The Virtual Olympic Experience

Posted Aug 10, 2008 by Bill Ward

Updated Aug 10, 2008 at 10:35 PM

Being home for the Summer Olympics for the first time since the 1992 Barcelona Games is a strange experience.

But I have to admit, between NBC’s hi-def coverage on multiple channels and being able to see the replay of events on NBCOlympics.com, I almost feel like I’m there. In fact, in a lot of ways, I feel like I’m seeing a lot more of the Olympics than I ever have.

The thing is, when you’re at the Games covering them, you usually pick one event to focus on each day, spend half the day getting there and seeing it, and nearly the rest of the day getting back to the press center to write about, send in photos from your day, as well as videos and blogs. At the Athens and Turin Olympics, I literally worked 18 hours a day, slept about 5 hours and the remaining hour figuring out where I was and how to got there.

Of course, when you’re not at the Olympics, you miss all the cultural atmosphere, meeting people and seeing sights. And there is an electricity there—a shared one—that is unlike any sporting event I’ve ever attended. But these virtual Olympics on TV and Online, well, this sure is the next best thing. And I don’t have to leave my family, travel an entire day and get my usual 101-degree fever.