Sunday, February 17, 2002

Remote Control

By ROB BRODIE -- Ottawa Sun
 So much for covering all the angles.

 There are cameras aplenty at just about every venue at these Winter Olympics. But it wasn't until the race was over that viewers learned why Canadian speed skating medal hopeful Jeremy Wotherspoon seemed to suddenly run out of gas during yesterday's men's 1,000 metres.

 That's when a CBC replay showed Wotherspoon stumbling going through a corner -- a slip the skater himself later told CBC's Terry Leibel more or less ended his chances.

 That the stumble happened in the far corner of the Utah Olympic Oval also left CBC announcers Steve Armitage and Neal Marshall searching for answers themselves as Wotherspoon faded down the stretch.

 Armitage, though, might have summed up just about everyone's thoughts when he said: "I just don't know what went wrong with Jeremy at these Olympics."

 Yesterday's late-arriving camera angle aside, the Oval remains a favourite venue for the second straight Winter Olympics. Armitage lends excitement to the event with his booming voice, and the pictures of the orange-clad Dutch fans are priceless.

 It's what watching the Olympics should be all about.

 HIGHS: There have been plenty of examples of high-flying Olympic sports producing stunning TV pictures. Add freestyle skiing's aerials to that list. The series of replays does a superb job giving viewers a sense of the height involved -- and the complexity of the tricks ... Credit TSN's Vic Rauter with explaining the aerials scoring system to viewers in a simple, succinct way ... Seems Rob Stevens is rubbing off on his CBC colleagues. Witness this line from Mark Connolly at the bobsled venue: "If they were snowboarders, they'd be stoked." ... Cool graphic: Strip of circles indicating the number of targets hit during biathlon. Hey, you try to follow those rifle shots on television.

 LOWS: In the wake of Canada's hockey loss to Sweden on Friday, the talk radio airwaves yesterday were filled with fans all but asking to put the game on trial (again) in our country. Totally predictable and totally ridiculous ... If I see one more TV report out of Russia claiming its pairs skaters won gold "fair and square," I'm gonna be ill. Read my lips. When somebody cheats, there's nothing "fair" about it. End of story.

 QUOTABLE: "(Friday) night in hockey, we needed a French judge." -- CBC daytime host Ron MacLean, on Canada's loss to Sweden.

 TODAY'S BEST BET: Men's hockey, Canada vs. Germany. A chance to silence (temporarily) all those worry warts out there.

2002 Games News Coverage