2012 London Olympic Games Now Underway
[Updated] The 2012 London Olympic Opening Ceremony is scheduled to start at 5pm Bermuda time this evening [July 27] and will see an eight-strong Bermuda team enter the stadium with Zander Kirkland carrying the flag.
Bermuda’s Olympic team includes long jumper Tyrone Smith, and Arantxa King, triathletes Tyler Butterfield and Flora Duffy, sailors Jesse and Zander Kirkland, equestrian Jillian Terceria, and swimmer Roy Allan Burch.
While not technically a part of Bermuda’s team, Jenaya Wade-Fray will be the first Bermudian to compete in these Games when she takes the court for Great Britain’s game against Australia tomorrow.
The first athletes to compete for Bermuda will be the Kirkland brothers on Mon July 30, swimmer Roy-Allan Burch will follow after on Thurs Aug 2, and long jumper Tyrone Smith is scheduled to compete on Fri Aug 3.
Triathlete Flora Duffy and equestrian Jillian Terceria both compete on Sat Aug 4, with triathlete Tyler Butterfield and long jumper Arantxa King competing next week Tues Aug 7. The full 2012 Olympic schedule is here.
Tyrone Smith is considered by many to be Bermuda’s best hope for a medal. In the 2008 Olympics, his top leap of 7.91m saw him place 15th out of over 40 athletes, however he has improved since then with a new top leap of 8.22m [almost 27 feet] set in 2010. If Smith had attained that 8.22m two years earlier, he would have placed 3rd as a leap of 8.20m saw Cuba claim bronze in the 2008 Olympics.
Bermudians are also expected to be cheering on the Great Britain Women’s Basketball Olympic squad, with Bermuda’s Jenaya Wade-Fray having been named to the team. Her inclusion in the team is believed to be the first time a Bermudian basketball player will compete at Olympic level.
The island has another ‘first’ during this Olympic series, as the appearance of 19-year-old Jessica Lewis in the 2012 Paralympic Games will mark the first time the island has fielded a track and field athlete in this level, with Ms Lewis having qualified in the 100m, 200m and 400m.
Bermuda entered our first Olympics in 1936, and local athletes have gone on to compete in ten disciplines; athletics, boxing, cycling, diving, equestrian, rowing, sailing, swimming, tennis, and triathlon.
Bermudian athletes have mostly competed in three genres – swimming, athletics, and sailing. Brian Wellman, Penny Simmons and Peter Bromby have made the most Olympic appearances with four each.
Through his bronze medal win in 1976, Clarence Hill gave Bermuda the distinction of being the least populous and smallest nation to ever win a summer Olympic medal – something which still stands over 35 years later.
Veteran sailor Peter Bromby came very close to giving Bermuda our second Olympic medal when he, along with Lee White, placed 4th at the 2000 Olympics.
Bermuda has also had at least two 5th place finishes in sailing, with Alan Burland and Chris Nash finishing 5th in he 1984 Olympics, and Kirk Cooper also finishing 5th in 1964.
Legendary track and field athletes Clarence ”Nicky” Saunders and Brian Wellman have also had impressive Olympic showings. Mr Saunders finished 5th at the 1988 Olympics, while Mr Wellman placed 5th in the 1992 Olympics, and 6th at the 1996 Olympics.
Bermuda was the first nation in the world to have fielded a black athlete in women’s diving. Katura Horton-Perinchief “dived” into history became the first black woman [from any nation] to make an Olympic appearance in 2004.
Bermuda is one of the few warm-weather nations to consistently field Winter Olympians in recent years, with Simon Payne making the first appearance in 1992, followed by Patrick Singleton and Tucker Murphy.
Tonight’s Opening Ceremony will also see Bermudian performer Natalie Pereech take the stage as part of the 10,000 strong cast for the Opening Ceremonies, which is being produced at a cost of around $42 million.
Exclusive Caribbean broadcast rights were acquired by International Media Content [IMC], so IMC’s is the only television feed that will be available to the entire Caribbean region, of which Bermuda is a part, according to IOC.
U.S.-based Olympics coverage on NBC, CNBC, and MSNBC, and Canadian channels must be blacked out by all broadcast and cable systems across the region.
In partnership with local broadcaster VSB, CableVision secured the rights and extended them to cable provider WOW in order to bring the Olympics to the entire island. The coverage will be shown CableVision’s Channel 514 and VSB’s channel 11.
The Bermuda athletes will be accompanied by Chef de Mission Stanley Douglas, and BOA President Judy Simons. BOA Secretary General Philip Guishard will also attend the Games, joining executive delegates from 204 other National Olympic Committees.
Update 7.20pm: The Bermuda team has entered the stadium in their traditional Bermuda shorts. Sailor Zander Kirkland was shown enthusiastically waving the Bermuda flag, while long jumper Tyrone Smith was showing off a little dance move. Screenshot via the BBC below.
Update 8.57pm: Video of Bermuda Olympians Entering The Stadium.
Bet this Government didnt give a cent to these Olympic Contenders!
Will be watching on the internet.
So will I. While NBC coverage gets on my nerves because of the (understandably) pro-American emphasis AD NAUSEUM, the quality of the coverage is second to none. The Caribbean coverage is painful to watch at best. This morning they were showing football games that happened 2 days ago!! And the sound went out of it at times. While Caribbean coverage may be the best chance we have at seeing Bermuda athletes perform which would is great, I don’t know if I will be able sit through it.
Curious to see how the Caribbean Coverage will differ.
Good luck to all atheletes!
@Nuffin but de Truth! -the U.S cut down on athelete compensation this year, so I’m pretty sure Bermuda, with all the debt they are in, didn’t even think to award our representatives something. Although it would have been nice.
Go Team Bermuda!
Why are we getting our feed from the Caribean, when most of our channels are American?? Why can’t we pay for rights to the US feed? We can get boxing, car racing and so many other pay per view sports, why not the olympics?
SportsMax/IMC hold the rights for the Caribbean, in which Bermuda is included. NBC only have the rights to air the Olympics in the US. Unfortunately that is just the way it is. Until we are not considered part of the Caribbean in terms of TV rights, we are stuck with it. Hopefully by the next Olympics it will have changed…
Yeah right. I wish. I hate being held hostage to what I can watch on TV because someone out there has some sort of “rights”. What about my right to have a choice what to watch. US Feed should be one one channel. Caribbean coverageon another.
A lot of money has been spent getting the rights and they are protecting their ownership. I agree that it is not a good fit for Bermuda and most have to endure it or ignore it.
If you are that eager to see the Olympics I suggest you investigate VPN services and get yourself a reliably fast internet connection. The BBC iPlayer coverage was perfect last night…
Why do we get the Caribbean commentators…we can’t get the NBC US Olympic coverage? The picture isn’t even of great quality. When the US is advertising the opening ceremony for 7:30pm eastern…it’s on now on VSB Channel 11, live no less, but horrible commentating. If this will be the focus, and focus on Caribbean athletes, it will be a disappointing few weeks!
This Caribbean feed is AWFUL! Why the hell are we hearing two people talking over each-other? Ugh.
Channel 514 is actually not too bad compared with the VSB feed image-wise. But the sound is so ridiculously low – I have my TV and cable box on the highest possible volume settings and it’s still annoyingly quiet.
And yea, why the Caribbean commentators feel the need to speak at the same time as the English ones, who knows?
I think I’m just going to try and stream the BBC coverage online.
Thank you so much Rich, I did not know there was a channel 514 it is much clearer
Caribbean feed sucks. No commentary with the athletes coming in so we don’t know who anyone is. Cablevision has had a long time to come up with a solution and this just plain sucks. Cablevision sucks!
Watching it now…channel 11 has 2 people babbling on about anything with terrible picture quality and sound…channel 514 has great picture and sound and no inane commentators…guess which one I will watch
Thanks for the 514 insight…much better picture!
Thanks for the tip on Channel 514, it is much better in quality, but what time did the coverage start? I have read all online articles and do not see a start time. I just happened to tune in to cab and realized I had missed Bermuda athletes, annoying!
That should have read VSB where my iPad changed it to cab.
It is being repeated now on VSB.
The show is still on and they are not even showing it! I can only watch it with no sound! I am so livid!!!!!!
It’s the way Bermuda is going these days everything is a mess ! Cant even organize the games on tv it might even have taken our minds of the financial mess we are in?
This has NOTHING to do with Bermuda organizing gmaes on TV. Have you even bothered to READ the articles Bernews posted about the rights to the cable coverage?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bermuda_at_the_Olympics
This is an embarrassment! We can’t even support OUR OWN team properly due to this trashy quality! We can’t do anything about it?
Yup …. watch on the web or satellite… Coverage is crystal clear, local stations should be embarrassed with the pitiful quality!!!!
Where is mixitup? He said that anyone critical of the Caribbean feed was just saying that because they were ‘European’. He thought the Caribbean feed would be wonderful. Still think that mixitup, or do you now see what everyone was talking about?
It’s good to at least understand why we’re getting the feed we have, but what a travesty. The commentary during the opening ceremony was ludicrous – two voices talking over another voice? How is that possible? Are they commentating over a tape? So sad that our supposedly sophisticated island offers such substandard viewing for a historic event like the Olympics.
SportsMax really made a gross error by cutting out of the coverage just before Paul McCartney performed – his performance was supposed to be the climax of the night. They went to a soccer match! What on earth were they thinking? The commentators talking over the English commentator was a disaster especially when the English commentator was actually pretty good, if we could have only just heard him on his own. The overall quality of the audio was poor as we were just hearing the “natural” sound instead of the proper mix. We can thank the Caribbean for all of that.
Instead of all this quibbling about how how bad Cablevision is in providing you with Olympic coverage, how unfairly they are treating you, go back to the first part of this article where it states:
“Exclusive Caribbean broadcast rights were acquired by International Media Content [IMC], so IMC’s is the only television feed that will be available to the entire Caribbean region, of which Bermuda is a part, according to IOC.” Understand what “exclusive Caribbean broadcast rights means?” You were all so anxious to become identified with the Caribbean, so now you have to accept whatever comes with the territory.
And for this privilege of two sounds being fed into the same image, distorting the entire experience, it was a disgraceful, unprofessional, technical disaster. And why don’t you ask what this, in your view, inferior coverage cost? One million dollars, kiddies. One million dollars so Bermudians could view the Olympics, no matter the standard provided and all thanks to Cablevision and VSB. Where is ZBM in this lineup? And if allowed, the US coverage would even cost more
Where did you get that 1 million dollar figure from? I don’t think so…
Cablevision and VSB can only provide and air what IMC provide them. Of course they will get all the blame though. IMC have spent millions producing their coverage but it is still sorely lacking as usual.
And you don’t think Cablevision and VSB have to pay IMC for the privilege of showing the Olympics? What do you think IMC charged Bermuda? Or do you think the producers spend millions without demanding millions back? My source is better than yours. Too shy to submit your name?
Of course they paid, that is a given. Your 1 Million dollar figure is off the mark.
I can guarantee you that, if as you say someone were to have paid 1 million dollars for the Bermuda rights then it would have to be seen as a very generous gift to Bermuda. Just to break even to pull in that kind of money in this kind of economy is not anywhere near possible. How many sponsors do you see on VSB as Olympic sponsors? Ask yourself how much each of those sponsors might have paid. Your maths will not add up.
When has Bermuda or Bermudians ever anxiously want to be identified with the Caribbean? Most people even say we are not in the Caribbean so why are we being lumped in with them.
Anyway thanks to this golden age of technology most of us can watch the events online-without the annoying commentary and the lack of good events we are being subjected to on tv. This morning they weren’t even showing the events just the opening ceremony again. Tacky, tacky, tacky.
Ok I know the coverage is crap, the commentators suck… But WHY are the channels still blocked when the Olympics are not airing? I really do wish those guys from iMc would shit up….. And fit that god awful studio!!
Fix… Nit fit the studio
Str8 Doo Doo!!!
How comeBlakeney is talking about sports at National stadium on TV, when the stadium has been closed to the public for ages. The aquatic centre…what a joke. It won’t be up to international pool standards and was suppossed to be finished in 2000. Supporti g sport in Bermuda….like hell they are.
I guess Manifest Destiny has acheived it objective! The negative comments about the Caribbean I think are an indication of the latent bigotry and prejudice present in this society towards the “islands to the south”. Even if the quality of programming were better, folks would still complain. Face it, Bermuda is not a part of the United States of America and never will be. America look sout for herself period! Know your history and you will understand why things are the way they are!
Only the enlightened will find an alternative feed for the Olympics. Keep Calm and Carry on fellow enlightened ones.
This caribbean coverage is the WORST, why did they even bother. IT SUCKS!!!