For posterity, it's worth recalling and noting the coverage of the Jeux Olympiques on British television and radio; and the current cycle in anglophone countries around the world.

As hard as it is to believe in these days of BBC Fiverings offering something like 100 hours of sport per day, we only have to go back to 1980 to find a games that were barely covered at all. Thanks to budget cuts and the difficulty of mounting broadcasts from Moscow, the BBC didn't show anything until about 5.30, running through until about 7, breaking only for Kenneth Kendall saying "Hullo" to the news. Nationwide followed the children's programmes to BBC-2, covering weighty topics including the death of the Shah of Iran and strikes at British Leyland. ITV also carried coverage this year, running to a similar schedule as the BBC. Yes, these games were almost totally uncovered on the television: on the second Tuesday, for instance, the BBC showed 75 minutes of action, and ITV 45 minutes. Radio 2 had coverage between 3pm and 7pm each day. That year's Winter games had 45 minutes after Nationwide, and an hour somewhere between 9.30 and 11, plus highlights on Grandstand and World of Sport - the latter was ITV's only coverage.

By 1984, technology had advanced a little. The Sarajevo games were covered in slightly more depth: 45 minutes at lunchtime, 6.45 to about 8.30 most evenings (except the two Wednesdays, for some reason), and about 45 minutes of highlights after 10pm. ITV, no coverage.

1984's event from the Smogdome in Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles was helped by the time zone differences. Olympic Grandstand With Desmond Lynam started after the regional news, at about 6.15pm, and ran through for almost a whole hour. Des was back at about 11 with the main broadcast, and ran through to the scheduled close of play sometime after 3am. Olympic Breakfast Time with Frank Bough and David Icke gave the overnight highlights from 6.30 to 9, yielding to Olympic Grandstand with Bob Wilson (9 - 11). David Icke was back with Olympic Report at lunchtime (1 - 1.45).

A similar arrangement held for the Calgary games, running through on BBC2 in the early evening and overnight, with highlights on BBC1 the following morning. The Daphne Hudson Olympics in 1988 were the first to have the familiar dawn-to-dusk pattern: non-stop coverage from midnight to the early afternoon, through Breakfast News, and with Des Lynam still hosting a daily wrap-up in prime-time. ITV and Channel 4 tried a similar pattern of coverage, but without the prime-time highlights, and no-one watched. They didn't bother again.

Until 1988, radio sports coverage went out on Radio 2, giving listeners the chance to hear the music of the weekend early show alternating with commentary on heats of the 1500m. A short-notice split confined coverage of the men's hockey semi-final and final to medium wave while a music programme continued on FM.

By 1992, the BBC had split these medium-wave frequencies into a standalone network, Radio 5. Radio coverage of the Albertville games was confined to reports into the main sports bulletins, and the small team gave the abiding impression that they really couldn't be arsed to be there. Such nonchalance wasn't reflected on the television, with BBC2 given over almost entirely to the event from lunchtime to the end of the day; selected morning events went out on BBC1. From this running, Eurosport also provided live and recorded coverage of the events, initially during their 7.30-to-midnight normal broadcast hours, but as a 24-hour feed since 1996. The cable and satellite station remains the best place to see the more obscure sports.

The Barcelona games that summer had probably the best radio coverage ever: the line-up of Danny Baker, Ross King in London, Caron Keating, Terry Wogan, and John Inverdale broadcast for fifteen consecutive days, and made a magnificent job. (Yes, that's the Terry Wogan of Limerick, returning to radio after his years in the television wilderness.) Television coverage, like the radio, ran from 7am until about 10pm, swapping between BBC1 and BBC2. Lillehammer in 1994 saw television coverage on BBC2 from lunchtime to the end of the evening; by this time, the main skiing events were scheduled for the weekend mornings. Only the return of Torvill and Dean could tempt coverage to BBC1, and then only for 45 minutes.

General failure was the tale of the 1996 event, though not in the broadcasting. John Inverdale topped and tailed the day, going live between 1.15 and 3pm, and again between 11pm and 3am. We have faint recollections of Clare Balding taking a 3pm to 5.30 slot, but this could be our memory playing tricks. In the middle, Sybil Ruscoe and some bloke who we've completely forgotten presented Atlanta Live! (complete with exclamation mark) from 7.30 to 10. By this time, Radio 5 had been commanded to broadcast more news, which it did from 5.30 to 7 and 10 to 11pm. Jane Garvey co-presented Breakfast from an all-night diner in the city centre, and was able to seamlessly break the news of the bombing within minutes of it happening. The television coverage was almost a 24-hour operation: live from 1pm to 4am, a brief respite and a news hour before Breakfast News gave highlights from 7am, with Gary Linneker taking the wheel round with more obscure sports and discussion of Alan Shearer's transfer.

As was becoming traditional, Nagano 1998 had strong coverage on the television (replacing BBC1's overnight News 24 simulcast from around 3am to midday, with extensive highlights in the afternoon and evening on BBC2) and virtually nothing on the radio. At least the reporters sounded a little more cheerful. Sydney '00 was another major decamp, though with most of the events taking place overnight, we don't recall much of the detail, and the BBC keeps its broadcast schedules under tight lock. What we do remember is John Inverdale and Nicky Campbell combining for a Beauty and the Beast programme from 8am. The telly had live coverage (mostly on BBC1) from late evening until lunchtime, with highlights in the afternoon, and a concise wrap at 7pm. More: BBC at Sydney.

The Sydney event was the first time the BBC offered additional coverage to digital viewers: a red-button thingummy allowed digital satellite and NTL digital cable viewers the choice of three streams. This was replicated for the Utah games of 2002. By 2004, all digital cable viewers could use the interactive streams, of which there were now five. Interactivity had also reached DTTV, bringing three additional streams, but only covering a quarter of the screen. With the main event taking place in Athens, live coverage ran from breakfast until mid-evening, with highlights until the 10pm news. Radio coverage was from Nicky Bloody Campbell, Victoria Derbyshire, John Inverdale, Jane Garvey, and Mark Pougatch. Other novelties for 2004: additional radio coverage was available through Sports Extra for DAB and digital television customers, and broadband internet users in the UK could watch highlights and live streams.

2006's arrangements were similar to those for 1994, albeit with five digital feeds, and 2008 has seen no fewer than six streams for digital viewers. The approximate weekday arrangements are:

0130 Yesterday's highlights
0200 Live coverage - Mark Pougatch
0530 Financial report
0600 Live coverage and news - Nicky Bloody Campbell
0900 Debate - Victoria Derbyshire
1130 Live coverage - Simon Mayo / John Inverdale
1600 Drive - Peter Allen as Grouchy
1800 Day's highlights - P Allen, Vassos Alexanderin London
1900 Other sport - Mark Saggers et al

Television coverage runs on BBC1 from about 1.30am to 5.15pm, breaking for news at lunchtime; short programmes continue on BBC2 at this time and between 5.15 and 6pm. There are 57 (count 'em!) minutes of highlights on BBC1 at 7pm. Even in the downtime, coverage continues as replays and highlights on the red button streams.

From RTE radio, coverage in Ireland is as follows:

0200 Through the Night - Con Murphy, Siobhan Madigan, Damien O'Reilly; Cathal Murray plays music in Dublin.
0700 Olympic Breakfast with Damien O'Reilly
Reports throughout the day.
1830 Driveltime Sport

Television coverage is on RTE2 from about 3am to 7am, when the denizens of The Den take over, shoving the JO to RTE1. The sport moves back to RTE2 from midday to about 4pm, with two hours of highlights from 7pm. All of this means that last weekend's football and hurling coverage moved to RTE1, where the post-match interviews and analysis had to wait for News For The Deaf to finish. We don't believe that RTE has any additional feeds on its television or radio, and has posted an apologia because the IOC effectively prevents RTE from broadcasting worldwide during the games. Such is the measure of the IOC's commitment to international understanding that they prevent almost all international broadcasting. Sheer and unabashed hypocrisy, but then they probably claim that the current event is clean. Not in that air!

Addendum: Since first publishing this piece, we've come across a report in the Irish Times, apparently quoting an RTE apologia. The Irish broadcaster compared the restrictions on internet broadcasting of sports content to the censorship of websites by the Chinese authorities, and laid the blame at the door of NBSuck, which stood accused of pure greed and hubris. The piece quoted in the newspaper has since been withdrawn and replaced by the bland statement we saw earlier in the week. Addendum ends.

In Australia, ABC has the radio rights, and is broadcasting on its Local Radio frequencies from 10am into the wee small hours; there are also shows on the speech programme Radio National, and the pop music programme Triple J. We know that commercial broadcaster Channel 7 has the television rights, but we've no idea what their broadcasting schedule is, because they keep it under some lock and key. We therefore have no idea if they have one feed or a hundred.

CBC-TV is almost all sport, almost all the time. There's a break between 1pm and 6pm most days, and an overnight lull some days. Most live events take place between 9pm and 9am local time. Video highlights are available for Canadians. CBC also has the radio rights, but these are confined to a seven-minute report just before the national newscast at the top of the hour (that's the bottom of the hour in Newfoundland), and they don't air in the evening.

All of these people can be glad they're not watching NBSuck's insanely jingoistic coverage. Watching the Olympics in the US is no fun, because the only thing you can watch is Americans winning. Maybe that's why the IOC tries to shut down the interwebs for the duration: it would otherwise be filled with bored Moronicans looking for coverage that doesn't involve staring at little girls doing gymnastics for two weeks. (And to think they locked up Gary Glitter for less...)

Other sporting matters

From Het Grauniad's live text commentary: Doesn't the fact that one man can win eight golds - or, for that matter, that Mark Spitz could win seven - suggest that the events into which the sport is divided aren't really appropriate? Surely the purpose of dividing up a sport into events is to reward a range of different skills and/or physical attributes, as with running or boxing. If one guy can do them all, it suggests to me all the events are rewarding pretty much the same skills. Discuss...

Mr. Pokery objects to the fairness or otherwise of sports whose matches are organised into games and thus a competitor might lose a match by, say, 21-0 19-21 19-21 and thus lose by one game to two despite having won 59 points to the opponent's 42. Sports which collect games into sets like tennis and darts are even worse still in this regard. This claim was analysed by Ian Stewart in Game Set and Math (1991). He found that if a player wins 60% of the points in a game of tennis, and these points are randomly distributed (rather than in a pathological example) they've about a 90% chance to win a three-set match. (Whether Mr. Pokery wishes to trust Mr. Stewart is a whole other question, and possibly not germane to this discussion.)

Mr. Pokery also asks which Olympic sport doesn't have some sort of human refereeing? Some of the shooting events spring to mind, where it is physically impossible to shoot from beyond the mark, and confirmation of the strike is automatic. Some of the cycling (such as the 1km time trial) might be entirely automated, from release to stopping the clock. Fencing could be entirely human-free, but they don't (yet?) trust the computers to give an accurate reading. There is a lot of human judgement in the athletics: competitors must remain within bounds (either of their lane or of the track), they must not start before the gun. Even the selection of competitors is not done according to sporting principles, with the fastest representatives of Greece and the UK denied admittance to the 100m contest.

The Department of Understanding the All-Ireland Hurling Qualifiers writes: The repechage system in judo is a good one. The two players defeated in the round-of-four descend to the repechage finals, and the defeated competitors from the main draw round-of-8 enter at the round-of-8 stage in the repechage: they fight twice to reach the repechage final. The people defeated by the semi-finalists in the round-of-16 and round-of-32 contest the round-of-16 in the repechage. In theory, these early losers should lose to the quarter-finalists, and two quarter-finalists will do battle for the bronze.

Re-using a template we last saw in last month's If the GAA planned soccer tournaments, we see:

   R1     QF        SF       F
R32 lsr|
R16 lsr|-------|           SF lsr|
         QF lsr|--------|        |--Winner!
                        |--------|
         QF lsr|--------|
R16 lsr|-------|
R32 lsr|

Second half, just like the first.

As to why two bronzes are awarded, it's to avoid exhaustion. The main-draw winners will, typically, have had five matches. The repechage finalists will be one person on their fifth match of the day, and one on at least their sixth. That's enough judo for one day.

And that's enough crass spectacular for one day.

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