human interest

This is not a new or original observation by any means, but watching the Olympics over the last week has reminded me of it. Half of Olympic coverage seems to be trying to convince the audience why they should root for a specific athlete. Everyone worth caring about, it seems, has overcome serious adversity or at least has an inspirational story.

This is not to say that I don't have an appreciation for some of the stories that I have heard. The story last night about the long distance swimmer who was competing even though one of her legs had been amputated was amazing. How you swim competitively when you are missing such a major appendage is beyond me.

I think that it is funny that, while one of the biggest challenges of airing the Olympics must be to condense so much content down to something manageable, so much time is spent on content that is not the actual competition. I have watched some of the coverage on CNBC as well, and I haven't seen as many backstories there. I wonder if this is because the purpose of the secondary channels is just to cover specific events that couldn't fit on the network coverage while the purpose of the network coverage is to present content that has the broadest appeal.

I am trying to imagine what the backstory would be for me. "Dust wasn't always such a superb competitor in the recliner-sitting competition. For several years he had to do the bulk of his training on a couch. Even with this early setback, today he performs like a natural."

If only recliner-sitting was a competitive Olympic sport.