Olympics Medals Ceremony

One of my favorite part of the both the summer and winter Olympics is the medals ceremony. I like seeing the athletes receive their medals and watch their reactions as their national anthem plays and they see their flag rise into the air.

I like the SBC commercial that has been playing during the Olympics where a medal ceremony from the games is being shown to people around the world who are gathered in bars and other places listening to our National Anthem play. It's too bad for us viewers and for SBC that we aren't getting to see that happen for real in these olympic games. For many of us this commercial is the only time we have seen or heard the National Anthem of the United States.

I accept the fact that NBC does a truely horrible job of broadcasting the olympics. They refuse to show anything live. They are also fantastic at taking all the surprise out of the events. You can bet that at the start of an event, any athlete who the broadcast focuses on, talks about, or shows on the screen more than twice will play a prominate role in the results of the event - good or bad. If NBC is talking about them at the start of the event, they will either come from behind to win, set a record, have an accident or do something else to lose their shot at a medal.

What I can't understand is why NBC is not showing any of the medal ceremonies. My family and I have watched a lot of the Olympics this last week. We will probably watch a lot next week. It is all that has been on our TV every night this week till almost midnight. In all that time I have only seen one medal ceremony and that was at 1 AM this morning.

They have showed several clips of ceremonies. But they have been only brief shots of athletes waving with their medals. The only anthem I have heard played so far was the Italian anthem at the Men's Cross Country Relay this morning.

As of today the United States is tied for the lead in the Gold Medal Count and are tied for third in the total medal count. There have been 7 different American athletes standing on top of a podium while the American Flag rose into the air and our National Anthem played. How many of those special Olympic moments has NBC broadcast for us to see? I haven't seen a single one. If they are showing them at all it is in the wee hours of the morning when no one is watching.

Why is NBC not showing the medal ceremonies? Are they afraid that we might start feeling good about being Americans? Are they afraid to show us an American athlete celebrating reaching the pinnacle of their sport? Or are they just so stupid to think that we might not be interested in seeing all the Olympics instead of just seeing their processed canned replays.

NBC Olympics Coverage - the potted meat of sports broadcasting.

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Update: Wow, they showed the Women's Ice Hockey Medal Ceremony this afternoon. The American's won bronze. It was nice seeing a bunch of women, any of whom could beat the crap out of me, wiping tears out of their eyes while their national anthem played.