I know how you feel. Although my enthusiasm was increased when I watched the Athens Olympics in 2004. For a number of reasons;

1. I was a stay at home dad and was able to have the TV or radio on all day.
2. I was in London, so the timezones weren't a problem
3. I was in London, so my coverage came from the BBC
4. By 2004 the UK had fully embraced multi channelling so I could pretty much pick which sport I wanted to watch, they were covering at least 4 different events at any one time. For instance, I got to watch most of the sailing - when was the last time you saw that on Channel 7?

The good news is that the Australian media are going to embrace multi channel broadcasting starting next year so by the London Olympics in 2012 this part of the world might just have caught up.