Staff Writer
Paige Wilson
We have seen the clever Coca Cola ads and cell phone commercials preparing for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. But how ready is the public for another Olympics game? It seems to me the Olympics is losing its drive.
The 2010 Winter Olympics was said to have a more intimate setting this year which was clearly seen in the opening ceremony when countries entered with only one or two athletes.
Also, living in Texas it is easy to see why the Winter Olympics would not be as important due to our once in a life time chance of snow besides the freak snow storm of the century, we experienced in February.
Summer Olympics is a definite phenomenon in Coppell because big time names in the Summer Olympics are close to us whether it is Nastia Luikin being trained only minutes from our school or Michael Phelps and his subway commercials.
Winter just doesn’t seem to be a Texas theme. However, this has not stopped groups of students debating hockey games and medals given out for figure skating.
News reports seem to all agree the Olympics are causing NBC to lose money. The television station paid $820 million to earn the rights to televise the event, but this might not be a shock to NBC seeing if expected to lose money in the business deal.
Early in the week ratings looked very poor showing the expected loss however the Olympics ratings increased dramatically beating Fox’s “American Idol” for the first time since the show premiered. Personally this is no surprise to me seeing American Idol is becoming a total bore.
Either way, the Olympics is trying to make its way into Coppell from conversations heard around school. Groups debate gold medalist and games. However this could be a side effect from interest level. The groups of people talking about the winter gases had a personal connection to the games. Majority of the people I heard talking about it were figure skaters.
The main talk of the Olympics I have heard is unfortunately not really what the Olympic officials were looking for. Controversial topics such as the death of the luger from Georgia seem to circulating quicker than Apallo Ohno making history by winning the most medals. It has been seen through Olympic history that controversial topics get the lime light more than the players themselves.
The 2008 Summer Olympics received more publicity because of the fact that it was in Beijing. Commotion was everywhere on weather athletes should even be participating in the Olympics. Would they be safe, protests erupting? The location overshadowed the event.
In the 1980 and 1984 Summer Olympics the United States and the Soviet Union boycotted due to political disagreement. All the world’s problems are suppose to stay out of the Olympics to keep its main purpose.
Olympics are supposed to be an event for the country to come together and celebrate talent and “old fashion fun”. People could get over their differences to have a good time. It was a time to break away from all the controversy but it seems to follow us any way. We can’t break away from it and it continues to over shadow the Olympics sole purpose.
I don’t see the problem getting any better. The traditional Olympics are a thing of the past. There will have to be something controversial to be found to keep people interested. The Olympics will never be forgotten the will be remembered for years to come. The will be remembered for location or even death. But what can you say, publicity is publicity.
