Sunday, July 28, 2024

My new favorite commentator.

You'd never guess who, but I guess he has his mind on him money and his money on his mind.

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• It's day three of the Olympics and it's time to pay the bills. It's Simone Biles Night on NBC!
• But first, fencing in the Grand Palais. It's American vs. American for the gold. America wins! Specifically, Lee Kiefer, who has now won two golds.
• But enough of that, did you know Simone Biles is in the Olympics? Perhaps you've heard of her. Ha! Just moments after I typed that, Terry Gannon joked "You may have heard of her." Stop stealing my lame jokes, NBC. Anyway, Simone and the rest of the US team are here to compete in the Women's Team qualifying round. Hey! Snoop Dogg is here. We haven't seen him at all these Olympics. Team USA starts on the balance beam. Jordan Chiles goes first. She bobbles her very first move, but is otherwise solid. Snoop approves.

  In between gymnasts, John Roethlisberger explains the scoring system again like he did last night. He does a good job, but this should be a clue to the gymnastics committee. If someone has to explain what your scores mean, you're probably not doing it right.

• Would you like to see all the celebrities in the audience tonight? Not really, but NBC is going to show us anyway. I'm not going to list them because I'm trying to discourage this kind of behavior. I will note that none of these were French celebrities. Are there any? Maybe a Minion?
• Alex Cooper interviews Simone Biles about Tokyo. Biles story is okay, but Cooper's reactions are distracting. She's acting less like an impartial interviewer and more like a shocked best friend. Simone tells Alex that someone said something mean on Twitter, and Alex didn't react like a normal human being would ("hmm…yes, everyone is mean on Twitter") but rather reacted like someone had just shot her dog in that room during the interview. Rein it in, Alex. You're not the one paying the bills tonight. That was six-and-a-half minutes of fluff and all I really learned was that Alex Cooper overacts.
• Simone, naturally, does an excellent job on the balance beam. Snoop, wearing his Simone shirt, approves. So does Tom Cruise. Doh! I said I wasn't going to mention celebrities.
• Here are some other things that happened in Paris. Rafael Nadal played tennis. So did Andy Murray. Skateboarding! Archery! Those sound fun! Wouldn't you like to see those events? Too bad! But Mike is going to show us how NBC took over a restaurant and made it into their Paris studio. It has a great view of the Eiffel Tower. Hey Mike, does it have a great view of some events? Because that's what I'd actually like to see.
• Hey! Do you want to know Team USA? Ugh. I guess so. You know how sometimes you watch a baseball or football player talk about their teammates and you think, this guy should be playing, not talking. Well… Team USA is full of great gymnasts and they like each other. It was only two minutes of fluff but it seemed longer.
• Oof. Team USA is taking a beating on the floor exercises. Reigning gold-medalist Jade Carey almost falls off the floor at the end of her routine. Simone Biles has injured her ankle. Can she still perform? We're about to find out. Whew. Yes. It wasn't perfect, but that should get her through to the next round. "Six year olds dress up as Captain Marvel," says Tim Dagget, "And Captain Marvel dresses up as Simone Biles." I'm sure that sounded better when Tim worked it up before the Games started.
• Enough of gymnastics, let's watch some swimming, where France's Leon Marchand is about to compete in the Men's 400-meter Individual Medley. But first we have to watch how he got here. He wrote an email to Bob Bowman, Michael Phelps' coach at Arizona State, saying that he wanted to go there too. And then… you know, it's hard to follow this piece. They show lots of slow-motion shots and play some dramatic music, but it's low on details. Marchand broke Phelps' record. That's about it. Why did that take four minutes?
• Let's race! Marchand would be the favorite anyway, but here in his home country he's the overwhelming favorite. If he loses, will they pelt him with baguettes? Yeah, that's not going to happen. He's far in the lead already, and now on the breaststroke leg, every time he comes up for air, the crowd cheers. This place is going to be nuts in about 30 seconds. Marchand is killing the competition. Olympic record! He won by almost six seconds. And in the other lane, Carson Foster of the US gets bronze.
• Hey! We get a medal ceremony! Will Leon Marchand sing? Yep! Him and everyone else in the stadium. Nice!
• "Snooping Around Paris." Snoop will be learning fencing later. Aren't you glad you know that?
• More swimming with the Women's 100-meter fly final. Gretchen Walsh and Torri Huske are the Americans in the race. Whoa! Huske and Walsh finish gold-silver with only four-hundredths of a second separating them. Nice!
• Nic Fink wakes up early and does his project manager engineering work before he goes to swim training. His phone has alarms for everything. Ring! Time to be a project manager. Ring! Time to swim. Ring! Date night with his wife. Fluff, but cute.
• Let's watch him swim! The men's 100-meter breaststroke final is off! Britain's Adam Peaty is the favorite, but let's see if Fink has engineered himself a win.

  Eek! He's in fifth halfway. Go Nic Fink! He's moving up! OH! TIE! Fink ties Peaty for silver, and loses out on gold by two-hundredths of a second to Italy's Nicolo Martinenghi! Man! That was exciting! And it only took a minute. There have been 16 minutes of fluff already tonight, and none of them were as good as that 60 seconds.

• Melissa Stark interviews him afterwards. That's his first medal and he's 31 years old! Did they say that in his fluff piece? I guess I missed that. He gives props to his wife, Melanie, who isn't here. Why isn't she? They never say. That would have been a great reaction shot to see. Anyway, way to go Nic!
• Back to gymnastics and the women's vault rotation for Team USA. I love the camera that tracks alongside the gymnasts as they speed down the runway. It makes them look so fast!
• Simone time! She does some impossible vault on her injured ankle. The tracking camera makes her look even faster. Snoop approves. Really, doesn't everyone?
• What are Team USA women doing? Tennis! Beach volleyball! Rugby! Those sound fun! Wouldn't you like to see those events? Too bad!
• Remember when Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo were in the Opening Ceremonies and you didn't know why? Well, now we know. "Wicked" is apparently paying a lot of money for product placement. Ariana and Cynthia narrate two minutes of fluff about how awesome Team USA gymnasts are while music from "Wicked" plays in the background. Remember all those women's sports we didn't get to see five minutes ago? This is why.
• I won't give out names, but now NBC is showing us the same celebrities they showed us before. This is all tape-delayed. Why are they trying to fill time?
• Simone time! This time on the uneven bars. NBC shows all the still photographers watching her and says that might make her nervous. They're 30 yards away! I would think the 20,000 people in the arena would be more nerve-wracking than 30 photographers.
• Suni Lee fluff! She won gold in Tokyo, and now she's silhouetted against a giant screen as she watches herself. After Tokyo, she got kidney disease which sidelined her training for Paris, but she overcame it and now she's better.

  Wait. Sorry. Let me NBC-ify that. (whispers) Suni was enjoying her normal college life after Tokyo when tragedy struck. An unknown illness pushed her close to the edge until doctors diagnosed her with a kidney disease. Her life in turmoil, she was wracked with self-doubt, until she bravely overcame her struggles and was able to once again qualify for the Olympics. I need to work on my sad-story writing.

• The US Women finish in first place in the qualifying round, so NBC will be paying some more bills in a two days! And Simone Biles, Suni Lee, Jade Carey, and Jordan Chiles all qualify for individual events, so NBC will be paying some more bills later this week!
• Basketball! Kevin Durant finally makes it to the city of lights and lights up Serbia, leading to the US winning by 26. Snoop approves. Mike and Snoop are sitting in the former-restaurant-now-studio-set and we're going to have Snoop's Greatest Hits. We start with China and the US playing badminton. Fast! Then some guy with a dad bod who grabs caps off the bottom of the swimming pools. Want to watch some crashing? Bicycle road racing had a rough start with racers sliding in the rain.

  But whooooa! What do we have here? After the US won the 4x100-meter free relay gold medal yesterday, who did NBC catch singing the national anthem during the medal ceremony? IT'S SNOOP! And just like that, Snoop is my favorite commentator at these Olympic Games. Way to go, D-O-Double-G!

• Steve Kornacki steps up to his big statistics board and tells us who has the best chance to win gymnastics gold on Tuesday. Shocker! It's the team with the GOAT on it.
• Women's soccer! Australia came back from a 3-goal deficit to beat Zambia 6-5. Women's mountain-biking! There are multiple people on the track at the same time racing down dangerous trails. Why aren't we watching more of this? This looks dangerous and thus, fun.
• Colin Jost is in Tahiti and you aren't. He's going to learn to surf Teahupo'o, the big wave in Tahiti. He goes out on the water with a couple of the surfers and does okay. But again, we leave Tahiti without actually seeing any surfing competition.
• Now John Mulaney is on Mike's restaurant set talking about his Olympic sports watching and his gambling losses. Mike refocuses him on… Saturday Night Live. I haven't actually looked to see the last time we watched an event but it seems like at least 30 minutes now. Has NBC decided to just phone it in for the rest of the night?
• It's a medal ceremony! Torri Huske with gold and Gretchen Walsh with silver. Huske invites Walsh up to the top step. Will they sing together? Not at the beginning. Neither is singing, but Huske is getting teary-eyed. And now she's singing! Walsh finally joins in at "land of the free." Better late than never, Gretchen! That's something to work on for next time. Well, that and getting four-hundredths of a second faster.

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Who knew that Snoop of all people would step up and sing the national anthem? I certainly wouldn't have predicted it, but here we are. Who knows what shocking things we'll see tomorrow? Tune in together and we'll find out!    

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