Starting with the previous night...- You can tell the events are starting to wind up. We’re getting more mini-documentaries and human interest stories. I particularly enjoyed Mary Carillo’s segment on “The Girl from Ipanama” (who actually exists, BTW) which ran at the end of prime time.
- Lochtegate continues—security footage has been released of the swimmers in a drunken brawl at a Rio gas station (now the most popular media spot in the country), breaking down a bathroom door. I guess they didn’t want to wait for the key attached to a board? There’s other footage showing the group returning to the QISE village that morning in good spirits, which doesn’t jibe with just being robbed. Not looking good...
- On a more serious note, British sports reporter Charlie Webster, after biking 3000 miles from the UK to Rio, is now fighting a rare malaria strain in the hospital there. She’s in an induced coma as of this writing. With all the Zika talk, tropical diseases haven’t gotten a lot of attention.
- QISE always schedules events to leave some time open at the end in case of weather issues, etc. We’re reaching that point—the Peacock showed a 60 minute documentary on gymnastic coach legends Bela and Marta Karolyi this afternoon. I suspect they will show it again Sunday night before or during the Closing Ceremonies.
- With a lack of network coverage, I turned to the Peacock website. Overall, I was impressed with the video quality. It came up relatively quickly and was quite crisp. There are too many commercials, but that has nothing to do with the technology. The layout was a little confusing—different screens would take you to the same content.
More to come.