Making The Turn For Home

A few random Olympic thoughts (some TV related, some not) as we start down the road toward the finish line at the Beijing Games:
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Liu Xiang's departure from the Beijing Olympics was nothing short of bizarre. If you were watching late on Sunday night, you heard thunderous roars from the home fans at the Bird's Nest for Xiang, the 2004 Athens champ in the men's 110-metre hurdles, who became China biggest sporting hero at these Games because of it.
The roars continued, even though the television cameras showed Liang was clearly hurting and would be fortunate to finish his heat. As it turned out, he didn't. After feeling intense pain during a false start, Liang walked off the track, his Olympics over. Once the Chinese supporters saw their man's lane was empty, they filed out of the stadium quietly, with the heat being run in an eerie silence. It was a stunning departure for the man China clearly wanted to see win gold more than any of its athletes in Beijing.
"Liu Xiang is devastated and so is a nation," CBC track analyst Dave Moorcroft opined.
Sorry, but I'll stick with the word bizarre, if nobody minds. This truly was.
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We knew going in, given the 12-hour time difference, that these would be the games of the Internet (though anyone with a widecreen TV might call them the HD Olympics. They wouldn't exactly be wrong).
Here's some numerical proof to back up that online argument. Through Sunday, CBC reported its Olympics website had totalled 25 million page views — just two million less than the entire Athens Games in 2004. A year ago, all of CBCSports.ca generated 1.2 million page views in the same Aug. 8-18 time frame.
Users have downloaded 2.1 million live video streams and more than 700,000 on-demand.
Much of this, you'll note, came during a week which — until Saturday — included exactly zero Canadian medals. Who knows what might happens if our gang stays on its current roll?
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If the Bell Globemedia/Rogers consortium is looking for a gymnastics analyst for the London 2012 Summer Games, it could do far worse than Kyle Shewfelt. The 2004 Olympic gold medallist, brought in as a 'guest' analyst for men's events in Beijing, has quickly become one of CBC's standouts at these Games. His analysis is often very insightful and, unlike a lot of athletes who cross over into the broadcast realm, he hasn't shied away from being critical. It's refreshing, to say the least.
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If there are better in-your-face, feels like you're there camera shots than those we've witnessed at the triathlon venue, I have yet to see them. Absolutely breath-taking, without a doubt, especially in HD.