Swimming New Zealand has joined Swimming Australia in publicly protesting the proposed Olympic schedule that would see finals start at 10PM local time in Brazil.
In an announcement on the organization’s website on Tuesday, Swimming New Zealand CEO Christian Renford said that the welfare of the athletes should be put ahead of ‘commercial considerations.’
“While we appreciate the importance of commercial considerations in the successful staging of an Olympics that should not impinge on the welfare of the athletes which must remain paramount,” said Ranford. “If the report is factual, a 10pm start time would mean some swimmers may not get back to the village until 1am or 2am which is completely unreasonable.
“We will certainly make our feelings known to FINA and hope good sense would prevail if this report is to be believed.”
Though the IOC has still not made a public statement on the schedule, it was announced at a recent meeting of Brazil’s top coaches, where it is widely believed that the decision was made to appease the prime-time desires of American broadcasters.
What I don’t really understand is, isn’t Rio is in the time zone as US East coast? Or am I wrong?
I believe Rio is at least one hour, maybe two hours ahead of US Eastern Time.
W3T – the time difference between Rio and New York, because of different observations of daylight savings, can vary from between one to three hours ahead of US Eastern Time. During the summer, the period when the Olympics will be held, Rio will be 1 hour ahead.
It’s truly disgusting. Why would the rest of the world suffer at the whim of US broadcaster, and why would you change the swimming schedule when NBC does not even broadcast live all swimming finals in entirety while filling their “live” Olympics coverage with sappy melodrama “stories” of the athletes. It is such a waste.
Agree 100%. They way they package their prime time broadcasts shortchanges fans of all sports. It’s gonna be 2016. We all pretty much have WiFi now. Give us the swim event in its entirety uncut. If I want to watch track or gymnastics I can go to those channels or watch the main broadcast so I can find a reason to root for someone in a lesser well known to me sport.
Stupid. Hell- I’ll pay to watch swimming uncut.
True story- my parents went away in 1992 for the week leaving me with my grandparents… cable was new in my house and pay per view was new to most…
I bought the Red White and Blue channels and just gorged on the games for 2 weeks… my grandparents were clueless and thought it was just the new way the Olympics were on… and man… just full event coverage of whatever I wanted.
My parents got the nearly 100 dollar bill when they got home and we’re not too pleased. Obviously.
But seriously NBC. I will pay. I have a history of paying. Just give me uncut access to the sports I care for.
That’s definitely too late. What about locals or tourists going to see the Games on the spot? Definitely too late for them as well.
I have to agree, it’s unfair to the athletes. It would suck potentially having someone spoil races for me before I see them (aka I will not be turning on the news or logging into swimswam until it’s time to watch some races), but it is ultimately about the athletes and ensuring that they are given the best possible opportunity to perform.