Tag Archives: Tokyo Olympics

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Daily Broadside | No Meghan and More Tamyra Please

Daily Verse | Isaiah 37:20
“Now, O Lord our God, deliver us from his hand, so that all kingdoms on earth may know that you alone, O Lord, are God.”

We’ve made it to the halfway point of the week with as much behind us as in front of us, although the view doesn’t seem to change with Resident Biden still occupying the People’s House and his praetorian guard still occupying the Capitol, the Department of Defense and the FBI building with his shock troops only a dog-whistle away from wreaking havoc on our streets again.

For a guy who hasn’t been watching the Olympics, I’m spending a lot of time writing about them. I have another story for you today of an Olympian who’s joy and excitement over representing the United States simply overflows from her gold medal win.

Did you catch all that? What an enthusiastic, joyful and positive young woman! Tamyra Mensah-Stock, 28, a four-time All-American at Wayland Baptist University in Plainview, TX, first acknowledges her dependence on God.

“It’s by the grace of God that I’m able to even move my feet. Like, I just leave it in His hands and I pray that all the practice, that the hell that my freaking coaches put me through, pays off. And every single time it does. And I get better and better.”

And then she goes on to absolutely gush about the United States.

Reporter: That American flag around your shoulders — it looks pretty good. How does it feel to represent your country like this?
Mensah-Stock: It feels amazing! I love representing the U.S. I freaking love living there! I love it and I’m so happy I get to represent U-S-A! Love it!

Notice how she pulls the flag tight around her like it’s a warm blanket right out of the dryer.

Fox News agrees.

Mensah-Stock, an unknown to Mainstreet USA before today’s interview after winning gold, is easily the most likable athlete to come out of the Games. Her smile, love of country, and positive nature have captured the attention of citizens who’ve been beaten over the head by social justice warriors who’ve sucked the fun out of the Games.

Holy intersectionality, Batman! It’s a religious black woman representing the United States of America who actually loves her country! Can’t be — she sounds like a white supremacist nationalist xenophobic Trump supporter!

Rest assured that her enthusiasm will be ignored by the mainstream media, aka the Democrat press corp. Can’t have someone like her contradicting the prevailing narrative, can we? She’s pouring cold water on the grievance grifters’ story! Hopefully the Left doesn’t try cancelling her.

I’m still not watching the Olympics, but stories like this remain fresh and encouraging for me.

More Tamyra Mensah-Stock and no Meghan Rapinoe, please.

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Daily Broadside | Olympic Ratings Crash; No One Knows What Happened!

Daily Verse | Isaiah 30:21
Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.”

Happy Monday as we turn the page to August. Is it still a quarter to run a load at your local laundrymat?

I don’t know about you, but I haven’t watched any of the Olympics. None of it. And I’m not the only one who isn’t watching.

The first night of competition on Saturday averaged 15.9 million viewers, down 32% from the comparable night of the Rio Summer Games in 2016. NBC’s audience rose to 20 million viewers on Sunday, down 36% compared with five years ago. Monday’s competition scored 16.8 million viewers, off 46% from the 31.5 million who watched on the comparable night in 2016.

The 2021 figures include the average number of people watching on streaming platforms, which hit a record Monday, for an Olympics, with 746,000 viewers.

What has caused the decline in ratings? Well, there are these culprits:

The decline from the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro partly reflects the long-running drop in traditional TV audiences, which have been lured away by streaming. And while sports ratings have bounced back this year from 2020, many events are down from pre-pandemic levels.

But NBC has faced other challenges in attracting Olympics viewers this year, from empty stadiums caused by pandemic restrictions, to Tokyo’s 13-hour time difference with the U.S. East Coast, to high-profile athletes dropping out of the competition.

And the Olympics aren’t the only event to suffer from steep drop-offs in viewers.

The 2020 Olympic Games are just the latest TV event to feel the pain of steep ratings drops over the past year.

Every major TV awards show hit a record low in 2021 including the Oscars, which drew just under 10 million viewers, a 58% decline from 2020.

The 2020 World Series had its smallest audience in history with 9.6 million viewers last fall.

Even the Super Bowl, which had largely been resistant to the overall erosion of traditional viewing, saw its TV audience hit a 14-year low in February while more people streamed the game online than ever before.

This may be just me, but the reason I’m not watching isn’t because I’ve been lured away by streaming services or because there’s a 13-hour time difference with Tokyo or because I was crushed that Simone Biles dropped out of the competition. In fact, I didn’t watch the Oscars, the World Series, the NBA Finals, or the Super Bo—okay, I did watch the Super Bowl, but only because Tom Brady was making history. And I didn’t watch any football during the season.

Neither of the publications I cite above listed the reason I’m not watching.

I’m not watching the Olympics for the same reason I didn’t watch the Oscars, the World Series or the NBA Finals: they’ve all gone woke. I’m not interested in watching ingrates, like Gwen Berry or Meghan Rapinoe or LeBron James, complain about their circumstances and demonize the country in which they’ve had their success. They’ve disgraced themselves and their country.

While I am not actively cheering for these whiners to lose, I won’t mind if they do, so that they have no platform from which to be an activist.

Having said that, however, I do want to point out one athlete in particular. She’s a 21-year-old black athlete (her skin color doesn’t matter to me, but skin color is all the rage right now, so I mention it) and she set a world-record in the 400-meter hurdles.

Sydney McLaughlin is the first woman in the history of the event to run it under 52 seconds. And, even better than that, was her profession of faith after winning the Olympic trial.

“I think the biggest difference this year is my faith, trusting God and trusting that process, and knowing that He’s in control of everything. As long as I put the hard work in, He’s going to carry me through. And I really cannot do anything more but give the glory to Him at this point.”

No grandstanding. No complaining. No selling out her country. Just a humble acknowledgement of God and His work in her life.

Then, on Friday night, she won her first qualifying round.

The Dunellen native, running in her second Olympics, practically jogged to a victory in her 400-meter hurdles preliminary heat, advancing to the semifinals and leaving no doubt about her status as the gold-medal favorite.

And then, when it was over, she made a powerful statement that the big expectations don’t bother her.

“Pressure is an illusion,” the 21-year-old said. “It’s what you make of it. I’m just here to have fun and represent my country.”

So far, so good.

Yes — so far, good. She’s just there to have fun and represent her country. How refreshing. I just might watch hurdling to cheer her on.

If you want to learn more about Sydney and five other Christian athletes competing in the Tokyo Olympics, click here.