2020, uh, 21, uh, who knows Tokyo Olympics thread

My wife and I have a game going.

One point for every time NBC compares Simone Biles in a totally unrelated sport.
One point every time NBC switches from a live daylight event to the previous night's event and ignores continuity.
One point for every time Leigh Diffey has to pronounce an athlete or country that ends in "A" and it comes out "er."
Two points for mentioning someone's father, mother or child as the impetus for competing.
Two points for pointing out a severe injury that required a major comeback.
Two points for every mangled/misused verb from Ato Boldon.
Three points for each pet shown in the Microsoft Teams® "family watch party."

Bonus points for highlights of 10 seconds or less that show up randomly without context.

Tiebreaker: Over/under on the number of people in the shot when the winning athlete gets a chance to say hello to the people back home.

Last night was a new Olympic record.

 

That's why I was watching track and field.

 

IIRC correctly Los Angeles' bid promoted the notion that zero venues would need to be built, making it pretty much just a marketing exercise. Plus, the city's leaders wanted an excuse to go ahead and rebuild LAX (which, BTW, I was there a few times last week and the people-mover has totally destroyed what little architectural uniqueness the place had...and the new, centralized rental car pickup-and-dropoff has to be the world's largest parking garage. It's gigantic).

 

Lots of drama in the women's long jump.

No, that is not sarcasm.

 

you misspelled "pint"

 

It was awesome! I was pulling for the winner from about midway through because her pre-jump routine looked like something I would do, and she ended up surprising us all.

 

I've noticed that about Diffey and it drives me nuts.

Be nice to Ato. He's from another country.

OMG, I am so done with the family watch parties and saying hi to the folks back home. It was awesome when the Alaskan swimmer won a gold medal. The rest I can do without. Once, it's charming and special. EVERY TIME, it becomes annoying.

 

Well, she was the reigning world champion, so it wasn't THAT big a surprise. But pulling it out with her final jump was quite dramatic.

 

The Alaskan reaction was spontaneous and real, which was what made it special. Of course, once Microsoft Teams® had to get involved, it's just another ad buy.

One other thing: Other than the bumpers that show the Tokyo skyline, some temples and a lighted tower, has NBC actually aired a feature on the host city during primetime? I realize that the pandemic has created an odd situation. But it would be nice to either know how those places relate or give a perspective of what the city's like outside of the arenas. I get more sense of the place from some of the commercials than I do from the actual broadcast.

And no, Mike Tirico with bonsai trees doesn't cut it.

They could be holding this in a Burbank studio for all we know.

 

Your little game up top is ingenius.

I used to decry the segments I called "Screwing Around! With Mary Carillo" mostly because NBC displaced actual game action to air them, but I've only seen one, on sumo, for the whole Games, and it aired on the first weekend. I wonder if the pandemic limited their ability to film them. Either that, or they decided after Mary and Bob Costas were doing vodka shots on live air in Sochi, they figured the genre had hit its peak.

 

Kind of the way CBS goes apeshit crazy over cameras at watch parties when the NCAA March Madness bracket is revealed. I want to see the video when little Brianna or Beauregard loses a medal on a bad decision and they trash the room.'

 

I am not an idiot. I literally could not find it. On Dish last week, i hit the button last week to "dvr everything olympics". Track and field has been on USA network at approximately 4:00 pm pacific that last few days. No track and field on USA on Monday night. The WWE was on.
Not one other olympic broadcast used 'track and field' in their description, besides the prime time NBC broadcast on monday, on my dish dvr. If you are going to tell me you saw it on an app, fine. I'm not downloading an app to watch it.