Olympics

Its funny watching the olympics when you are not in your country. I have been away from Australia the last 3 Olympics. 2000 I was in China, the opening ceremony was viewed in a bar that we were sure would have some olympic excitement it was called the "Australia Bar" It did NOT have any olympic excitement (even though 2000 was actually in OZ HELLO!), in fact we had to request the TV to be turned on and then the waitresses, several times, tripped over the cord, hence ripping it out of the socket without realising it, which halted the coverage and then we had to wait for them to plug that shit back in. Our new student accommodation TVs had to be tuned in to get any olympic coverage, this was a massive feat on my part, cause I ended up tuning the damn thing, ALL IN CHINESE. I dont even know how to tune a TV in english! It took me hours! THEN I realised that the coverage in different countries generally focus on the athletes and excelled sports of said country, so when when Thorpie was about to win gold in the pool or Kathy Freeman was about to win gold on the track, all I had to watch was the damn PING PONG! Stupid Ping Pong!

In Spain now, its a little easier cause I understand the language, I understand what the hell they say n the TV, I can tell if I am watching a final or a heat (not so easy in chinese) and I am both supporting the success and failures of both Australia and Spain. Spain has actually had pretty good coverage of everything so I have been able to see lots of Australian action.

Some of the coverage has been pretty funny. This one guy, a Taikwondo champion, Juan Antonio Ramos, he was a favourite to win, and he ended up coming 4th, he was interviewed straight after and he was crying like a baby and said he was disappointed that he couldnt dedicate a medal to his wife (how romantic blurgh) then he said between tears "La vida es una mierda!" LIFE IS SHIT! Ha! Hilarious! Alright mate calm down. We´ve been laughing about that for days now.
The commentators are also hilarious, Supposedly, in hockey, Australia lost a game on purpose to be able to play Spain in the semis cause they thought they would be easier... when spain beat australia, the commentator lost it and started screaming "TAKE THAT AUSTRALIA, SUCK IT, SUCKED IN, YOU WANTED SPAIN, TAKE SPAIN!" I for one think this is a little immature and un-sportsman like but here it seems to be quite normal!
One commentator was interviewing this jamaican woman runner after a heat, obviously he had to interview her in his average english, it was a 20 second interview, he then translated what was said and it had absolutely no resemblance to what really happened! And he spoke for about 2 minutes about what was said...I was screaming..."she didnt even SAY that!! This commentator was just making shit up for exciting coverage! Dodgy!