The Front Row with Mark Nelke July 22, 2012

It's coming up on that time again.

That time when we watch sports we would never watch unless they were in the Olympics, and root for people we have never heard of, simply because they are wearing the USA jersey.

It's why, after waking up at 6 a.m. in a motel room on the way home from vacation, instead to rolling over and going back to sleep, you turn on the TV, turn the volume down, and catch the second half of a USA men's soccer game.

The opening ceremonies for the London Olympics are Friday, but the games actually begin before that, with women's soccer on Wednesday and men's soccer on Thursday.

I REMEMBER a few Olympics ago, watching some USA archer who apparently perfected his craft by shooting an arrow from the street in his neighborhood, through the carport and to a target in his back yard.

If I had tried that at home growing up, my dad probably would have introduced me to the pointed toe on his square-dancing boots.

On top of that, we might have been down one cat.

Watching the 2010 Winter Games from Vancouver, British Columbia, I was intrigued for some reason watching people who were cross-country skiing, then stopped, got down on their stomachs at shot at stuff.

Only during the Olympics would I have watched that over a replay of a basketball game.

THE FRUSTRATING part of the Olympics in the past has been that NBC always liked to tape-delay all the good stuff so they can present it in prime time - the later in the evening the better.

Remember the Olympic gymnastics drama in 1996, when an injured Kerri Strug stuck her landing on the vault to help clinch the gold medal for the USA? That happened live hours before we ever saw it on TV.

And on the final night of the games, the gold medal game with the USA men's basketball team wrapped up around midnight Eastern on TV. I had a 6 a.m. flight back home, so that night's sleep was more like a nap.

Turns out John Stockton and family were on that flight back to Spokane as well. I'm pretty sure the game wasn't shown live, or else John would have had to celebrate his gold medal by exchanging a few quick high-fives with his teammates afterward, grabbing a quick shower and rustling up the family for the drive to the airport.

In these days of immediate information, few of us want to wait for the tape-delayed version we'd rather watch live - no matter the time or the channel.

I remember in 2010, trying to track how Nate Holland of Sandpoint was doing in his snowboard cross event. It took place in the afternoon, but naturally NBC wanted to tape it and show it later.

I remember getting on the computer and finding some website where someone was blogging about the event. It was a little bit of a delay, but I was able to find out how he did long before NBC told me. It did spoil some of the drama of the event, but that was better than the frustration of wondering when it was finally going to be shown on TV.

NBC appears to be trying to ease some of that frustration this year by showing more events live.

Some of the basketball and soccer games will be shown on the NBC Sports Network (the old Versus) and MSNBC.

Also, NBC is creating an NBC Olympic Soccer Channel and an NBC Olympic Basketball Channel to show all the soccer and basketball games.

Problem is, not all cable systems are carrying the channel, though it looks like DirecTV is.

So I guess we'll find out in the next couple of weeks what events we will actually see live, and what results we'll have to go fishing for through other means.

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via e-mail at mnelke@cdapress.com. Follow him on Twitter at CdAPressSports.