Taekwondo

I usually do not pay much attention to the Olympics, but this year it descended upon London and I thought I had better take advantage.  We went to Taekwondo at the ExCel Centre.  It was very entertaining.  We saw the repechage for the Bronze medals as well as the Gold Medal match for the flyweight women and men.  As a warm up to the repechage and the gold medal matches the World Taekwondo Federation demonstration team did some pretty amazing feats.  

Going to the Olympics for me is likely to be a once-in-a-lifetime event but I think what I will remember most about these Olympics is the fantastic television coverage.  The BBC put all of their feeds onto 24 channels accessible by the red button.  It's just amazing.  I can watch any sport… and the added bonus of it being a feed was that it is often without commentary and it stays on the event even in between the action.  So we get to watch the crack team changing the jumping course in equestrian or deploying the hurdles onto the track.  It's like watching pit crews.  And we also get to watch the athletes preparing and interacting with each other.  It gives you this feeling of being there that the typical segmented coverage does not...  really, really nice.  The other thing I love about watching the Olympics here is that the commentators get just as excited when a British athlete does well but doesn't medal as they do when one does medal.  It is delightfully refreshing.