Magnificent Two Weeks Over

It’s over. After seventeen days we have seen the completion of the 29^th Olympiad in Beijing, China.

Many people asked me why I didn’t post to my blog during that time. Everyone that reads here knows how much I enjoy the Olympics and know that it’s a big part of my research. And I have a very good reason why I did not post to my blog during that time.

I was actually watching the Olympics.

I had my TiVo working overtime. In addition to the content analyses that I’m working on based on NBC’s prime time coverage I was working toward updating my library of sports clips for future experiments. My goal was to get a little bit of every sport, and if possible getting clips of both male and female athletes competing in each. Some days I had my TiVo recording as much as 31 hours of coverage from the NBC family of networks: MSNBC, CNBC, USA, and Oxygen.

I figure that my TiVo over those 17 days recorded nearly 400 hours of Olympics. And while I watched a good chunk, I also fast forwarded through a lot of it. My goal in finding the sports for my collection were to have competitions that did not feature American athletes. If used in an experiment I wanted participants to feel as neutral as possible about the participants – I don’t want a feeling of patriotism and national pride to overtake any possible effects I would be researching.

Overall, I think I was relatively successful in my task. There were three sports that were not broadcast at all on any of the networks carrying the Olympics: judo, sailing, and taekwondo. Also, the networks did not broadcast men participating in the modern pentathlon – though they did broadcast the women’s competition. And then of what was supposed to be broadcast I did not get footage of women’s archery, women’s pairs in whitewater canoeing/kayaking, and men’s triathlon. I do not believe that, even though they were in the broadcast schedule, that the first two actually made it to air. And when it comes to the triathlon it was a victim of a choice I made – I chose to record the network that was airing men’s trampoline instead.

It was a great Games with many memorable moments. I can’t wait for February 12, 2010 for the upcoming Winter Games in Vancouver and for July 27, 2012 when the Summer Olympics will return in London.

7 Days Until the Opening Ceremony - Let the Coding Begin

Seven days from today marks the Opening Ceremonies of the 29th Summer Olympics in Beijing, China.

It also marks the start of my biennial Olympic content analysis.

I am actually looking forward to both. I love the grandeur of the Games, and the content analysis forces me to watch every second of the prime time coverage. I can't wait.