t need to be (over)explained to be enjoyed. I’d also like to have alot less silly sounds when I’m at the baseball game, but I think I’m just asking for way too much, I guess I’ll hold out for world peace…
thanks for the heads up on the spanish channel