Olympic Sailing on TV

If you’re looking forward to watching Olympic sailing on TV, we now have a little more info for you.

In the NBC broadcast booth will be Randy Smyth, who won silver for the USA in the Tornado catamaran at the 1984 and ’92 Olympics and was part of Dennis Conner’s America’s Cup-winning crew in ’88 on the 60-ft catamaran Stars & Stripes. He’ll be joined by commentator Gary Jobson, America’s Cup-winning tactician for Ted Turner’s 12-Meter Courageous in ’77. Jobson and Smyth will cover two classes per day during a live telecast, which will be available on NBCOlympics.com (but not on actual television). See www.ussailing.org/olympics/rio2016guide for direct viewing links and classes to be featured each day. Replays will appear online shortly after the conclusion of the live stream.

In addition to the daily live stream, a 30-minute recap of each day’s racing, also narrated by Jobson and Smyth, will appear on the MSNBC and CNBC cable networks. This show will include recaps from more classes than the two that were covered live that day. The exact schedule has not yet been released, but the recap will be cablecast daily between 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. PDT starting on Monday, August 8, and running through Thursday the 18th.

For a first glimpse of the athletes all assembled in one place, check out tonight’s opening ceremony, which NBC will broadcast at 7:30 p.m. PDT. This will be Rio’s chance to shine on a global stage and induce viewers to forget all the negative news stories. We’re picturing Carnival on steroids. (Oops, maybe shouldn’t have used the word ‘steroids’.)