Television
Munich memories
Clive Gammon
Discussion of the Olympics as sporting. contests, let alone as television, inevitably* becomes paltry beside this week's unscheduled shooting events, and even before that ghastly disruption I wouldn't say I was having to be fed at the box during their unremitting course. Nevertheless, I found, and will record, some memorable moments among the ruck of swimmers, oarsmen, riders, leapers and so on. For one, the sight of Heidi Rosendahl in her awful striped Witch-of-the-North socks pounding down for the long jump; the same Heidi and Mary Peters in the long moment of waiting for the pentathlon result to become clear; the power of the Russian, Lusis, in the javelin, even though the German Wolfermann won by centimetres (anyway, he'd had the advantage of being able to practice in the stadium before the Games and, according to the Guardian's man, had found a particular aiming spot in that grotesque canopy). And I suppose I had better add the tiny Russian gymnast Olga Korbut hurling herself about the asymmetric bars—though all that balletic stuff I find hard to swallow, give me honest leppin' and running any day, that's what I say, and none of your fal-lals. If I were in charge of trimming the events schedule (and, by heaven, it needs
trimming) I'd make a start by getting rid of all the competitions which have to be scored by judges for style, except boxing, maybe, w'nich isn't quite in the same category. And that includes the most boring competition of all, the high diving. I hadn't thought anything could have been as repetitive and mind-numbing as show jumping but, yes, diving is.
I was glad to see that the BBC received the bad press they deserved for the quality of their commentators, with a broadside in the Observer last Sunday and a later onslaught from the Guardian. Both entirely justified, bearing out what I've been saying for a long time about the general standard of the sports coverage. The boys do their homework rig'nt enough. They get the names right and they can tell you little anecdotes about the personalities, as they'd call them, and produce statistics, but their interpretation of an event as it actually takes place is pitiful.
One is used, for example, to the kiss-ofdeath technique which Harry Carpenter in boxing and all the soccer commentators seem to be well-versed in. You know, It's England on the attach again, really getting a grip on this game now . . . whereupon Togoland or New Caledonia or whoever it is break away and score. It's a BBC classic. But they have really overdone it in Munich and I am seriously beginning to believe that Someone Up There is listening to them, chuckling and throwing the switch on our brave boys. As when the ight of David Bedford, visibly failing nine r. laps before the end of the 10,000 metres, inspired our BBC man to imply that he had
trllowed Viren and the others to take over he heavy task of pace-making while he ,gathered his strength for an inspired burst. I'll concede that they are not quite as guilty as they were in previous Games of he kind of chauvinism that made them I"concentrate on weak British entries, although there was a fair bit of that sort of nonsense when Ann Moore was close to a gold in the show-jumping, and a lot of i," Come on, Mary!" in the women's pentathlon.
And, before I leave the subject of sport, a late apology to the men who handle rugby and cricket on the box. I should have excluded them from my general strictures. From the great Arlott down they are admirable. The thing about them ,it seems to me, is that they know what they are talking about.
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