Usain as in Bolt, the world’s most eccentric fast man. Or is that fastest most eccentric man? Whatever.
As we all know, NBC tape delays all the biggest-n-sexiest Olympic events and airs them on prime time so Bob Costas, not Al Michaels can introduce them. That’s not why but that makes as much sense as the policy itself. We all know who won via the interweb so the only reason to hold something is viewership levels. This may be semi-defensible on a week night but the 100 Meters took place on Sunday. Everyone else in the world but us watched Usain run but us. This is taking American exceptionalism a bit too far for my taste…
NBC compounded the error by lollygagging in showing the race. I eventually gave up and watched my hero Russell Edgington on True Blood. It was more satisfying than canned events or the fake Saints game…
I actually think, on the whole, NBC does a decent job with the Olympics. Yeah, there’s a bit too much flag waving but people are going to root for their own countries athletes withour prompting. The Wimbledon crowd howling for Andy Murray is evidence of that. BUT they need to drop this “tape delay everything awesome” thing or we might need to put some ferrets down their trousers.
Finally, this post title has given me an earworm. Mercifully, it’s a pretty darn good late ’80’s pop tune:
