Elisberg Industries
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Products
    • Books
    • Movies
  • About Elisberg Industries
    • Our Corporate Board
    • Information Overstock
    • Elisberg Industries Entertainment Information
    • Elisberg Statistical Center of American Research
    • Consultancy Service
  • Contact
    • How to Find Us
  • Kudos
  • Good Things to Know
    • The BOB Page
    • Sites You Might Actually Like
Decent Quality Since 1847

Bob Sledding

2/14/2014

0 Comments

 
While all the world lives their lives, we here at Elisberg Industries watch the Olympics on television so the rest of humanity can keep society functioning.  Various notes and observations from this side of the tube --

I find it fascinating that for almost two hours into the primetime broadcast last night, NBC never mentioned announced that Yvgeni Plushenko would not be skating that night, but had been injured and even retired that morning. While it's understandable that they wanted to keep the audience anxious to see him, there are ways they could have addressed it without "giving it away" for those who didn't know, saying something like how there was big news at the skating rink about Plushenko, more on that later.  But then, considering that it happened 12 hours earlier (and was shown live on NBC Sport Network that morning), even that is a paltry way of handling it.  They should have explained that he wouldn't be skating, "and we'll have the whole fascinating story coming up, along with an exclusive interview."  Or something like that.  It would have held people.  But even while I can at least understand them not saying anything, I find it totally acceptable for the network to have done a promo during the broadcast saying that Yvgeni Plushenko is "coming up" when they'd known for 12 hours he wasn't "coming up."  Yes, they had a little feature on him preceding the event, but that's not what the audience expects when they hear it said that he's "coming up" in the skating competition. Not good of NBC, hardly their finest hour in reporting.

The next morning on the Today Show, Yvgeni Plushenko showed up as a guest.  He was quite gracious and, while clearly he had to be hurting emotionally (and physically), he likely also had had time for the initial shock to pass.  The interesting thing, though, was when he talked about two skaters who had reached out to him and had been incredibly supportive.  You could see it in his voice how deeply appreciative he was.  The first skater he mentioned was Michelle Kwan.  This didn't totally surprise me because I've read what a nice person she is (and years back, I did some work with her personal manager, and he said back then what a joy she was.)  But the other person did surprise me -- as did Plushenko's reaction.  It was Evan Lysacek.  Four years ago, Lysacek beat Plushenko for the Gold Medal, and the Russian was blistering and unrelenting in his criticism, one of the most ungracious reactions I've seen from someone who did not win.  It speaks loudly that Lysacek was so supportive, and that Plushenko was as moved by it as he was.  Unfortunately, as he seemed to be about to describe their conversations, which would have been great to hear, the Today host, Savannah Guthrie cut him off and went to a commercial.

Overnight on the late night broadcast, I watched a qualifying race in the men's 1500 short track relay.  (What can I say?  There is no rest for Olympics Watchers...)  Short track is that speedskating event which is a bit like demolition derby.  But the relay short track event, yipes!, that is like a Marx Bros. movie.  Organized mad chaos.  Think the final scene of Duck Soup.  Or the stateroom scene in A Night at the Opera.  (To put it in perspective, on a running track, 1500 meters is four laps.  For short track skating, it's 45 laps!  With six teams.  And four skaters on each team.  Each zipping around, somehow avoiding one another, to get in place.)  The American team was in position to move on to the next round, in close second place to South Korea with just five laps to go.  (That's about a minute.) But then they got tangled up with the Koreans, crashed, and were out of the competition.  But the distraught looks soon changed to joy when it was ruled that they'd been impeded, so they were advanced to the finals.  But this means the finals will have seven teams, not six.  And six is four too many.  Man, is that race going to be over-crowded.

Media Alert.  Tomorrow, there's a huge hockey game on the NBC Sports Network -- the U.S. against Russia.  It starts at 4 AM in Los Angeles, but that's why the DVR is around.

I know I say I won't give any results, but I just have to figure that NBC isn't going to be spending a lot of time covering the women's 15K biathlon on the primetime show.  So, for those of you keeping a scorecard, Darya Domracheva of Belarus won.  And by a full minute and 15 seconds over the Swiss biathlete.  So, people who had Czhechoslovakia in the office pool didn't win.  What can I say, I like the biathlon.

They held the freestyle long program in men's figure skating this morning -- and again I didn't watch much.  Just a little, mainly some of the favorites, as well as the two Americans.  Not because "I wanted to see the Americans," because I wanted to see the reaction that Jeremy Abbott got after the rousing, explosive support last night when he crashed into the boards and got hurt, but kept skating.  It was a terrific response today, and he did wonderfully.  I also wanted to watch Jason Brown because he's from Highland Park, Illinois -- a town that borders Glencoe, where I grew up, and it's where my dad had his doctor office for 40 years.  I won't give the results, but will say that what I saw among the leaders was not going to make this a classic.  And the skater who will be most pissed off by the mediocrity will be...Yvgeni Plushenko.  He probably is going around saying to every stranger he can find, "If I wasn't hurt and had to drop out, I would have won!!"
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Picture
    Picture
    Elisberg Industries gets a commission if you click here before shopping on Amazon.
    Picture
    Follow @relisberg

    Author

    Robert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. 

    Elisberg is a two-time recipient of the Lucille Ball Award for comedy screenwriting. He's written for film, TV, the stage, and two best-selling novels, is a regular columnist for the Writers Guild of America and was for
    the Huffington Post.  Among his other writing, he has a long-time column on technology (which he sometimes understands), and co-wrote a book on world travel.  As a lyricist, he is a member of ASCAP, and has contributed to numerous publications.

    Picture
           Available on Amazon

    Picture
           Available on Amazon

    Picture
           Feedspot Badge of Honor

    Archives

    April 2025
    March 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013

    Categories

    All
    Animals
    Audio
    Audio Land
    Books
    Business
    Chicago
    Consumer Product
    Education
    Email Interview
    Entertainment
    Environment
    Fine Art
    Food
    From The Management
    Health
    History
    Huffery
    Humor
    International
    Internet
    Journalism
    Law
    Los Angeles
    Media
    Morning News Round Up
    Movies
    Music
    Musical
    Personal
    Photograph
    Piano Puzzler
    Politics
    Popular Culture
    Profiles
    Quote Of The Day
    Radio
    Religion
    Restaurants
    Science
    Sports
    Technology
    Tech Tip
    Theater
    The Writers Workbench
    Tidbits
    Travel
    Tv
    Twitter
    Video
    Videology
    Well Worth Reading
    Words-o-wisdom
    Writing

    RSS Feed

© Copyright Robert J. Elisberg 2025
Contact Us    About EI    Chicago Cubs
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Products
    • Books
    • Movies
  • About Elisberg Industries
    • Our Corporate Board
    • Information Overstock
    • Elisberg Industries Entertainment Information
    • Elisberg Statistical Center of American Research
    • Consultancy Service
  • Contact
    • How to Find Us
  • Kudos
  • Good Things to Know
    • The BOB Page
    • Sites You Might Actually Like