The Olympics jump out of the pool and onto the track this weekend.
And NBC will go with them, making track & field its featured event during prime time. Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte will be replaced by Usain Bolt and Tyson Gay. Carmelita Jeter and Allyson Felix will be the Missy Franklin and Allison Schmitt of the second week as the Olympics hit the homestretch. And that will be accompanied by continued complaints that NBC is hurting the Games by not showing them all live, instead waiting to package the big events in prime time, when more people are in front of their TV sets.
NBC has been streaming the events live over the internet, but that has not been enough to placate those who demand all live all the time. NBC’s refusal to do so revolves around the precious highlights that it wants to keep to itself and not make available to its competitors.
“When a company invests the kind of money that we have in the Olympics, we have absolutely every right to protect that investment,” NBC’s executive Olympics producer Jim Bell said on a Sirius/XM interview this week.
“It’s the video, it’s the sports, it’s those kinds of things. We’ve tried to utilize new technology to stream everything live, all the events live for the hard-core sports fan. But the fact is, and the numbers would seem to bear this out, there’s still a huge audience out there of people who want to watch this stuff at a time when it is convenient for them, when there are mass audiences, when people can gather around and watch TV, and one of the last great family viewing events out there.”
Bell called the first-week ratings “hugely satisfying” (they were consisently up over the 2008 Beijing Games). And now the question becomes whether or not track can carry the night like swimming has. The men’s 100 meters (gold medal final on Sunday) is the biggest event and will feature a showdown between Jamaicans Bolt and Yohan Blake and Americans Gay and Justin Gatlin.
“[The Americans] are in for a hard task,” said Foxsports.com analyst Maurice Greene, who won gold in the 100 meters and 4×100 relay in 2000. “Honesty, I think Usain and Blake are going to be 1 and 2.”
Bolt dominated in Beijing four years ago with gold in the 100, 200 and 4×100 relay, but Greene believes Blake will be the one leaving London as the island nation’s new hero.
“Usain’s having a lot more difficulties, a lot more problems,” Greene said. “He’s not the same guy he was in Beijing. You can’t expect him to do those things, even though he is capable of it. I don’t think you will see that type of performance because technically he is not as sound as he was then. That’s what makes him vulnerable.”
Greene does not think the American women are vulnerable at all on the track.
“I think the women are going to dominate and put on a great show,” Greene said. “The women are going to win most of the medals, definitely in the sprints. We are going to win the 100, get first and second in the 200. I think we are going to win the 400, the 4×400 relays, 4×100 relays. The women are going to show how strong they really are.”
justin.terranova@nypost.com