I was not at all impressed with the coverage of the dancing at the closing ceremonies of the Olympics for the following reasons: 1)NBC kept taking the cameras off the dancers to interview Olympians. It should have been uninterupted. 2)Camera long shots too far to see what was going on. 3)NBC has no clue/unprepared notes for DanceSport in the Olympics. They made it seem as if DanceSport was only a thought for Olympics, and never got any further than that- they should have known that talks got way past the idea, and that it will be in the 2004 or 2008 games. The jokes about Rita Moreno were also out of place. However, the little dancing that was shown, I enjoyed. Many of the dancers covered the race track, the audience/Olympians got into the mood and danced. I was also very unimpressed and bored with ESPN's DanceSport Series that was shown on Oct. 2. Get rid of the boring "compulsary" requirements, solos, dancing only three short dances in a row, boring songs, lack of showing the ?enthused audience, and the scoring system. Bring back the normal competitive events such as final six or seven couples, doing their full routines, to all five dances, against each other, with the real scoring system. The couples looked as if they were very restricted and couldn't put their all into their dancing. The music was boring. The shots taken of the audience made it seem like a bowling tournament audience- a few ?loud uproars at times (no offense to bowlers and their audiences), as I blame the camerapersons' poor shots for this and not the audience participation. Showing DanceSport in this fashion to the general public, I feel, gives a false impression of what DanceSport and competitions are really like. I'm hoping that when DanceSport becomes an Olympic sport, that it will follow the current competition style, and not the way it was portrayed on ESPN. By the way, does anybody know who the judges were for this "competition"? Please give your opinions to one or both of the issues.

I agree with David. I did not like the comp on ESPN. I didn't know it was staged but I am not surprised. I prefer PBS shows over this. PBS shows the elegance and class associated with ballroom. To me the ESPN show looked like overdone sweaty dancers doing weird things with their bodies and could be compared to such comps as cheerleading. A turn off.

I was also very disappointed with the Olympics closing ceremonies coverage. The announcer was rude, and showed his ignorance of Dancesport to the entire country. He belittled ballroom dancing from the moment the singer stepped on stage, "How'd you like to get THAT suit dry-cleaned?" And insulting Rita Moreno was low-class. The only thing that I'm happy about is that, bottom-line, Dancesport was shown at the Olympics.

Len,
Our money went to fund that ESPN thing. This is what the IDSF and USABDA are paying to produce. I lost interest in those staged comps after seeing about two minutes of the first one. I can only imagine what the general television viewing public thinks of them.
Who cares who the judges were. The whole thing counts for nothing. I think Peter Pover was one of the judges as they are using amateurs to judge them. The rest were judges from other countries.