While the Opening Ceremony has not yet taken place, the 2024 Paris Olympics have already gotten underway. Broadcast crews are on-site and getting ready to cover a spectacle with hundreds of events and thousands of athletes. The person who will lead the coverage for NBC to the U.S. audience is Mike Tirico and he joined Dan Patrick live from Paris today on The Dan Patrick Show.
Tirico showed up on the Zoom with the Eifel Tower in the background and after he and Patrick talked about some early happenings in Paris, they began talking about how one prepares for such an event. Patrick asked Tirico to talk about his strategy as far as covering the Olympics overall.
“You did this for so many years and you know that the backbone of the Olympics and the success of the Olympics is the Olympic research team,” Tirico said. “They have incredible information on every sport. 10,000 plus athletes. There’s no way we’re gonna know most of them. But you want to become familiar with the big ones, familiar with what the big storylines will be. This is my fifth now, the fourth doing primetime, and the best way to do it is to know where to access the information at each time.”
Tirico says while you are aware of what is ahead, it is best not to try and cram for everything at once, rather break it up into smaller portions.
“I have an idea of what’s coming down the road,” he said. “But every couple of days, you kind of bite it off in chunks and you get involved in what’s going on at the moment. So, for now, it’s the opening ceremony and when that gets done, we’ve already turned our attention to Saturday and what’s gonna be happening during the daytime and in primetime. Just kind of keep that cycle going.
“It’s a lot like Groundhog Day. It’s the same deal over and over for two and a half weeks. You get up at the same time, you work out at the same time, eat the same thing at the same time. But it’s fun. You feel like everybody’s in the marathon with you and that’s the cool part of it for all of us.”
The two then talked about how something like what happened four years ago with Simone Biles being unable to compete changes the storyline when you were expecting for it to be more about her becoming one of the more decorated U.S. athletes. Tirico also highlighted some of what he is looking forward to early on in the competitions and he mentioned some early challenges Katie Ledecky will have starting this weekend.
“You never know when an athlete, big name, big stage, big moment, and it doesn’t happen for them,” Tirico said.
Before they wrapped the interview, Patrick asked Tirico which of the Olympic sports was most confusing to him and he said the breakdancing because it will be confusing to people how it is scored. He also said he has had a tough time fully understanding rugby.
Tirico also added, “There’s one sport that we don’t see enough of that I love, that I really think the U.S. should be better at…it’s team handball.”
