Nope. That’s not U.S. speedskater Shani Davis who was hyped to take the gold in Sochi. ‘Cuz he finished in a disappointing 8th place instead. Kinda like Shaun White. And Bode Miller. And practically every other Olympian NBC has picked as a winner so far. Maybe the network needs to hire Nick The Greek to handicap the results for their Rio Games coverage.

I know NBC is busy trying to figure out how to make Matt Lauer an acceptable replacement for Bob Costas while he deals with his latest facial botox treatment gone wrong, but by the time they broadcast their prime-time coverage each night, who won is already a known. So why, instead of sharing a bit more about Kaitlyn Farrington who won the gold in women’ half pipe, do we have to sit through an Up Close And Personal film montage about Kelly Clark. Who only won the bronze. And even though all of the competitors in the men’s snowboarding events look like James Franco in Pineapple Express wannabes, how about some coverage of gold medalist Iouri Podladtchikov or that cute but till too young Silver medalist Ayumu Hirano instead on non-stop coverage of Shaun White. Who never won a medal. I’m feeling a Red Buttons moment coming on.

Sure even being in the Olympics deserves part of the limelight. But if that’s the excuse then wouldn’t showing more of the competitors in each event make more sense? I mean I’m glad Tatyana Volosozhar and Maksim Trankov won the gold in pairs figure skating, mostly because of Maksim’s prodigious bulge during their free-skate program – I’m surprised that thing wasn’t arrested for promoting homosexuality. But I’ve already watched those two (Maksim and Tatyana, not Maksim’s balls) in the Team Trophy competition. Where’s the coverage of sexy Matteo Guarise and whoeverinthehell his partner is? You’d think that even if Putin recognizes that sports is about sports NBC could too. Maybe ESPN needs to be the official network of the Olympics from now on.

Where in the hell is Jim McKay when you need him? Not covering anyone other than the losers makes for a lot of dead air-time to fill. And educating viewers about the wonders of Russia, as color, makes sense. But whoever that buck-toothed fish commentator who used up 10 minute of programming to explain that it’s cold in Siberia and yet there are people who are born and live there their entire life needs to be shot. Or sent to Siberia. Here’s a news flash for you: there are people who were born and lived their entire life in Toledo too. And most of them never won a medal either.

On the plus side, and now that I got that off my chest, Team USA picked up another gold medal, and one of each of the other colors too, with it’s sweep in men’s slopestyle skiing. Joss Christensen, who won the gold, was the last men’s slopestyle skier selected for the U.S. Olympic team; a no-longer controversial decision even though he was selected over several worthy American skiers. Christensen posted three of the top four scores of the day, picked up the gold, silenced the naysayers, and along with gold medalist Sage Kotsenburg proved the path to Olympic gold these day is in having a cool first name.

That brings Team USA’s overall medal count to 12, just one off the leader, Norway. Team Anti-Gay, whose only gold medals to date have been in figure skating (snicker, snicker), has 11 medals in total but is the leader in coming in in second place. Which just seems right.

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