QISE Review - Tokyo Edition - Day 12 / by Mark

qiseday12.jpg

Back to last night, and the women's floor competition.  The rhapsodic commentary, the closeups hoping to see a tear, anything to wring every drop of emotion out of it.  One more event, and Biles will be back.  Did the QISEOC drag the gymnastics event out an extra day or two?  They know it's the big ratings grabber.

That was followed by track runs and the men's 400m hurdles final to finish out prime time.  The commentators treated the results of the latter like a comet--"you will never see this again".   Prime Time Plus was all about long distance races and springboard diving.

Daytime kicks off with Equestrian Show Jumping. If you're not quite convinced that this is the sport of the rich--the daughter of Bruce Springsteen is one of the competitors.  A commentator noted that mom and dad got her into it so she "would have a more normal upbringing". Who didn't do show jumping as a kid, right?

We've made it to Track Cycling--the highly technical sport played in a "velodrome".  It's all about drafting, posture, and consistency.  We got cool shots from one of the riders, pointing back to another team member--one of which included a crash.  Secretly, NBC is saying "score!" After more boring water polo, we get something new--Sport Climbing. There are multiple disciplines, but much of it looks like Spider-Man skittering up a wall.

I paused the DVR for few hours, so we could watch the parallel bar portion of the men's gymnastics at dinner. There's more track heats and a basketball game, so---skipping to prime time, which started off with an announcement that an earthquake happened in Japan earlier. Can they EYER catch a break? Off to the final part of men's gymnastics--high bar. Cameras caught the presumptive winner celebrating a bit early, then trying to act all cool. Yet more track races followed.

That'll do it--more to come.