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C'wealth Birmingham 2022

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The amazing mum Jess Stenson (nee Trengove - yes, sister of him) becomes the latest of a short list of South Australian females to win gold in athletics at the Commonwealth Games:

1950 Anne Shanley (660y relay)
1954 Marjorie Nelson (100y, 220y, 4x110y relay) - lived/married in SA though some would consider her still NSW
1958 Norma Thrower (80mH)
1958 Anna Pazera (Javelin) - WORLD RECORD
1986/90 Lisa O'Dea (Martin/Ondieki) (Marathon)
1998 Tania Van-Heer (4x100m & 4x400m relay)
2006 Brooke Krueger-Billett (Hammer)
2022 Jess Stenson (Marathon)

Yes - I am probably the only person more excited than Bruce McAvaney.
 

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raskolnikov said:
* I wish Bruce would shut up. Just rambles on and on and on.
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He is the greatest sporting commentator (in all sports) we have had in half a century. Usually talks facts even if some of those listening to him don't realise they are actual facts or statistics or non-fake news.

Before Bruce even became known across Australia (I think he hosted the first ever World Champs on Adelaide TV in 1983) I was going 'OMG - unlike the Norman Mays or footy commentators' you got back then (and sadly, sometimes now still) he actually knows something about this sport').

I wasn't the only one listening back then because a year later - and ever since - tv rights permitting - he has been the voice of the Games (especially athletics) downunde. I think some of his early TV contracts were dependent on the network having the rights to the Olympics. And if they didn't I think he had the right to seek work elsewhere during that time.

I can remember in 2012 (I think) when Ch9 & Foxtel had a truly horrible, ignorant host of commentators i discovered a world feed (via VPN) featuring Bruce, Nicole Livingstone and others and thinking 'oh thank god'.
 
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Anyone think New Zealand can get into 2nd or 3rd this year on the medal tally?
 
eth-dog said:
Anyone think New Zealand can get into 2nd or 3rd this year on the medal tally?
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It's fun to see them in 2nd atm but they will be steamrolled by England when gymnastics, athletics, boxing & probably some other sports I forgot get into their main medal rounds. And Canada at least will also get past them.
 
AdelaideGT said:
He is the greatest sporting commentator (in all sports) we have had in half a century. Usually talks facts even if some of those listening to him don't realise they are actual facts or statistics or non-fake news.

Before Bruce even became known across Australia (I think he hosted the first ever World Champs on Adelaide TV in 1983) I was going 'OMG - unlike the Norman Mays or footy commentators' you got back then (and sadly, sometimes now still) he actually knows something about this sport').

I wasn't the only one listening back then because a year later - and ever since - tv rights permitting - he has been the voice of the Games (especially athletics) downunde. I think some of his early TV contracts were dependent on the network having the rights to the Olympics. And if they didn't I think he had the right to seek work elsewhere during that time.

I can remember in 2012 (I think) when Ch9 & Foxtel had a truly horrible, ignorant host of commentators i discovered a world feed (via VPN) featuring Bruce, Nicole Livingstone and others and thinking 'oh thank god'.
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Bruce first came to Olympic prominence at Moscow in 1980. But it was in Adelaide not oz wide, but TV bosses knew what he did.

It was a tough gig for the Channel 7 guys in Moscow with the boycotts, cancelled budgets and Soviet authorities, and Ron Casey was terrible as host in the Moscow studio.

Bruce was in the Adelaide Channel 7 studio and he was great. Did his research and knew the athletes - not just in athletics but other sports. He was fantastic compared to the stuff coming out of the studio in Moscow. And because there were no night finals in athletics, all arvo or early evenings Moscow time,, most of the big finals were on around midnight in Adelaide, give or take an hour or two and I stayed up and watched most of the athletics.

IIRC he also hosted in the studio of 7 Adelaide for the 1983 Helsinki World Champs. They were in August 1983, he did the SANFL GF in October 1983 and then moved to Melbourne to 10 Network a few weeks after that.

ADS7 became ADS10 and SAS10 became SAS7 in Adelaide on 27 December 1987 after the media reforms of early 1987 and media owners bought and sold newspaper and TV station assets after what Keating dubbed that you can be Queens of the Screens or Princess of the Print but not both. Stokes owned ADS 7 and also some Network 10 stations and Robert Holmes a Court owned TVW7 in Perth and the SAS Adelaide station, so they did a signal swap.

So when Bruce swapped back to 7 but in Melbourne not Adelaide after the 1988 Olympics, the guys in Adelaide he knew well, as they were the old SAS10 guys who had converted to SAS7 less than 12 months previous.

One guy at SAS in Adelaide, Andy Kay, a sports reporter ( went to 1984 with 10 and Bruce) turned sports producer ended up working closely with Bruce on 7's Olympic productions over the next 30+ years as he became the head of 7's Olympic coverage after Sydney and was 2IC before Sydney.
 
RussellEbertHandball said:
Bruce first came to Olympic prominence at Moscow in 1980. But it was in Adelaide not oz wide, but TV bosses knew what he did.
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Was it really as early as Moscow? My mind must be playing tricks on me.

One thing I certainly remember in the 80s was when Channel 10 in Adelaide announced that - unlike their East-coast counterparts - they would not be broadcasting the 1987 aths WC live and would instead just have a highlights package (about 5pm each day, if memory serves).

I immediately got a petition with a few hundred signatures together and sent it in to 10 - accompanied by a letter saying something like 'we need to inspire the young athletes of SA' lol

I got a letter back from them saying 'the young athletes will be better served by a 5pm broadcast'.

Soon after I got a phone-call from a not-particularly happy Max Stevens (10's sport host & former partner of Glynis Nunn). He pretty much yelled at me 'what is the point of this petition?' and I calmly said something like 'it is to illustrate that there are many people in Adelaide who want to see this event live and we deserve the same as viewers of other Network 10 stations in other states'.

And a few weeks later the WCs were broadcast live in Adelaide :) You can probably thank me Russ-E-H if you watched any of them lol
 
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C'wealth Birmingham 2022

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