OLYMPICS WATCH
Sydney 2000 Olympic Games
Pearl and Jade
Down to the last two days of the Olympics and all those viewers who have complained about the Games' coverage will soon have such perennial favourites as Macau Horses at Dawn and Korea This Week to keep them entertained.
Nat Chan (above), the long-time TVB personality who has been anchoring Jade's extensive Games coverage, says it's hard to please everybody.
'I would say our coverage has been well-balanced. We show sports we believe the Chinese audience wants to watch and we have covered a lot of soccer, badminton, ping pong and gymnastics.
'We have also shown a lot of Hong Kong athletes and there has been some good results with [local] records broken in the pool [two each by Mark Kwok and Alex Fong] and that makes local people feel good,' he says.
'San San [windsurfer Lee Lai-san] didn't get the result everybody wanted but her winning gold [at the 1996 Olympics] was like a once-in-a-100-year thing . . . it was unexpected. [This time] You could see she tried her best and we should be proud of her achievements. Taiwan has never won a gold.'
Chan praised the work of his co-hosts, Priscilla Ku and Theresa Lee, and put in a special mention for flame-haired presenter Vincent Kok Tak-chu.
'He is a scriptwriter and this is his first time on camera. He's hard working and you can see he really enjoys his job. That's what it is all about, enjoying what you do.'
Jade has 30 minutes' extra coverage starting today from 7.30am, highlighted by the men's soccer final at 9am, pitting Spain versus Cameroon. Other action includes the women's volleyball final (11.30am), athletics and the men's diving final at 5pm.
Pearl's coverage starting from 8am, features wrestling, cycling, the women's volleyball bronze and gold medal matches (9am), taekwondo, the men's handball final, the women's basketball final (5pm) and the women's hockey final (5.45pm).
Hairspray
World, 12.15am
Director John Waters pays homage to the teen dance shows of the early 1960s in an era before the Beatles, drugs and long hair. Rotund teenager Tracy Turnblad (Ricki Lake) sees her life turned around big time when she is elected to the council of the Corny Collins Show, a popular afternoon dance show in Baltimore. The film does a good job in tackling race issues and features a great soundtrack and a diverse cast of characters including Deborah Harry (above right), Sonny Bono, Jerry Stiller, Pia Zadora, Rik Ocasek (The Cars) and Waters' main star, the late transvestite Divine (1988).
Soccer
Sports 1, Sports 2 and Star Sport
Plenty of live football coverage today providing a good appetiser for tomorrow night's big match-up featuring Arsenal hosting Manchester United at Highbury (Cable Sports 1, 10.30pm).
Tonight at 8.45pm on Cable Sports 2, the Italian Serie A league kicks off its season as Verona meet Bari, a team led by former Leeds forward Phil Masinga (above left). At 9.30pm on Cable Sports 1, Leeds United, coming off an amazing 6-0 defeat of Turkish side Besiktas in the European Champions League, hosts Les Ferdinand and Tottenham Hotspur at Elland Road.
At 12.05am, Cable Sports 1, has more English Premier League action with a delayed broadcast of the match-up between the recently promoted Manchester City and Newcastle United at Maine Road. For all you trivia buffs and Oasis fans, the game is a rematch of the 1976 League Cup final, when City won 2-1, their last win of any significance.
At 2.15am, Cable Sport 2 has more Italian Serie A action as Napoli meet Juventus and their star midfielder Zinedine Zidane. At 3am, Star Sports has more live Italian league action.