Olympic TV

Well I spent most of the weekend watching the Olympics. I moved into a new apartment on Friday night... it's quite nice, but not as good as the first place. And it's currently missing quite a few things that I need, like a toaster, a microwave, cutlery (we have forks and a couple of spoons, but no knives!), a kitchen sink plug and a few other things. But that should all be sorted out this week.

My housemate was away all weekend (only got back this morning), so it meant I was free to have full control of the remote! And the Olympics were usually on two channels, often 3, so that was a big plus.

I watched the opening ceremony... I really enjoyed some parts like the Frieze Parade (or whatever it was called, my commentary was all in Greek!) but other than that it was a little boring. The Bjork song really didn't fit at all, and I thought they could have done so much more with the water.

Saturday and Sunday I was watching the Olympics full-time. I saw all the swimming qualifiers and finals, which were brilliant. I was worried that swimming would be shunted to the side in favour of weightlifting or wrestling etc, but it looks like I'll be able to see it all. Other sports I saw were football, judo (which I just don't understand at all), basketball, volleyball, beach volleyball, gymnastics, handball, diving, badminton, table tennis and tennis. So not a bad cross-section, although for me they show far too much gymnastics, and they didn't show any of the cycling road races at all which was disappointing. Still, I guess it's very difficult to do everything... especially when they concentrate on the Greek athletes. I haven't seen a single Cypriot in the news or in the olympic coverage, but the Greeks are everywhere!

I've found a Turkish Cypriot TV station and they're showing a little bit of the Olympics. They seem to mainly leave it to the Greek stations to provide coverage but they pop up now and again whenever a Turkish athlete or team is competing. A Turkish woman won the gold in weightlifting and they spent an hour or two with highlights, interviews (with cake!) and the like. It's all very low-budget though and is quite funny when you're used to the Australian presentation style.

I hope the 200m tonight lives up to expectations!