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NBC skewered after making huge Olympic mistake, refusing to correct it

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In the annals of Olympics broadcasting, NBC’s coverage of the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Games is less of a gold-medal performance and more participation trophy.

Saturday, we brought you the story of Ester Ledecka, the Czech snowboarder who borrowed a pair of skis and used them to win the gold medal in the Super G.

NBC initially reported that Anna Veith, who took silver after losing by just one one-hundredth of a second, was the winner of the event.

Which could be written off as an honest mistake if the Peacock Network had simply issued a correction and apologized for the error, the way every journalistic outlet worth its salt does whenever these sorts of mistakes slip by the editors.

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Trouble was, announcer Dan Hicks doubled down on his own mistake.

He initially said on the broadcast that Veith was the winner before the event was over so that NBC could cut away to coverage of a different event. Considering none of the remaining competitors were considered to have a chance to win, it was a calculated risk that — if you prefer to blame network executives for turning sports into a prepackaged reality show — wasn’t even Hicks’ fault.

Except that Hicks’ broadcast partner, Bode Miller, said after the mistake was revealed that “in everyone’s opinion, the race was over. It was one of the most incredible upsets I’ve seen in any sport.”

Not “we were wrong;” not “sorry for the error;” not even “we had to make do with what the network gave us.” Instead, it was as if Miller were saying, “well, if you knew skiing like we know skiing, you would have thought the same thing.”

Do you think NBC is doing a good job of covering the Winter Olympics?

Speaking of Miller, he got into some hot water last week for suggesting that Veith’s struggles this season on the World Cup circuit were the result of trouble with her husband.

Specifically, Miller said of Veith’s knee injury that “the knee is certainly an issue” but he then added, “I want to point out, she also got married. It’s historically very challenging to race on World Cup with a family or after being married. You know, not to blame the spouses, but I just want to toss that out there that it might be her husband’s fault.”

Miller then took the shovel that is Twitter to dig himself even deeper.

Miller apologized with the tried-and-true chestnut of saying his comments were “an ill-advised attempt at a joke.”

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It wasn’t a joke. It was just laughable.

Miller wasn’t the only one with a sexism cloud hanging over his head.

Former Boston Bruins coach and current NBC hockey analyst Mike Milbury made it a hat trick for men saying stupid things about women during the network’s Olympics coverage.

Milbury referred to Slava Voynov getting kicked out of the NHL after going to jail for kicking and choking his wife as “an unfortunate incident” and casting it not in terms of a man doing horrible things to a spouse, but rather in terms of what the Los Angeles Kings are supposed to do without him.

Milbury didn’t apologize in so many words, but he did say, “As I said at the time he was suspended, the league made the right call, 100 percent.”

Considering the rather disappointing performances by some of the top U.S. athletes at these games, the question of “what stupid thing will NBC do next?” continues to be one of the more compelling reasons to keep tuning in.

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Boston born and raised, Fox has been writing about sports since 2011. He covered ESPN Friday Night Fights shows for The Boxing Tribune before shifting focus and launching Pace and Space, the home of "Smart NBA Talk for Smart NBA Fans", in 2015. He can often be found advocating for various NBA teams to pack up and move to his adopted hometown of Seattle.
Boston born and raised, Fox has been writing about sports since 2011. He covered ESPN Friday Night Fights shows for The Boxing Tribune before shifting focus and launching Pace and Space, the home of "Smart NBA Talk for Smart NBA Fans", in 2015. He can often be found advocating for various NBA teams to pack up and move to his adopted hometown of Seattle.
Birthplace
Boston, Massachusetts
Education
Bachelor of Science in Accounting from University of Nevada-Reno
Location
Seattle, Washington
Languages Spoken
English
Topics of Expertise
Sports




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