One of the big stories of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics happened Tuesday morning with U.S. gymnastics star Simone Biles withdrawing from the team event midway through, citing mental health concerns and worries about if she’d be able to land her vaults. The U.S. women held on for silver without Biles, but her decision still drove much of the sports conversation on Twitter Tuesday. And, interestingly enough, something strange happened on NBC’s U.S. primetime broadcast of that event (on their broadcast networks) some 12 hours later; their feed went to commercial after the vault where Biles twisted less then she planned, which led to her withdrawal, and it went to commercial in the middle of one of their commentators’ sentences. Here’s video of that from AA’s Ben Koo:
As Koo noted, it’s remarkable to see that kind of cut on a broadcast happening this long after the fact. Live broadcasts involving injuries or withdrawals do sometimes lead to odd throws to commercial, and that’s sometimes better than a focus on the injury. But it’s strange to see that happen on something airing so much later, when presumably there was time to make it look less awkward.
[Ben Koo on Clippit]