Alaskan Bulgarian

Olympic Joys

I haven't been hanging around the internet club where I do my updating much over the last few days because, in the surprises of all surprises, the Olympics coverage here in Silistra--Silistra, Bulgaria mind you--is absolutely stellar. Yesterday I was able to feel every ounce of the frustration of one of America's, well, not so nice days at the games. Looks like I had my TV fixed at just about the right time (Incidentally, getting a TV fixed in Bulgaria is cheap, easy, and effective. Where a good-sized new TV would run me around 300 leva, I paid 30 leva to get my TV repaired at a shop just outside my building. And the guy got it done in a day. Impressive stuff.)

Many reasons for the great coverage. The first being that it's all live, and for the first time in my life since LA in '84, in my time zone. This prevents the horrors of knowing the scores and results before actually watching the events. And there really is great event coverage here, too. Miraculously, Silistra gets British Eurosport, which is offering 24 hours a day coverage. Live during the day, taped at night.

Despite a penchant for not really showing team sports much at all, British Eurosport has been doing a top-notch job picking the events to show. I suppose this could be credited to the British not being in the thick of any particular event. If they win an upset here or there it's great stuff, but outside of the upsets, I don't think England will be sitting on the edge of its collective seat until, I don't know, Equestrian? So all that losing from the British makes for some great money events coverage. I got to see every second of America's wretched time in the pool last night. I was fascinated by every stroke as we fell two lengths behind South Africa in the 4 x 100 relay. Sad, sad times. At least Eurosport's preference against team events kept me from watching Puerto Rico's "miraculous" upset/blowout win over the team some people still insist on prefixing "dream." I'll tell you, I've dreamt some pretty good basketball teams, and Shawn Marion, Dwanye Wade, and Alaska's own Carlos Boozer were never on those teams. Sigh.

When I'm not crying over the score reviews at the end of the night, or chuckling at the British announcers' bitter comments about how terrible the laurels look on the male swimmers (they both agree that they look much better on the women), or enjoying the fact that the camera likes to show each playcall in women's beach volleyball, but would rather not show any of it in men's, I can usually jump to Bulgaria's national coverage of the games, which shows events Eurosport sometimes misses. It's in Bulgarian, but that's certainly managable. Teaches me some new vocabulary.

Oh, and one last thing before I run off to not miss the opening swimming finals...Eurosport refuses--simply refuses--to show one sob/success/horror story about any of the athletes participating. I've learned that two of the damned South Africans trained in Arizona (TRAITORS!) and some other interesting tidbits about training and coaching, but not a single word about overcoming an aunt's devastating bout with motion sickness. Nothing but the sport. I like that.