TVNZ SERVE UP DREADFUL OLYMPIC COVERAGE

Well 5 days into the 2008 Olympics I can safely say I have never seen such awful TV coverage, TVNZ are quite dreadful.

Since Athens 2004 TVNZ has screened no significant sporting event and prior to that not since Sydney 2000 and it shows.

It began embarrassingly on Friday night with Keith Quinn, who I respected hugely as a rugby commentator in his heyday, stumbling through the Opening Ceremony. He really did sound like a guy that had not called anything for 4 years and had prepared for the event in 4 minutes. Frequently Quinn gave us dodgy pronunciations, mixed up female and male athletes at regular intervals. I'm sorry Keith you need to stick to advertising Funeral plans.

As we moved into competition days we are subjected to very limited live coverage and those events supposed to be live are interrupted by ad breaks, the games seem to stop whilst TVNZ takes these breaks, surely it was NBC that paid all the dough for the rights.

TVNZ other commentators are fairing little better John MacBeths last big gig for TVNZ was the world bowls in Christchurch hardly a decent warm up for the Olympics, and it showed, on monday as he completely missed the fact that Kirsty Coventry had set a new world record in the semis of the Womens 100 backstoke.

Dear old Peter Montgomery obviously knows his stuff, but Peter save your excitement for the finals not the heats.

Thank the lord SKY have the rights to London 2012.