Diary of an Olympian (Watcher):- Preview Summary

By Keith Miller

So, we are less than three weeks until the world comes together as one under the Olympic banner (unless of course you happen to be Russian, in which case, watch his space).  There’ll be controversy, there’ll be tears, and we’ll be lucky to escape RSI from the constant remote control abuse.

There are 306 gold medals on offer across 42 different sports crammed into 19 days of the Games.  It’s an eye-watering schedule.  And I’m watching it all.

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve profiled the good, the bad and the ugly of Olympic events, and given an indication as to what time you can expect to see it all happen live in New Zealand.  In a nutshell, be prepared to take a pillow to work, just in case.

If you’re in a position where you’ll need to pick and choose what you are going to watch, probably through sleep deprivation, here’s my tip for the top 10 must see sports at the Olympics.  You can thank me later:-

• Archery
• Athletics
• Cycling
• Diving
• Handball
• Hockey
• Rowing
• Swimming
• Volleyball
• Weightlifting

Bugger it – make it 11 and I’ll throw boxing in as well.

From a New Zealand perspective, Rowing is obviously going to be a big watch.  There are plenty of potential medals on offer on the water, and all things going to plan, our guys and gals should pick up a tidy haul.  Promisingly, it looks like Val Adams is hitting some form just at the right time.  A big part of her incredible success is based around psychology, and her opponents will be starting to feel that her road to recovery is almost complete.

The velodrome is another location where there is huge potential for NZ athletes, and whilst it may be stretching it to suggest there will be a swag of gold coming our way, there should be enough on offer there to see some success.  I also have a funny feeling that we may see something special from Nick Willis, and not just on his PC.

Various predictors have New Zealand finishing with anything from 7-10 Gold medals, which could mean a Top 10 finish.  This Virtual Medal Table based on all sorts of algorithms, trends and guesswork, probably created by someone with a fair bit of time on their hands, shows a 12^th placed finish, but it also has Russia finishing third.  Logical, but we’ll found out later this week whether that will actually happen or not.

Over the course of the event, we’ll see which high profile athletes will be busted using performance enhancing drugs, and whether golf continues to shoot itself in the foot.  We’ll watch in awe as records are broken, and laugh our tits off when someone completely botches a dive from the 10 metre platform.

Sure, the timing is largely crap from our point of view, but I guess that’s why the likes of Olympic tragics like me take two weeks leave.  So if you don’t have an opportunity to see something live throughout the schedule, I’ll be tweeting up a storm – most likely at some ungodly hour of the night.

Keep an eye out: @keith_miller_nz