There’s been plenty of criticism over NBC’s Olympic coverage, but aside from near-constant commercials and tape delays, many viewers are upset that they’re missing out on the action from countries that don’t fly the stars and stripes. TheWrap has the best stories from the 2016 Rio Games involving athletes who are’t American.
The 100m butterfly swimmer Yusra Mardini stole the heart of the world when she went from Syrian refugee to Olympic athlete, winning her heat in her first games. But her story still wasn’t compelling enough to air during primetime on NBC, though she eventually got a segment on “NBC Nightly News.”
Egyptian judoka Islam El Shehaby refused to shake the hand of his Israeli opponent Or Sasson, a display of unsportsmanlike behavior so egregious that the crowd roared with boos and the International Olympic committee reprimanded the athlete — reportedly even sending him home, though the Egyptians deny this.
The men’s gymnastics team finals were barely covered in NBC primetime, since the U.S. team ultimately didn’t medal. Subsequently, the Ukraine team throwing several competitions and purposely taking last place, which angered fans across social media, was not acknowledged at all. NBC did recount the incident a few days later, during individual finals, however.
While NBC heavily covered diving one night, when U.S. team David Boudia and Steele Johnson won silver, the event became persona non grata again the next night, when no Americans were in contention for a medal. Primetime audiences completely missed out on one of the biggest stories of the day, when an algae outbreak in the diving pool turned the water a mysterious murky green. NBC ultimately caught up on the story days later, when American Abby Johnston was in contention.
With no Americans in contention for medaling in women’s rugby, there was no chance that the heartwarming proposal from a venue manager to her Brazilian rugby player girlfriend would have made NBC primetime. But everywhere else, it was a huge, great moment at the games.
Countries who received their first gold medals this year included Puerto Rico, Kosovo, Vietnam, Fiji and Singapore – whose Joseph Schooling beat Michael Phelps in the 100m butterfly. Only Schooling got a big moment on NBC primetime, probably because everyone was expecting another Phelps victory.
Brazilian judoka Rafaela Silva won the first gold of the Rio games for the host country, and the win was extra poignant since the athlete had been subjected to so much racist bullying after the 2012 Games that she almost left the sport. More stories like this please, NBC.
