The Thrill of Surprise

The reason sports needs to be live is the thrill of the unknown. Unfortunately, with the Olympics all the way around the world, many events that are being played out in China during the evening are happening in the morning in the US, when most fans are at work. NBC tries to hide this, even though, with the ubiquity of web news, you can find results as fast as they come available.

For many hours, sports websites said Usain Bolt of Jamaica had not only pulled off the rare 100m-200m double, winning both events, but did so both in world record time. The last time an athlete won both events was Carl Lewis in 1984. Bolt broke Michael Johnson's record in the 200m from 1996 which he ran in 19.32. Bolt ran it in 19.30 seconds.

Johnson ran then 200m and 400m, so the 200m is the common event between Johnson and Bolt. Johnson had not expected Bolt to run so fast. Unlike his grandstanding in the 100m, Bolt took this event seriously realizing only his fastest run would break the world record.

To keep the thrill for those who had otherwise managed to avoid the Internet, NBC did not refer to the race in the past tense until it was over.

NBC had tried to use its muscle to move events like swimming to the mornings so it could show those events live, at least on the east coast. There's a sense NBC delays the games even more for viewers throughout the US.

Although it lacks honesty, it does preserve some sense of surprise, so I'm not entirely upset that it happens.