The Olympic Story

Andy Borowitz pokes fun at the preponderance of human interest stories in NBC's Olympic coverage.

It's the one thing that really bothers me about the Olympics. The emphasis on storytelling and obsessing over a few athletes gets tedious. Sometimes a lesser-known athlete is profiled and you might think, "Hey! They talked about someone who wouldn't otherwise get a lot of attention for her table tennis talent!" only to have it revealed that she is the mother of 26 children, beat back cancer six times and saved her Iowa town from an evil spectral phantasm by challenging it to a table tennis match and winning.

I love cheering for the USA, but I cringe when the commentary gets a little one-sided. For example, I was watching the USA vs. Cuba beach volleyball match last night, and the announcers went into great detail about the U.S. players' love lives, surgical bandages, homes in California, etc. while never mentioning anything about the Cuban players. They said their names here and there, but never really discussed their background, ambitions or epic battles with things.

Additional Olympic thoughts: I want every major television coverage block SATURATED with table tennis, just for a day or two to see the reaction. That would be awesome.