Olympic Grandstand & BBC Coverage

BBC2 is screening an Olympic Grandstand special this afternoon, previewing next years games in Athens and including some Olympic sports.

It began with special titles featuring Olympic moments - although it stuck with the normal Grandstand theme. The titles end with golden Olympic rings rotating and a generic BBC Sport Olympic Grandstand logo, with a golden Grandstand G logo.

The presentation is all gold and black, with the Olympic rings added to the astons and looks very nice. The only thing I'd say is the yellow BBC Sport logo should become gold as it really clashes at the moment.

A good preview of next year's games, but is this the first time the Olympic Grandstand brand has been used outside the Olympics. Also, must say that the Grandstand theme doesn't really sound right when used with famous Olympic images - you expect a special theme, but I guess we'll have too wait 369 days for those!

I think the Olympic Grandstand branding (though possibly not this version) has been used for previews in the past - certainly I recall previews happening before, and I'm pretty certain they were Grandstand branded - though I may be wrong.

Yeah. There have been previews with one edition of a magazine every month or something.

I was going to watch it but forgot about it so I didn't see the titles and stuff. Were the titles good? Did anybody capture?

They have a regular strand called Olympic Dreams, following the preparations of the UK athletes, shown around once a month in Sunday Grandstand, while the preview of the games - usually shown the night before they start - usually uses the Olympic Grandstand brand.

The main titles were just the Grandstand titles completely re-edited with Olympic clips, ending with the olympic rings rotatings and a generic BBC Sport style OLYMPIC GRANDSTAND logo. However, the slot called THE ROAD TO ATHENS 2004 had it's own titles using the Olympic rings and various images. I suspect this slot may replace Olympic Dreams and air quite often.

It was a very good programme and as an Olympic fan I can't wait. I knew alot about Athens problems but the programme helped sell the city to me and if everything is sorted out in time they should be great. However, they begin on Friday 13th August 2004 - not a good omen.

Also, the London 2012 piece was very good and I do hope we do see more programmes analysing what the games would bring to London. It's been 60 years since the last UK games - that's three generations. I think we deserve a new one.

Talking of Olympic Grandstand, what theme do you think they might use for Athen 2004 (something classical?), Beijing 2008 (something oriental?) and if the bid is successful, London 2012?

I hope for Beijing, they have a protest song about denial of basic human rights... might shame the Chinese into giving their populace full human rights.... it's a nonsense they were awarded the Olympics..

The BBC Olympic website is also now online: http://www.bbc.co.uk/olympics

Re: presentation. In 2000 we had the special Olympics BBC Sport sting as well as the balloon and Olympic flame at Sydney Opera House (don't recall a BBC2 ident!) - some form of classical greek dance at the Acropolis?

You know, I think one of the first times I was interested in presentation, looking back, was the Barcelona Olympics. Was that 1992?

I remember the whole feel of the presentation was excellent. And I remember the 'best bits' on the final day with some excellent music and pictures.

Yeesh.. website on the go already! Kudos to the effort, flashback to 2000, Athens factfile, paralympics etc.

Barcelona 1992 - one of the first events I really remember seeing on TV.

They definately had the best Olympic Grandstand theme (Barcelona!), and I also thought the Commonwealth Games theme for Victoria 1994 was brillaint (don't know what it was).

I wonder why the Winter Olympics always gets Ski-Sunday. It's certainly as big an event broadcast wise as the European Football Championships and Commonwealth Games, and if they have special themes, so should the Winter Games.