The Olympics always irritates the hell out of me because I can’t ever watch the horsey events. And even when they show horsey events, dressage gets the short end of the stick because everyone likes to watch the thrills and possible spills of the cross-country phase. Well, I do, too, of course, although at my advanced age I’m afraid I’m losing my nerve for cross-country/3 day event competition. Whatever. The point is that if you like to watch equestrian events, or any other event, without annoying interruptions and commentary, there’s good news this year.
From the U.S. Equestrian Team website:
The 2008 Summer Olympics marks the first time equestrian enthusiasts will get to watch the competition in Dressage, Eventing and Show Jumping from start-to-finish, thanks to NBC’s decision to stream 2,200 hours of live coverage of 25 sports at www.NBCOlympics.com.
USET Foundation Executive Director Bonnie Jenkins stated, “This is wonderful news and will be a great way to give many of our supporters who are responsible for getting our U.S. equestrian teams to the Olympic Games the ability to watch the equestrian events live and cheer on our athletes, even if they cannot be there in person. I know that our staff in Gladstone who will not be in Hong Kong will be glued to their computers throughout the two weeks. It will be fantastic!”
Fans will have the option of accessing a live Internet stream of the global feed coming out of Hong Kong or viewing at their convenience by visiting NBCOlympics.com, where the material will be made available on an on-demand basis, along with hundreds of additional hours of background on the athletes, schedules and related material.
We caught a bit of dressage (which was surreal because we had the opening ceremonies playing on the TV and live equestrian competition on the computer screen). The best part really is that you get nothing but the ambient sound. The horses, the hoofbeats, the riders, the endless footage of the officials doing arcane paperwork with the riders when they get off the course, people wandering around looking for snacks, and, of course, cutaways to the heavily polluted Hong Kong skyline. It’s pretty cool, so far.
My mother used to say she couldn’t watch me jump, and I never understood why until I started watching the Olympic equestrian events. It always seems a little nerve-racking.