Should All Olympic Medals Weight the Same

For once, I have actually been keeping up with the olympics. For reference, I normally just watch or sleep through the opening ceremonies and call it good. I have to say, this time the ceremonies were spectacular! From historical celebration to entertainment trivia, the opening ceremonies was a movement unbelievably well rehearsed and well done. If you have not seen it, this is the one part of the olympics you should watch.

I've watched a lot of the gymnastics, some of the swimming, the kayaking, the track and field, and the bicycling. And after watching so many of the events and so many different young people competing, all I can really say is how impressed I am at all of the individuals. It took several long years of hard work and training, several other dreams put on hold, and even loves set aside to achieve that power and body control that they have. So even if they don't take home a medal, they should all know it really is an honor to be in London competing in the Olympics.

But in watching the games, with friends and family, I've slowly come to wonder a new question. Should all the medals behind the olympics be rated the same? What really brought this question up is Michael Phelps, who has just passed the record for most medals in the olympic games. But he's a swimmer, and swimming has probably the most competitions if not the most competitions and possible medals to be won. Compared to someone who has to play several games of basketball or soccer to earn one medal, do they compare equally?

I'm not going to go into much detail on this, but more just trying to get everyone thinking why Phelps deserves more glory for winning at three swimming races than the volleyball team deserves for winning three rounds of volleyball.

NBC Fails at Olympic Coverage

I know that worldwide everyone is watching the Olympics, it's something we all love to do every two years. The games show off our respect for one another and show off the hard work of a few individuals. So when the games come around and a news team manages to screw-up you better believe there are a lot of individuals upset.

Opening Ceremonies
America is one of the leading nations in the world, if not the leading nation in the world. Top in technology and the current development place of most advance electronic research, and with more Americans having smartphones and flatscreen televisions daily, it is no surprise that we expect everything to work perfectly technically. So why was it that with all the technology in the world NBC News managed to fail at covering the opening ceremonies live?

That's right, the only news coverage in the world that failed to show off the opening ceremonies live was NBC news. Instead, they played them back to the public and called it live coverage almost exactly six hours late. Why six hours? Because that would be the approximate time that the central timezone in the United States would be seeing the same daylight outside. To say the least, it was disrespectful to those that wanted to watch the event live. More-so, it meant that anyone who wanted to see any other early-morning events the next day (such as the bike race) would be just barely able to get to sleep in time to really enjoy it. Overall this was annoying, especially since you know they are going to broadcast it a few times.

But wait, this is not considered the only reason that people are annoyed with the opening ceremonies. Since everyone had six hours of preparation time to make comments about the opening ceremonies, a lot of people are blaming NBC for the event ruining commentary that ensued. Before things would come on screen, the news crew would be talking about it. If there was something obvious that did not really need to be said, they were already talking about it. To put what they did simply, it is considered disrespectful to talk during a movie, so why would they think it respectful to speak during the main events of the Olympics?

By the way, the opening ceremonies that Great Britain provided for the 2012 Olympics was one of the best I've ever seen. So if you have not seen it, look it up and be astounded!

Website Facts
A lot of facts that are buzzing on the NBC News website are sadly incorrect. The most notorious, Australia being replaced with Austria in the description. Now, it is one thing if you made a small mistake about a country that no one has heard of, but everyone knows Australia and Austria. Don't believe that they got it incorrect? Check out this:

Click to Enlarge
[http://www.nbcolympics.com/nations/nation=australia/]

Just to be clear, I took that screen-capture myself on my computer right after I had heard about it from another website. I even clicked refresh a few times to see if they had fixed the mistake yet, considering how big it was. They had not. And if you still don't believe me, go check out twitter where a bunch of similar images are currently floating about.

What Happened?

This is really the tip of the iceberg as far as the mistakes go, some of the more notorious and large ones that people have been complaining about. Like I said, how is it that the top nation in the world has what seems like amateurs covering one of the biggest world events? Come on NBC, start playing professional.

Final note, I just want to personally wish best-of-luck to the American athletes that are there and bring us home some medals! I know you've trained hard for these events and will not fail to impress! And thank you Great Britain for putting on the most amazing ceremony opening I have ever seen, it was truly spectacular!