Saturday, June 2, 2012

Will ‘Infinity Challenge’ Make it To the Olympics?


 The 2012 London Olympics are just two months away. 

News on the vast preparation for the Games continues to hit the press, such as Kim Sung Joo’s return as an MBC sportscaster.

Infinity Challenge fans, however, are set far from the festivities. Four years ago, the Beijing Olympics were delivered to the show’s viewers through special Infinity Challenge episodes, but now, it’s been long since anyone has seen a new episode for the show, let alone a special for any event.

A London Olympic special for Infinity Challenge will most probably not happen due to the MBC labor strike.

What happened four years ago in Beijing?

The live commentary project Infinity Challenge for the Olympics made one of the biggest issues in the history of the show.

Its mix of variety and sports left unique marks in the history of ‘sportstainment’, and the scenes showing the members seriously taking on their sports caster roles joined touching emotions and laughter into a great mix.

The Infinity Challenge members participated in the commentary for the female handball preliminaries and the male parallel bars finals.

Yoo Jae Suk, who was the only Infinity Challenge member placed in the caster team for the male parallel bars finals, was applauded for his gold-medal-winning considerate commentary.

Rather than concentrate on delivering any expert commentary, he brought out the points he believed viewers would be curious about. He also explained each move the gymnasts performed while going through the history of the Athens Olympics, showing how much effort and practice he had put into his role.

He didn’t forget his role in variety, either.

When a Chinese athlete made a mistake when he was commenting, he made everyone laugh by saying swiftly, “I guess I jinxed him.” He said after he had completed his role, “It’s not important on what color the medal is; it’s important that we won a medal. I think it’s meaningful for me that I’m here at this historical moment.”

Jung Hyung Don and Noh Hong Chul, who provided commentary for Korea’s game against Hungary in the handball preliminaries, sprinkled the commentary with entertaining jokes. The two showed great reactions to the casters’ expert skills, perfecting the entertaining broadcast.

Infinity Challenge’s Olympics challenge was as entertaining and touching as the Olympics themselves.

It could be going too far to be mentioning an Olympics special when Infinity Challenge itself hasn’t been going on for 17 weeks in a row.

Still, Infinity Challenge did make the 2008 Beijing Olympic challenge possible.

Source:eNewsWorld