My Pan Am Coverage Rant

I often have rants, but don't like to share them. My blog is called Olympic Hearts because I want to share what I love, but there are times when I get upset and need to rant.

I haven't blogged much in the past few months. I am trying to catch up on posts I started and posts I meant to write. Looking at my drafts, I found this post that I wrote on the first weekend of the Pan Am Games.

I understand why I didn't post it at the time. There was so much criticism of the Pan Am Games that I didn't want to add to it, but as the Games continued, the love of the Games really shone through which I was really happy about.

So now that the haters have hopefully left the building so to speak and the only people who would be reading this are the supporters, here's how I was feeling as the Pan Am Games began. An update also follows.

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written on Sunday July 12th


Have you been watching the Pan Am Games?

I am arguably one of the biggest fans of the Pan Am Games. I am so excited that they are in my city and that I get to see the Games in person. I would go every day if I could afford it, but I thought at least if I can't be there, I will watch it on television or on livestream.

The Pan Am Games is the "biggest multi-sport event" Canada has ever hosted so the coverage will match its size right?

Well, we're on Day 2 of competition and I have to admit that sometimes it's better to not expect too much. My expectations were very high for the Pan Am Games, and I have to admit that my expectations are not being met.

I had a list of things I wanted to see. Sometimes it fit my schedule or my budget to get a ticket, other times it didn't.

The problem presented itself quite quickly in the first competition of the Games. I wanted to go to the women's triathlon, but going to the Opening Ceremony the night before, I chose to get a ticket to the men's triathlon first and waited for the women's which sold out before I made a decision.

I was SO happy for the athletes that the event was sold out and thought, that's okay, I'll watch it from home.

What do you mean it's not livestreamed? Isn't there 750 hours of coverage? That sounds like a lot, but maybe it's not?

I wanted to see the rugby and was shocked to read this tweet.

You can read the article here.

Over the past few years, rugby is often livestreamed but this event had more meaning to me so I thought I would be even more interested in watching our women and men's teams. Luckily since this article, the decision has been made to add rugby to the livestream (or announce it if that was always the plan) so rugby fans are lucky but that's not the case for other sports.

I would love to see our rowing and canoe/kayak teams. I hesitated to get tickets because of the early starts (9am/10am) and locations (90-120 minutes from my home without traffic) worrying about traffic during the Games.

Familiar words - "no problem". I'll go see these events when the new venues host Canadian Championships or World Cups in the future (I had already seen canoe/kayak sprint competitions in Welland). I'll watch the Pan Am Games at home.

What do you mean I can't watch them from home?

Our women K-4 won the Games' first gold medal and all I saw was the last 10 seconds of their race. Will it be the same when our TORONTO 2015 flag bearer Mark Oldershaw races? Or our Olympic flag bearer and Olympic multi-medallist Adam van Koeverden?

I'll give the TORONTO 2015 and CBC the benefit of the doubt and hope they will have cameras for the last two days of canoe/kayak. There was only one final on the first day when we won our first gold medal.

I wanted to see as much as possible of the competitions.  Saturday, I had plans to watch the livestream starting at 11am then switch to television at 1pm.

There were 20 sports in action on Saturday. I watched the synchronized duets on livestream and had hoped to see some of the other 20 sports on the television coverage. Imagine my disappointment when the television coverage replayed what had been livestreamed. First the diving preliminaries from the previous day (why? they would show the final that evening) and then the synchronized duet.

The women's K4 race lasted 1minute 36 seconds, yet they didn't show the full race.

I wasn't deterred, I went back to the livestream at 2:30pm for the men's gymnastics and the synchronized swimming team free routine and at 6pm for the diving finals. At 7pm, it's time for the prime time show and you guessed it. They're showing what I watched on the livestream.

They showed the end of Tory Nyhaug's BMX winning race (which wasn't livestreamed). I have seen the full race on another channel, so it's not because it wasn't televised.

I understand that there won't be much coverage of a shooting medal. There isn't during the Olympics but I believed that there would be coverage for the major Olympic sports (kayak, rowing, triathlon) and that they have coverage of the medal performances.

I was wrong.

I'm seeing more coverage on CBC Newsworld than the CBC Pan Am coverage. I had CBC Newsworld on TV in the background while I watched the livestream. They would switch to events as medals were won.

Scott Russell is a champion of amateur sports. He loves our athletes. How does he feel about the coverage that we are giving to our athletes, their families and their fans? He just said (on CBC Newsworld), tonight we'll see roller speed skating...but will we? or does he mean the people at the venue will see?

Sunday we won 16 medals. There was 2.5 hours of coverage on CBC. Here's what they showed:

• 60 minutes diving preliminaries (to determine order for evening final)
• 80 minutes artistic gymnastics (no Canada - they were in the group that would perform in the evening)
• 4 minutes triathlon (two 2 minute segments - basically same coverage)
• 2 minutes mountain bike (two 1 minute segments - last 4 seconds of the race where Canada won gold and silver - no mountain or trees shown in the coverage)
• 2 minutes rugby (two 1 minute segments)
• 3 minutes basketball interview
• less than 1 minute - kayak

Why show diving preliminaries and non-Canada gymnastics for over two hours when the coverage is only two and a half hours?  Why not show a variety of sports and get people excited to go see them? There are so many sports that I haven't seen any coverage of.

If I had been in charge of the Pan Am Games coverage, you would have seen coverage of all the sports, especially the ones we medalled in. You wouldn't have seen hours of preliminaries of what CBC decided were "popular" sports. I was going to add that I would have gotten a lot of complaints if I had shown archery or badminton (that aren't as popular)  but I can't imagine that the viewers were that thrilled to be watching Diving Preliminaries or Artistic Gymnastics where Canada wasn't participating.

******end of July rant

I now have to add that the coverage did improve which is possibly another reason that I didn't post this rant.

Now that a few months have passed, I have to admit that there were only so many hours in the day. I was recording hours upon hours of coverage that I didn't have time to watch with the livestream I was watching and events I was attending. My PVR was at capacity.

I made the mistake of not recording events I was interested in because the livestream events were also available on demand. I didn't expect them to disappear from the website as early as they did.

In the end, I think I learned this summer that my interest for Olympic and Pan Am sports exceeds the number of hours that I can devote to them. Livestream takes a lot longer to watch than highlight shows like CBC Sports Weekend (now called Road to the Olympic Games). Growing up, I could have watch CBC on Saturday afternoon and in a few hours gotten the content of a dozen hours of livestream.  The only difference was that when I was growing up, we didn't have the internet to tell us the results so it was like watching it live.

This afternoon I watched CBC Road to the Olympic Games and luckily had the remote handy to fast forward (and close my eyes) when they started talking about the men's Super-G that was going to be shown a couple of hours later on Sportsnet 360. I understand that they want to cover all the sports highlights of the day but to spoil the result of a program that will be televised?

I have to admit that this is one of the things I love about my website. No I don't have live coverage, but I do acknowledge coverage from various sources. 

Athlete Fundraisers: Ben Hayward aka VanStarter

I wish I could financially support all athletes who need it but I can't. One way I can help is to share their campaigns on the OHCanada Sports website. You can check out the various campaigns I have come across here: www.ohcanadasports.ca/supportathletes. Feel free to email/tweet to me those I have missed.

I couldn't resist Ben Hayward's vanstarter.com campaign though. How resourceful of him to build a "hobbit van" in order to better control his travel costs and use the skills he was learning while studying architecture at university. My only regret is that I didn't donate the first time I saw it, but I've been following his story since.

His words are much better than mine, so watch this original video when Ben started VanStarter over a year ago with the original dream explaining the reasons for building the hobbit van and how he did it (with the help of a friend).



Some items on the original list mentioned in this video may no longer be available. Initially I was drawn to the names on the maple leaf. I love the maple leaf, from our flag to our fall colours. The number on my house has a maple leaf design with it, so I would have loved to have my name added to the maple leaf.

Here's a recent video of the ongoing project showing the original names on the maple leafs (you can't actually read them on the video, but I have seen photos of the names, I imagine on Ben's Facebook page - hence my regret at not being on there).



To be honest, I didn't know if there would even be space left on the maple leaf for names, t-shirts or recipe books left when I donated recently, but my decision to support VanStarter was more to help him than to get something back. At first I thought of emailing him to ask, but then realized, it didn't matter. I wanted to help and as long as the funds reached him, that's all I cared about.

When I received the beaver/paddle t-shirt that he designed, I was thrilled and especially surprised with the creative label (though I guess if someone knows Ben, they wouldn't be surprised). He seems like a person who pays attention to detail which will serve him well in his training as well as in architecture career that will follow.

Have you seen anything like it? I haven't.

If his creativity and hard work isn't reason enough to support Ben, how about adding a little humour (coupled with advertising for one of his sponsors)? Thanks to Ben's mum for sharing some videos in our communications when she was mailing the t-shirt to me.




Having a brother-in-law who is a talented carpenter (click here for his website), I especially love the following video showing how Ben built the side window to the van.

Click here for the video. Here's the intro to the video:

"The space in my van was badly in need of some natural light so in the last week of April 2015, I decided to take on the project of installing a new side window. I designed and built every component in the window, trying to make it as interesting and intricate as possible. The window is made up of a complicated pattern of openings that is designed to be both beautiful but also to serve as heat deflection and as a visual screen to give me privacy indoors. Thanks so much to Edern, Carole, Yann, Ken, Bastien, Thibaud, and Marion for letting me decimate your basement for the duration of this project."

I wish I had thousands of dollars to donate to his campaign, maybe some day, OHCanada Sports will have the ability and finances to sponsor him (at least in my dreams it does) but for now, my next bucket list item is to see him compete and even more difficult or geographically challenging, to see the hobbit van in person.

I wish I had seen him at the Pan Am Games. There are various reasons why one of the dozen events I attended wasn't canoe kayak slalom, some of which were location, schedule and ticket availability. I will follow up this topic on a different post that I should have written months ago. For now let me say that if I was to do it again my ticket purchases would be different (and even more numerous), but as they say, hindsight is 20/20.

[As I am writing those posts that I said should have been written long ago, I am looking at my photos and remembering that I did see Ben at the Pan Am Games, just not when he was competing. I was very happy to see the Canoe Kayak Slalom team at the medal ceremony at Nathan Phillips Square]



So GO Ben GO. Look forward to following your Road To Rio!!

Closing Ceremony in Photos

Arriving at the Closing Ceremony was a bit emotional, realizing this would be the last time I would see the cauldron lit.

Showing the outside cauldron on the screen and then the flame is extinguished.

But the party continues.

Pitbull

Many of you qualified for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games here in Toronto.

"You can imagine and dream of one day hosting the Olympic Games"

Hamilton Children's Choir perform 

Transfer of the flag to the next host nation Peru

Serena Ryder

Kanye West

Crowds enter the reflecting pool after watching the closing ceremony at City Hall.

Track and Field at the Pan Am Games

The Track and Field competition was very exciting on the two evenings I attended. I was lucky to see some of Canada's top athletics competitors including past and future Olympians.

My seat wasn't ideal for the medal ceremonies, finish line or some field events but was perfect for the second turn of track events, high jump and start of victory laps.

Melissa Bishop - start of last lap

Melissa Bishop - start of victory lap

Beautiful night to sing O Canada (Melissa Bishop)

No great racing shot - waiting for results to be posted

Andre de Grasse - Pan Am Champion

Damian Warner - decathlon eventual Pan Am Champion

Happy moment...until the disqualification

Derek Drouin - Olympic bronze medallist

Gold and Silver - Derek Drouin and Mike Mason

4x400m gold for Canada
Brianne Theisen-Eaton,  Taylor Sharpe, Sarah Wells, Sage Watson 

Trampoline at the Pan Am Games

Trampoline was one of the sports held at the Toronto Coliseum at Exhibition Place with a beautiful view of the CN Tower. 

Gold and Bronze for Rosie MacLennan and Karen Cockburn

Jason Burnett's fans didn't get to see him on the podium as he finished in 4th

Keegan Soehn - Pan Am Champion

Victory celebration at City Hall

Pan Am Men's Triathlon

The men's triathlon was held at Ontario Place West Channel on Sunday. What an opportunity to see Canada's best triathletes along with the best from the Pan Am nations.

The crowd was incredible, cheering extremely loud for the Canadians but also cheering for every athlete. That's the beauty of triathlon that even just completing the event is an achievement.

The Pan Am triathlon offered two seating sections. The first offered a great view of the swimming portion of the event.

On your mark!!

And they're off!!

The athletes did a lap of the swim course then came back to the starting platform running up the ramp, then diving in for the second lap.

Canada's Kyle Jones diving in

Canada's Tyler Mislawchuk was swimming in 2nd place. The Canadian flag visible in this photo.

At this point, we moved to the other spectator section. I found out where the athletes would be exiting the water, so chose that grandstand to watch the next part of the race going up to the top so I could look over it to see the water. I didn't realize at the time that it would mean that I wouldn't see the finish very well, but in hindsight I would still choose this spot. I loved watching the swimmers coming towards me and watching them exit the water. When will I ever have the chance to see that again?

Canada's Tyler Mislawchuk exits in second place!!

Go Tyler!! The crowd was so excited!!

Kyle Jones was the next Canadian to exit the water. Go Kyle!!

Not far behind was Andrew Yorke! Go Andrew!!

Kyle leaves on his bike while Andrew arrives at his.

Focusing on the water exit, I missed Tyler's transition but it was so amazing to see the athletes going into the transition and changing as fast as possible to get going on their bikes. There were no wetsuits (the water was just above 20 degrees Celsius) so the transition was extra quick.

Confirmation that Tyler exited the water second.

The cycling consisted mostly of one huge pack. A small group tried to get away, but it wasn't long before the peloton (do we call it a peloton in triathlon?) caught them. There were a few stragglers but mostly until the end, they stayed together waiting for the run to make their move.

There was sad news when we realized there was a Canadian missing, then got confirmation from the announcer that Kyle Jones had abandoned the race. Luckily, it wasn't health related (he was coming back from injury).

“One of the athletes went off the course on the other side of the cones and when he tried to reenter the course he touched one of the cones and it kind of shot right at my front wheel and punctured the tire immediately,” Jones said following the race. “I kind of lost control a little bit but I was able to stay up, which is I guess the one good point of it, but the bike was pretty much unrideable." from InsideHalton.com

Time for transition number 2

Whenever I watch a triathlon on television (or livestream), I always love watching the athletes come into the second transition ensuring they travel as fast as possible but get their feet on the ground before the red line. They make it look so easy, but I can imagine that it's not.

Large group of athletes transitioning as fast as possible to start the 3rd leg: 10km run 

The first time we see the runners coming back to the transition area, Andrew Yorke gives the fans another reason to cheer loudly, running in second. Tyler is also looking great tucked in with the great runners in the field.

They come back through the transition area giving us two chances to see the runners every lap.

Go Andrew!! The crowd was SO loud!

Andrew, Tyler and Kyle gave their all on the day, especially wanting to win on home soil with their friends, family and fans cheering for them, but in the end Crisanto Grajales from Mexico outsprinted Kevin McDowell of USA. Ivring Perez who led after the swim portion won the bronze.

Where are my photos of the finish? Well, it turns out that they run really close to the stands. If you look up a few photos before, when the athletes transition to the run, the finish line is to the left of the transition area. Imagine those sitting spectators standing, and that's what I saw. Only the front few rows could see the finish properly, but that's okay. The front rows couldn't see the racers come out of the water. I tried to take a photo of the leaders and ended up with a shoe and a bunch of spectators. I put my camera away and enjoyed cheering the rest of the finishers.

Andrew Yorke finished 7th and Tyler Mislawchuk was 10th.

My first medal ceremony of the Games. The crowd once again was amazing, celebrating their great achievement.

I love these photos I took after the race. They're so typical triathlon.

I don't like this one as much :-(

I may never get to see a triathlon like I did at the Pan Am Games with the views we had, but I will be back to cheer all our Canadian triathletes when they're back in Toronto.

Until then, I hope they stay healthy and qualify to represent Canada at the 2016 Rio Olympics.