THE OLYMPIC fever is very palpable on Sports5 who has the widest coverage of the London Olympics. Straight from London, the sports arm of TV5 beams every action to Filipino households via TV5, Aksyon TV and Cignal channels Hyper, Hyper2 and HyperHD (yes, in high-definition). Fil-Brit TV host Derek Ramsay anchors live with Lia Cruz of NEWS5. We’re told the MVP-led network did everything to acquire the rights to broadcast the Olympics locally. And looks like it’s a good investment, after all, as the opening ceremony (aired in various channels of SPORTS5) posted 1.1 million viewers overall. This just shows that Filipinos didn’t want to miss out on “the greatest show on earth” which was reportedly drew 1 billion viewers worldwide. Here’s hoping our interest in sports as a nation doesn’t stop in the Olympics or in the more popular sporting events like basketball, boxing and (of late) football. One inspiring scene in the opening ceremony was when the organizers sprang a surprise and chose 7 young British athletes (usually, only the high-profile ones are being selected) to light the Olympic cauldron. As they carry the flame around the stadium, the 7 next important athletes (all of them below 20) showed the world that the future is in good hands. May the Filipino youth be inspired by this message of hope for the next generation of athletes and may our government support more athletes so we don’t always come home empty-handed.
