Aussiehalley - Halley Down Under

Come on, Aussie!

No whimsical stories from Bob Costas here.

The Olympics here are about seeing the Aussies compete. Not about seeing them win. Because they don't. Not in the Winter Olympics, anyway. Until these games, the Australians had only ever won 4 total medals in the Winter games. Two gold and two bronze. Ever.

They do really well in the summer games - the sunshine and beach culture does wonders for the swimmers. It's too bad for them there isn't a Summer Olympics category for life guarding. Seriously - on Bondi Beach, they save like 3000 people a summer from sharks, strong currents, and tiny speedos.

So you understand that it was a big deal when an Aussie won a gold these games in one of the skiiing events. But for some reason, it wasn't *that* big a deal. His face isn't all over the news and I have yet to see one commemorative pin with his face on it. My guess is that because the Aussies feel like they are so sporty anyway, that they honestly do have a good chance at gold in every event, that to make a big deal out of this guy winning would be like admitting that they'd only ever won an event twice before.

The announcers are hysterical. No major attempt at impartiality. We hear a few stories of the individual (Aussie) athletes - like this guy who was one of the flag bearers at the Sydney games and decided he wanted to be an athlete. So over the next four years, he sold his house, his car, his wife, lost his job and made it into the skeleton event. Good for him. The announcers were cheering him on the whole way. When his time checks along the track showed he was falling further and further down the ranks, the announcers would say, "He's only two-tenths of a second behind. He can still make it up. Come on, Shawn-ie!" When another country's competitor was hundredths of a second behind, though, they'd say, "Aw, he's dipped out now..."

My favorite, though, was watching one of the skiing events and someone had done really well, and the announcer says, "Well, that should be enough to keep the Americans from getting any medals, I reckon." It was still early. And there were plenty of other countries that would be stopped from getting medals if, in fact, that's what happened when the event ended AN HOUR later. Why you got to go pickin' on the Americans, huh? (Most of the time they tolerate the Americans just as well as they tolerate anyone else who's beating them. Which in the Winter Games is usually most teams.)

It's great when they have an Aussie commentator with an American one, because they almost always disagree. On air. And sometimes fight about it.

While there's only one channel playing the Olympics (and limited hours, at that), you can pay for up to seven channels, plus have another free channel, to watch the Commonwealth Games that will be starting in Melbourne shortly after the Olympics end. Why is that a bigger deal here? Because those games have lots of "summer" sports like swimming, track and field, and gymnastics - and the Aussies are great at those.

posted by Halley @ 6:17 PM