Back to last night--
There was a great piece by Mary Carillo (who always does a great job) about Caeleb Dressel being a "Florida Man"--he and his wife take a fan boat ride. Then Dressel swims three events, two of them finals, in less than an hour and a half. Meanwhile, Simone Biles has pulled out of the vault and uneven bars finals (probably the two most dangerous events).
Kornacki returns with the big board to preview track and field stats. This is the best addition to QISE coverage in years. More track and swimming ran out the prime-time clock.
Late-night started with the goofy "Fallon Five". Is this some contractual obligation? Just take a vacation, Jimmy. Then onto the grueling 10,000M track final. NBC covered this event the last time the US won this event--Billy Mills in 1964, also in Tokyo. Torico tags in Maria Taylor, who takes us to the Triathlon Mixed Team Relay (another new event). There's a competitor named Georgia Taylor Brown, and I start humming the Harlem Globetrotters theme when I hear it.
Over to this morning's coverage, which started bright and early at 8a, what Lowe called "Super Saturday". Archery (yay), water polo (zzzz), rugby (meh), BMX freestyle (rad), trampoline (whee), tennis (zzzz), beach volleyball (more zzzz), golf (triple zzzz). Then it was diving (the women's springboard). Color commentator Cynthia Potter really breaks down all the minutiae, predicting the score of each dive accurately. Back to Lowe, who interviews Katie Ledecky in the studio. The questions are rather asinine (a lot of variations on "how proud are you?"). Back to the track for more heats, volleyball (with a terrible injury for a US player, and some basketball. Jimmy Roberts dropped by with a story about personal challenges, with soaring music.
Off to prime time, with Tirico tossing to beach volleyball (again?). That’s plenty for now—more tomorrow.