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Show VIEWPOINT Olympic memories linger By Jack Hill The games are over but the memories linger on. In general, Americans and people around the world enjoyed the 16-day television coverage of the 23rd Olympiad from Los Angeles. The notable exceptions were those soap opera addicts who were angered that their diet of sordid trash was slightly interrupted. As the color commentator for the gymnastics would say (and that's about the only thing she could say), "A.B.C. nailed that." I think she must have been a carpenter before taking up broadcasting. When the first perfect '10' was given in Olympic gymnastics a few years ago, you knew the scoring would never be the same. Those perfect 10's came in bundles. What happens in 1988 when every gymnast scores 10 in every event? Bobby Knight's basketball team made it look so easy that taking the gold medal hardly seemed fair. Those players who were drafted by professional teams, especially Michael Jordan, will be millionaires by the weekend. He'll probably make more money than amature track star Carl Lewis but not much. Speaking of Lewis, how could the fans boo a 28 foot 4 inch long jump? No longer is 'winning the only thing' now we demand winning with world record performances. ABC opted to show live the entire two hour plus marathon but couldn't spare 38 seconds to show the world record 4x100 meter relay! In fact, all I ever saw was the last hand off and Lewis running the final 100 meters. . Anyone who has tried to organize an event, whether it's Sunday dinner, a ward social, softball tournament, community fund drive, parade, or what have you, can appreciate the tremendous job done by Peter Uberov. Skeptics said, 'Nay, Nay' while he said, 'Yes, yes.' With the help of 57,000 volunteers, the games went smoothly and claim to show a $25 million dollar profit. Montreal tax payers are still paying for the 1976 games! Only the usual complaints about some officiating (boxing as one example) drew criticism and those complaints will always be present when a winner has to be decided in anything. Four weeks ago, a BYU trainer told me that the Mormon trio of Henry Marsh, Paul Cummings and Doug Padilla would win three medals in track. Maybe in Korea. Your heart had to ache for Marsh who missed a medal by less than a yard a meter if you are into metrics. The close-up looks showing athletes in their home settings were interesting; for my money they made the television coverage that much better. Attending the Olympics in person has become a rich man's pasttime. Avis jumped their weekly car rental in Southern California from $99 to $299. Hotel and motel rates showed similar increases. Getting a ticket to the events was expensive when they were first issued. Scalpers made a bundle at the event sites. One candid profiteer claimed to have received $1200 for a pair of closing ceremonies tickets. How would you like to be the person in charge of the 1988 opening and closing ceremonies in Seoul, Korea? How do you top what they did in Los Angeles? When I told my wife that I was going to watch the entire three hours of the opening ceremonies on July 28, she just walked into the other room grumbling under her breath. A few minutes later she was standing in the doorway watching, and before long she was seated on the couch with the rest of us. She watched the whole thing and the entire closing ceremony Sunday! The 16 days were great and the memories will linger on. |