I remember the ’88 Olympics from Calgary; being British hopes were never high for the winter games. Team GB had a little run of success in figure skating, the superlative performance of Jayne Torivll and Christopher Dean in Sarajevo followed on from the success of Robyn Cousins and John Curry in ‘76 and ’80 respectively.  However going into Calgary I recall no realistic medal hopes, which can lead to really good coverage of the marquee events.

Eddie Edwards provided some light relief and exposure for British winter sports, but as expected the British team returned from Calgary empty handed. Eddie Edwards took his ski jumping very seriously, but like the vast majority of British winter athletes at this time never had the money to do the job properly.

During some reading I discovered there was a fatal accident in Calgary, Jorg Oberhammer was the physician for the Austrian ski team and was preparing for the start of the giant slalom when he collided with another skier and was thrown under a tracked vehicle. This happened in front of Austrian world champion Pirmin Zurbriggen a few minutes before his run.

Every Sunday evening David vine presented Ski Sunday, I knew who Pirmin Zurbriggen was and that he was favorite to win the Super-G.

Under these incredible conditions Zurbriggen went on to take the bronze medal as real tragedy made it’s presence felt at the highest level.

That was 1988; today the death of Jorg Oberhammer is but a footnote to what was a very successful Olympics. Fast-forward twenty-two years to the Vancouver games and despite the outpouring of compassion and the questions raised, I doubt many outside Georgia will remember Nodar Kumaritashvili in a few years’ time.

For the last two weeks Vancouver has been shown off at it’s very best. I’ve been fortunate enough to spend some time there, take in a couple of events and revel in the tremendous atmosphere created by something this big going so well.

There were problems early on, obviously the death of Nodar Kumaritashvil on the opening day will not be forgotten. However the luge track had been given the green light by everyone relevant and there are plenty of candidates to blame for the death of the Georgian slider, the organizers, to me, seem to be a far down the list. With a little hindsight it’s easy to say the track was too fast, but this is supposed to test the best in the world.

Then there was the minor failure of the Olympic caldron during the opening ceremony along with the usual transport issues that seem to plague every Olympics, perhaps every event of this scale. However I’m willing to wager the problems with getting around will be far worse in Delhi for the Commonwealth games in October.

There are still one or two questions to be answered as we head into the final few days. Most notably for the hosts is Mens Hockey, this is clearly the big one for most Canadians.

Team Canada and their NHL stars never hit the ice until the fourth day of the Olympics, for many Canadians that’s when the games really got underway. One newspaper columnist suggested that the country would trade everything else won as part of the “own the podium” campaign for the one gold that matters most.

After comprehensively out playing the Russians yesterday, Team Canada faces Slovakia for a place in the final on Sunday. If the Semi finals go to form they will play the USA for the gold in a rematch of the group game of only a few days ago.

While the “own the podium” campaign has not gone exaclty to plan,  as a Canadian citizen (thanks mum) I want nothing more than to see the men pick up gold. First there is the small matter of Slovakia…

I live 120 miles from one of the largest sporting events in the world and can see very little of it live because of broadcaster NBC’s policy.

They save the big events for their evening show running form 7:30 to 11ish to maximize viewers and advertising money. Before now this has not been a problem, I get the Canadian broadcaster CBC and their coverage of both winter and summer Olympics has typically been excellent. While not as good as the BBC, its far better then NBC’s jingoistic/sensationalistic coverage.

However CBC lost the rights to some Canadian channel that I don’t get, so I’m forced to watch NBC.

Clearly NBC overbid for the games a few years ago and this week has claimed it will loose something like $200 million covering the Vancouver Olympics. NBC is blaming a soft advertising marker, but ultimately the fault lies with the broadcaster. When the TV contract for the 2010 Winter/2012 Summer games was up for bid NBC paid about $2.2 billion for these two events. Its bid was substantially bigger than any of the other US companies and about $900 million more than runner up Fox bid for the two events.

For me the biggest issue with tape delay is the loss of the drama. For the woman’s downhill we got a 90 minute edited package shown 5 or 6 hours after the event finished. The growing tension as each racer leaves the start house, comparing the interval times and where the clock stops when the racer crosses the line is lost.

With the internet, new media and the resulting gush of information coming into my life I know all of this in real time. It’s far more difficult, indeed verging on the impossible for someone with half an interest in sports to avoid big results for a few hours untill NBC feels it’s best to share their coverage with us.

This tension is what makes live sport so compelling. It’s exciting because we don’t know what’s going to happen. Unfortunately NBC has yet to work it out, after 6 hours of tape delay, we know what’s going to happen, and for me that takes so much away.

There is some better news once you get away from what ever NBC has chosen to include in their main evening coverage. For example as the US was not involved and therefore NBC was not interested, MSNBC carried the Canada vs. Norway hockey blow out live. For many Canadians the start of men’s hockey is the real opening of the Olympics.

Clearly there has been a lot of criticism of NBC and their choices to not carry major events live. It got to the point that the local NBC affiliate KING-5 in Seattle published a note on their website essentially saying “don’t blame us for this, it’s NBC and we don’t have a say in it”.

I’m lucky I can buy tickets, get into the car and see all the curling, speed skating or hockey I want.