NBC's Olympics coverage cared so much about Simone Biles, it failed to promote American track stars Sydney McLaughlin, Athing Mu and Dalilah Muhammad

Slate

"Why hasn’t NBC made more of these extraordinary athletes—not just on the day of their events, but over the course of the entire Tokyo Games?" asks Justin Peters. "By all rights, McLaughlin, Muhammad, and 800-meter gold medalist Athing Mu, who also won gold for the U.S. in her event on Tuesday night—the first time an American woman had done so since 1968—would have made for excellent breakout stars of the Tokyo Games. All three are telegenic, diverse, and extremely talented within their events, which exist as part of a sport that is one of the marquee sports at every Summer Games. And yet, as far as NBC has been concerned, the three American track stars and many of their cohort have been but momentary diversions from the real story of the Games: Whatever Simone Biles is or is not doing at any given moment. Biles is a transcendent star and her emotional journey has been the story of the Tokyo Olympics. But the American track stars who excelled on Tuesday also had credible claims for their stories to also be the stories of the Games. Instead, they have labored in relative obscurity as NBC has focused much of its coverage on swimming, gymnastics, and swimming and gymnastics. The disparity between the quality of the track athletes’ performances in Tokyo and the quality of the television coverage that they’ve received this year has been frustrating and confusing. If the Olympics are, as I’ve suggested before, primarily a television show, then why does NBC have such consistent trouble turning American track stars into main characters?"