The saving grace of news coverage and commentary on the Beijing Olympics is the muscular young man on the rings or the graceful young woman on the balance beam or – take your pick of any of the astounding performances of strength, agility or endurance that come tumbling, splashing,  riding or racing your way in the course of the 29th Olympiad.

Such performances serve as their own mute button on the unfortunate nationalism and questionable commentary that surface here and there.

After only a few days of the Olympics we already have some examples of the flag-waving and quirky news coverage that we suffer through every four years -although so far it is difficult to find much fault with the NBC coverage.

We have, of course, the fervent nationalism, illustrated by the medal count, which, as far as I can determine, was introduced by the Associated Press in 1948 as part of the Cold War.  On the plus side, the nationalism typified by the boorish chants of “USA! USA! USA!” which seemed to haunt every venue in past Olympics, are replaced by the graciousness and courtesy of the Chinese people at the games.  Bob Costas has repeatedly commented on that, and rightly so.

News coverage priorities continue to be warped on occasion. An Associated Press story noted that U.S. swimmer Katie Hoff is “0-for-2 in finals so far”. O for 2 means that in competing against the best athletes in the world she is a failure for winning  only a silver medal and a bronze medal.

And sometimes even when the coverage gets it right, critics find fault.  For example the New York Times faulted comments by NBC’s Rowdy Gaines on the surprising win of the U.S. men’s swim team in the 4X100 meter freestyle relay.  Gaines had pointed out that the French were favored to win – an insight that helped put in perspective the French boast that they would “smash” the Americans in the event. The way other commentators treated what they called “trash talk” by the French, one would have thought the French had no business even being in the pool.  The Times also chastised Gaines for pointing out what every viewer could see on the home TV screen – it certainly looked like the French were going to win.

Contrast the criticism of Gaines for giving a stroke-by-stroke report of the stirring finish of the relay with the certitude of the Times and others in telling us who would win the presidential election if it were held today!  Political news and campaign developments are paraded before us each day as immutable and yet we criticize Olympic coverage for a timely report on what seems to be obvious.

Doesn’t make sense.  Neither does how NBC failed to manage the time difference between when an event occurs and when it is broadcast. At 8 a.m. on a Sunday morning, thanks to online information, I knew that U.S. gymnast Samantha Peszek had sprained an ankle and would miss some of the competition.  Twelve hours later, in the tape-delayed broadcast, NBC commentators were dumbfounded when Peszek didn’t appear with her teammates. Informative  coverage was sacrificed to give the illusion of gymnastics coming to us ‘LIVE!”  Somehow NBC should have found a better way of blending what it knew with what it was reporting to viewers.

The best measure of coverage, of course, is whether viewers will continue to watch. That is a no-brainer so far, thanks to the athletes themselves with occasional assists from informed commentators making sense of the five-ring circus.