Nevertheless, despite my viewpoint, I was curious if the West Indies can accomplish in athletics what we seem to lack with cricket!
Therefore, it was very heartening to see six Caribbean athletes out of eight dominate the 100-m’s final – only two USA competitors, neither were Caucasian.
{The whitefolks’ obvious absence almost made you sorry for the rebuke and job-loss sportscaster “Jimmy The Greek” endured not so long ago when he said the reason black athletes are stronger is white folk’s own damn fault, making Afro-Descent stronger for days when labour was too infra dig for the dainty hands of crackers… And as gauche as that comment was, is it really that far off the mark? Have honkies been hoisted by their own petard?}
Here’s how I call what happened on CBC-Canada this morning – Usain Bolt, I feel, could have gotten 8 seconds if he had not paused to showboat at the 80-m’s mark. It was clear he had overpowered and overstrode all others in sight and yet even though he had a clear lead – he should have hammered it home and held down the engine til the tape said “STOP“!
Instead he started to whack his thighs and grin and traipse all the way to the tape – THE FACT HE HAD A WORLD RECORD IN SPITE OF HIS OVERCONFIDENCE INDICATES THE RECORD COULD HAVE BEEN SHAVED EVEN FURTHER!
Nevertheless, what was even worse was jumping around the net to see how reactions were on major sites, at CNN the Jamaican’s victory was a Breaking News ticker-bar, then a sideline by a Main Story of what 50 year old’s do to celebrate their Birthday?
At ESPN, their hot lead was Kobe Bryant on the Dream Team as the young Jamaican was bolted onto the side of the basketballer’s photo…
Whereas, at two Commonwealth sites; BBC and CBC-Canada – Bolt was given the lead even over preference of their own!
In fact, if you click on each Freeze-Frame it enlarges each snapshot, and you will see on BBC’s that the Caribbean victory even clouded over USA’s Michael Phelps equalling Mark Spitz’ 1972 medal-quest…
Here is where the real tests came now, at the Gleaner? They favoured Asafa, but are yet to update their website, and instead led with an obsolete feature…
While over at the Observer, their countrymen and compatriot Michael Frater did not even rate a chance in the Battle Royale – they saw it as a straight fight between Powell and Digicel-Darling Usain (All like now, their lead page remains the same)…
Where I was really surprised where coverage fell was the one regional hope where something balanced would shine through, CMC! Their lead, even an hour after Usain Bolt blazed away 9.69 secs like a proverbial phoenix, was the semi-finals 150 minutes from beforehand!I am tired of NBC only interviewing US athletes even if they’re dead-last (That happened one Olympiad during the Marathon, a guy from Burundi was beating the USA dude but NBC kept saying he’d “…break the pack sooner or later,” – I kid you not!) and similar jingoisms from Canada, but CMC in the past has talked with Gold, Silver & Bronze finishers and then have a chat with the top C’bean performer.
So here was a grand chance to cap all three in one go as Trinidad’s Richard Thompson was Silver with 9.89!
Yet, there on a website, which can be updated as quick as radio or tv, if not faster – was outdated info when current status was needed yesterday if not sooner! Very sad… I passed back and they have changed the data, but one can only wonder how late in the day that transpired?
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