Avoiding Results From The Olympics

There has been a lot of conversation about the Olympics and NBC’s coverage of the London games with the biggest criticism centering on the networks showing of marquee events at night on tape-delay.

I already addressed this earlier in the week with it all coming down to ratings and revenue and the numbers back up NBC’s decision.  Ratings have been strong through six days and are ahead of the Beijing games four years ago when a 12-hour time difference actually made things easy for TV. Most event finals were held in the morning hours which fell into prime-time back here.

London is five hours ahead of us and that has posed a challenge for NBC and viewers.  Most of the swimming finals have been shown on TV about 6 hours after they actually took place and for the most part I’ve known all the results before they aired.

Meanwhile my wife Jane has done all she can to avoid knowing the outcome which is not easy with all the sources of information we have these days.  But even those who already know have been watching in prime-time and the strong ratings have NBC saying they could break-even on the Olympics. originally they were forecasting a loss.

You have probably read or heard that there are 20 New Jerseyans competing in the summer games including Christie Rampone, a former Point Pleasant Boro and Monmouth University soccer standout who now lives in Manasquan and Rumson swimmer Connor Jaeger.

However I doubt many are aware that one of the shore’s greatest track athletes is also part of the U.S. Team.  Andrew Valmon, a two-time Olympic gold medalist is the coach for the men’s track and field team and his athletes will take center stage in London next week.   The 47-year old Valmon is a graduate of Manchester Township High School who went on to run at Seton Hall before claiming gold medals as part of the 4x400 relay team in both 1988 and 1992 Olympics.  He has been the track coach at the University of Maryland for the last 9 years and is married to former Olympian Meredith Rainey.

Former Southern Regional football standout Glenn Carson no longer has to worry about losing his starting position on the Penn State football team.  The junior was expected to battle Kharri Fortt for the starting middle linebacker spot but Wednesday it was announced that Fortt was transferring to the University of California.

Carson was the starter last season and has two years to improve his game for a possible pro career.