Back to prime time last night--
Men's Gymnastics is not nearly as popular as the women's competition. It doesn't help that the US needed to have a number of teams screw up, which didn't happen. I noticed NBC put up one of their "Tokyo Now" screens, showing what else was on their galaxy of networks, almost as if they were saying "go watch one of these, then come back later".
Then back to swimming. We got a very funny segment on Regan Smith, which I suspect she wrote (it was also shown a few days ago). We get more play-by-play from Dan Hicks, who I suspect did radio at some point. "The 200 Men's Free is coming up, but first some Steely Dan taking us up to news time!"
More Kornacki and his big screen, providing stats going into today's women's gymnastics final. Then more swimming, with Alaska getting their first gold medalist, 17-year old Lydia Jacoby. NBC showed a watch party in Seward go nuts.
Late night included another team sport--women's volleyball. After a lot of skipping, I moved onto the Today show from this morning. They found themselves in a moral quandary, based on a a major event--Simone Biles, THE STAR of the games, pulled out of the team competition due to a "medical issue". She was later quoted that she "was not in a good place mentally to compete", probably based on the white-hot spotlight on her. She MAY compete in the individual finals.
The team finals were already airing on another NBC outlet live as Today went on air. So what do Savannah and Hoda do? Report on the biggest news of the games as it was happening, or just smile and say "stay tuned for prime time coverage!" Shockingly, they showed some journalistic backbone and reported it--I'm wondering if Hoda hadn't been AT THE ARENA when it happened, they would have made the same decision. Savannah was practically pleading for the audience to stay with the coverage.
While NBC rewrites their plans for prime time, we move to afternoon coverage, with Lowe sending us off to a melange of events--beach volleyball, mountain biking, surfing, yet more swimming heats, and synchronized diving.
Then onto prime time (brought to you by Oreo). Tirico throws it to the only thing anyone is interested in--the tape-delayed gymnastics final. The commentators talked about how Biles seemed out of it, then showed the team's families at home. We get extreme closeups of Biles before and after the only event she did, then there is a mysterious cutoff in the middle of commentary that goes to a commercial. When we return, we see her leave the floor, then after a whole 79 seconds, another commercial--NBC IS MILKING THIS. Remember, this is ALL ON TAPE. NBC is making it artificially choppy just to crank up the suspense. The bomb is then dropped, and we watch Biles cheer the others on. The commentators quickly close ranks (2 of 3 are former gymnasts) and continue on.
But in the end, the Russkies (aka the "Russian QISE Committee") went on to glorious gold, while the US got so-so silver. One has to ask why the Commies were allowed to compete--but then you remember the QISEOC is only interested in money, and not actually punishing a major state-sponsored doping scandal.
More to come.