Live Poll: Most Thrilling Winter Olympic Telecast?

The first telecast of a Winter Olympic Games occured when Radiotelevisione Italiana broadcast from Cortina, Italy to select European countries via Eurovision during the 1956 Winter Olympics. Four years later, United States audiences saw their first Winter Olympic telecast ever during the U.S. hosted Squaw Valley 1960 Winter Olympics. The upcoming Milano Cortina Games in 2026 will mark the nineteenth broadcast of a Winter Olympics. Source: Wikipedia - Olympics On Television

Which Winter Olympic Games telecast is the most thrilling that you have seen in your lifetime?

Vote in the companion poll: Most Thrilling Summer Olympic Telecast?

Live Poll: https://www.imdb.com/poll/LWX8Ie86gTI/

See the complete list of Winter Olympic broadcasts from 1956 to today here: https://www.imdb.com/list/ls507779894/

Responses

urbanemovies

10K Messages

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163.1K Points

3 years ago

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-10/nbc-s-winter-olympics-ratings-are-heading-toward-a-historic-low

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Pencho15

Champion

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6.8K Messages

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119.5K Points

3 years ago

In Mexico, luckily, the Olympic telecasts have been great since 2016 when a new company got the rights to the event and every single sport is available online if they are not shown in the tv channels. As a fan of the event that's great for Me.

However, and while Mexico got its best performance in at least 30 years at a Winter Olympics (that's a merit to the athletes not the broadcast), they have not been my favorite games and, as someone who tries to follow every sport, there have been some details in some broadcastings that I never noticed before, so this may be actually my less favorite telecast, or close too.

Among the errors where a cross country race where camera time was spent on empty benches instead of in contestants still in the race, the screen going blank at bobsleigh for some fraction of seconds in one curve of the track and the only Nigerian athlete never appearing in screen. While he was not a powerful participant and he couldn't finish his event, I feel the universality of the games is important and an he could have been shown at some time for the people in his country that could be supporting him.

Oh, and the Opening Ceremony was the only one in history that I found boring and with nothing about it worth remembering, they even skipped the cauldron and just left a barely visible Olympic torch in the middle of the stadium.

I also didn't lake Salt Lake City much because the US production spends so much time with their own athletes and I found one of them, Apollo Ohno, quite unlikable, and also a kid in the Opening Ceremony annoying rather than inspiring.

I was a kid in Nagano, and barely remember it, and I don't have problems with the rest of the games. Well I do with Sochi as many winners ended up as being cheats thanks to Russia, but that was no apparent in the telecast.

I could vote for either Torino 2006, which has the downside of not having a Mexican team, Vancouver 2010, when I got the chance to watch a historical Mexican olympian, Hubertus von Hohenlohe or Pyeongchang 2018, where 43 year old Mexican Germán Madrazo got the spotlight when he managed to reach the finish line in Cross Country after a huge personal effort and sacrifice to be in the games training himself.

(edited)

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urbanemovies

10K Messages

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163.1K Points

@Pencho15 The Winter Olympics of my youth seemed to have more compelling storylines on the one channel offering that was broadcast. Now, I like how you are are to customize your Olympic viewing experience with multiple channels and platforms and even the ability to watch on-demand or time shift events. That said there is something to be said for the communal experience of everyone watching and talking about watching the same previous night's telecast.

I would think with the multiple feeds now available, that it would be easier for each countries distribution partner to customize the telecast to their own relevant storylines. But, maybe the packaged broadcasts are the only option offered or meant to be a cost-efficient offering.

The non-broadcast (no close-ups) of the lightning of the Olympic cauldron in your country (or by NBC) was most likely done to protest its use for proganda purposes by China.

https://www.npr.org/2022/02/04/1078234213/beijing-olympics-flame-torch-uyghur