...for encapsulating how I felt about the NBC coverage of that event. Not to put anyone's nose out of joint but, boy am I glad I'm Canadian. In contrast to NBC in general, CBC has been gracious to a fault...they've had plenty of practice with the number of silver medals that Canadians are winning. (And no, I don't feel any sour grapes. I'm thrilled with all of the athelete's accomplishments, regardless of their nationality.)

And I loved how long it took NBC to actually explain the tiebreaking method. They just kept on saying it was a computer program. They made it sound like some amorphous computer program stole the gold away from the rightful American. Was it maybe 10 minutes later that they actually explained that the first tiebreaking method is to look at the difficulty score (which was also tied) and then to take back the two lowest judge scores that are typically discarded).

It might be a stupid tiebreaking methodology (I would argue), but to suggest that the results were anything but legitimate is just pathetic.

whether it's the olympics, nfl football, or some even more worthless sport just do what I do. turn off the sound and let the closed caption roll. much of the stupidity of tv commentators goes away if you don't listen to their emotional delivery. Watching the words scroll across the screen you soon realize less than 10% of time in any sport are the announcers saying anything of value.

Simon Whitfield = Best Canadian Silver ever??

(also, I'm starting a petition to institute a new medal to honour 4th place finishes...and seeing how it seems to always be Canada brining up the rear, I propose it be made entirely of Maple. The Maple Medal - you heard it here first! ;)

Gary,

It's a little hard to figure out how to take this column.

You admit that you don't know enough to competently judge gymnastics. Second, your opinion seems to have been formed by on general differences in styles rather than the arcana of faults on which scores are actually based. Third, the opinion of a non-well known expert is not completely persuasive. So, your opinion is just that -- and an opinion which does not carry an expert's weight.

Then there's the tangential matter of He's eligibility. Clearly she does meet the age qualifications, did not belong in the competition, and it seems likely her medals were eventually be stripped -- or at least discounted in the way East German swimming records are thought of now.

Last, I pretty much agree with you. So there.

The coverage and commentary throughout the gymnastics competition have just been awful. From the baised coverage of the competing teams' routines (I could not believe they never even showed the Romanians, Russians, or the Germans as they fought for bronze) to the maddening drivel being spewed by the commentators, there appears to be no rhyme or reason to any of it. I just about hit the ceiling when they compared Chellsie Memmel and Samantha Peszek's injuries just prior to the Olympics equivalent to a "bride ripping her dress" on the day of her wedding. So while they're fuming over the judges' tie-breaking decision that cost the US a gold medal, they also compare two injured world-class athletes, who made sacrifices we can only imagine to get to the Olympics, to a bride fretting about her wedding dress??? Thanks, NBC, for putting it all in perspective.

Can someone tell NBC to tone down its burning need to celebrate all things bright and U.S.-iful? I've put up with its homerism until now, but I've had it.

Goody. I stopped putting up with it when Winton M. Blount was Postmaster General in the Nixon administration. It makes life easier to get through and my stomach less prone to ulcer.

I am glad to have been reminded of the "cheaper the country". It fits so perfectly the whole Chinese thang.

Anybody else notice the "By By Gary Kamina"? I hope they don't fire you, son. You write good.

"If NBC could take the red, white and blue filter off everything, we could see the Olympics a lot more clearly"

NBC is dropping the ball (AGAIN!) on its coverage of the Olympics. I could go on ad nauseum, but I have two major complaints about their coverage.

1. NBC's refusal to show sports that USA is not dominant in. How many (men's) swimming, beach volleyball, and gymnastics events can they shove down our throats??? Has anyone seen any baseball, indoor cycling, or archery?

2. Enough of the sappy human interest stories! More competition, less stories about Michael Phelp's second cousin on his mother's side three-times removed.

Thanks for letting me vent (and in a non-Coors lite way).

has been great. If anything, it's the walking-on-eggshells kid gloves routine it has to play when a Chinese athlete falters that is unbearable. Thank god for Bela to tell it like it is. How many replays of Alicia Sacramone falling off the balance beam, or in her floor routine, or Nastia's fall off of the uneven bars? And then Cheng Fei has one of the worst falls of the whole olympics, and probably the greatest choke job of the games so far (see what nerves do when you're actually over 14?), and we see one obscure overhead replay (and she wins the f'ing bronze!).

Gary, your article is merely more fodder for those who say the left is un-patriotic.

Why can't an "Olympiad" (BTW what is an "Olympiad" - is that a beer thing from the state of Washington?) be about friendly competition and a comming together of the best from each country to celebrate the excellence of sport? NBC (and in general ABC in the past when they did the coverage) seems to thing that they need to pander to some nationalistic USA pride to drum up viewer interest. I think every country is proud of it's athletes for the hard work and effort they make to achieve at the highest levels. But to make it all about a "medal count" competition and focus on the imperfections of the judging and implied host country bias and failings, is to miss what the Olympics should be about. I hope we in this country do not let the "big business" cynicism of the network infect our perspective and that of other countries who really do come to this event to share a spirit of brother/sisterhood in the glory of sport and excellence. Let's let NBC and those responsible for the cynicism know that it means something more than "gold" to us!