Tokyo Olympic Games 2020 (+1) - Athletics Programme - July 30th to August 8th - Day 1

[trickstat]

I don't know about others but for me going to and from the red button is more of a hop, step and a jump than just a hop between 2 regular channels!

[philipo]

To be fair, from what I read, if I had to rely on the BBC then I would be pretty angry too. I am in the happy position of having Eurosport and can dip into their catchup coverage as and when and at what time I want. But not everyone has streaming services or a smartphone. Channel hopping from BBC1 to BBC2 to red button on 601 in the hope of catching some athletics sounds absolutely soul destroying. Phillipo you have my sympathy.

It is mate it is🙄🙄 see it on you tube one day perhaps..

[Occasional Hope]

A *little*? Watching it I was thinking, does he think he's in a DL and has the pacemaker's job? Then he actually stopped and I realised he did, for the Ugandan team! I'm really surprised there's been no protest or official comeback for that.

[Occasional Hope]

It would be really helpful if they were just consistent about what was on when on which channel. I think in the end I saw almost everything on the first day (apart from field events which were very skimpy but that's par for the course) but not in the right order. Some things were on both channels.

On the plus side I think there's less chat than usual.

[trickstat]

Re the BBC TV coverage, I do remember we did have Olympics pre 2012 where a lot of the morning events in the first few days not being shown live because other sports were being shown. With only 2 channels being available I do think they could make it easier to indicate when things might be shown if they are not live. Also wonder whether they could use BBC4 which doesn't start its usual programming until 7PM.

[trickstat]

Re Sophie McKinna and food, I'm reminded of Usain Bolt in Beijing where he apparently ate little other than chicken nuggets because he didn't like the other food on offer.

The Kissa pacemaking didn't seem to work but it does seem a little blatant that he didn't finish.

[JamieSLA]

Agreed. Although I can tell there was no malice attached, it's micro aggressions that lead to bigger problems.

[Christy93]

That's a loaded comment and one I find pretty offensive. There have been occasions within the AW forum when athletes from other nations (overwhelmingly Black or Asian) are disrespected, sometimes just by omission, or swathing generalisations and stereotypes, including referrals to them as "the Africans", or comments such as "you can't trust their ages" or not mentioning now Olympic Champion. then silver Doha medallist, Selemon Barega but focussing on his age mate boy wonder 5th placer, Jakob Ingebritsen doing well against "men"!

I haven't seen all the comments you are referring to, but some of the ones I have seen are just pointing out that Del Ponte's time won't mean much in a final against what they expect from SAFP and ETH and with another acronym - TBH - they are probably right in this context!

By the way, the language may be prejudiced or discriminatory but there's a power element that comes into that language being classed as racist.

Put Del Ponte in the search bar on Twitter, scroll back to the time of the race and it's all there. Referred to as "chippers cousin", her effort and excitement ridiculed, and people generally disparaging about her run. I doubt most will have heard of her pre-race, so what had she done to deserve it? I agree with your observations RE the coverage disrproportionate coverage Jakob/white athletes receive and that subconscious bias needs to be tackled, but it isn't the same as mocking & disparaging like we saw today.

I don't think this is the time or place to debate this though, I regret making the comment here on a thread about Olympic results.

[jjimbojames]

You’re right LS, there can be generalisations and comments which are not always positive on any MB (including this one at times - but rarely with any ill intent), but to be fair, the Twitter comments I’ve seen have been blatant in their mocking and ridiculing, and some are making it about “the white girl” not being good enough etc. and if we want to stamp things out, we have to own it when we get things wrong, too. Some athletes court controversy (SCR and her tweet today) for self-promotion, but Del Ponte did nothing but run her best. Will she make the final, let alone medal - odds are against her - but people can support their people without savaging the oppo.

To be clear - not all tweets for SAFP were the same in tone - but a lot were. Athletics is probably the most multi-cultural of sports, so no need for that, IMO.

[felix51]

I think the fact that you are wishing the old bbc coverage was back is ironic. Careful what you wish for ….

To be fair, from what I read, if I had to rely on the BBC then I would be pretty angry too. I am in the happy position of having Eurosport and can dip into their catchup coverage as and when and at what time I want. But not everyone has streaming services or a smartphone. Channel hopping from BBC1 to BBC2 to red button on 601 in the hope of catching some athletics sounds absolutely soul destroying. Phillipo you have my sympathy.

[Runny]

I think the fact that you are wishing the old bbc coverage was back is ironic. Careful what you wish for ….

[Runny]

I wasn’t critical Of the coverage - just making the point that there were lots of races and heats not shown by the BBC - I know this because I watched on Eurosport. Also a lot of the swimming races had already happened because I had already seen them on Eurosport. Seems you can enjoy the coverage - don’t look on here and you won’t know what’s happened and you can enjoy believing it’s live. Not a problem.

[Occasional Hope]

We'll find out tomorrow anyway. Good luck to her and to Daryll.

[LoveSprints1]

Made the mistake of searching Del Ponte on Twitter after her brilliant run in SAFPs heat... Jamaican athletics fans are the worst people, clearly only watch the sport out of national pride rather than enjoyment of the sport. A mix of ridiculing and outright disrespect. I remember they did similar to Cindy Roleder after she won a world medal when Danielle Williams became world champion. Did the same to Dafne Schippers too.

That's a loaded comment and one I find pretty offensive. There have been occasions within the AW forum when athletes from other nations (overwhelmingly Black or Asian) are disrespected, sometimes just by omission, or swathing generalisations and stereotypes, including referrals to them as "the Africans", or comments such as "you can't trust their ages" or not mentioning now Olympic Champion. then silver Doha medallist, Selemon Barega but focussing on his age mate boy wonder 5th placer, Jakob Ingebritsen doing well against "men"!

I haven't seen all the comments you are referring to, but some of the ones I have seen are just pointing out that Del Ponte's time won't mean much in a final against what they expect from SAFP and ETH and with another acronym - TBH - they are probably right in this context!

By the way, the language may be prejudiced or discriminatory but there's a power element that comes into that language being classed as racist.

[LoveSprints1]

Excellent, I can't wait to see what she will achieve.