Kathy Johnson Clarke was never under contract with NBC. She worked for ABC and ESPN for decades. ABC was the one who pushed her out this year.

There's plenty of stuff to gripe about with NBC's gymnastics coverage, but the whole debacle with KKC is not even close to one of them.

Yeah, well, regardless of your opinion, Laurie is getting a huge amount of positive press, which is all NBC cares about. Move over, Sam. Laurie is in that chair next.

Laurie is awful. She was a great gymnast but listening to her commentary is not helpful. I get more out of sitting next to my 9-year old competitive gymnast who at least explains certain moves and deductions. And for the rest I follow along on gymnastics Reddit with Laurie on mute.

If anyone lives near the border, CBC has a few good gymnastics commentators who I enjoy.

To the PP who noted that KJC hasn’t been doing Olympic coverage, yes, that’s true. But I brought her up because NBC seems to be completely cleaning house over the past 12 months and trying to bring in younger voices in very sport and not just for Olympics coverage. They may be more famous or relatable, but it’s a huge loss for people who want to watch sports with the guidance of a knowledgeable, experienced commentator. It’s true folly, equivalent to replacing Vin Scully with a 20-something who played 5 years of baseball for the sole reason that they had been in the MLB more recently or had more Instagram followers.

I don't know. I love Laurie Hernandez as she is a lovely person. But her commentating of Olympic gymnastics was the equivalent of Paula Abdul on Idol, to me. She found it hard to be critical of anyone's routine, which is "nice", but doesn't give the spectator any information which allows them the ability to discern the difference between one competitor and another.

I watch a lot of gymnastics for 4 decades so I can see subtle mistakes and understand how that will affect scores. But Laurie constantly saying about EVERY routine, "Her routine was lovely. Had a few small mistakes. It should score well." That tells nothing when the score comes up and it is 0.5 lower than the person who went before or after. Overall, this just comes off as bland because if everything is well done, then nothing iw well done.

Sam Peszek is much better about scrutinizing and explaining every little bobble or missed connection, so the casual gymnastics viewer understands why one routine is more superior than another.

For all of the competitions I have watched both the daytime coverage, because I want to see all of the competitors, but have actually enjoyed the primetime coverage more because of Sam being more critical. If Laurie can find this voice, I would love hearing her more. Maybe it will come with time?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NBC did it in gymnastics, too- they pushed out the gym equivalent of Cynthia Potter, Kathy Johnson-Clarke, and have been trying out a series of former athletes who in my opinion are not qualified for the role and make watching gymnastics annoying. In the replay I’m watching, Laura Wilkinson is doing the announcing and she’s terrible.

In the past it’s been easy to get the European feeds with generally superior announcers, but it’s been hit-or-miss this Olympics and I can only seem to get them for less popular sports.

Kathy an amazing voice in this sport and her Twitter feed is absolutely perfection. That being said, I don't remember her doing a lot of commentary for the Olympics in ages. She was mostly doing collegiate commentary. On primetime it was Elfie Schlegel and then Nastya Liukin and now Sam Peszek

…and next Olympics, it will be Laurie Hernandez doing the prime time show.

It’s like when Tara Lipinski and Johnny Weir were the second team in Sochi, and performed so well that they became the first team by the next Olympics in South Korea.

Anonymous wrote:NBC did it in gymnastics, too- they pushed out the gym equivalent of Cynthia Potter, Kathy Johnson-Clarke, and have been trying out a series of former athletes who in my opinion are not qualified for the role and make watching gymnastics annoying. In the replay I’m watching, Laura Wilkinson is doing the announcing and she’s terrible.

In the past it’s been easy to get the European feeds with generally superior announcers, but it’s been hit-or-miss this Olympics and I can only seem to get them for less popular sports.

Kathy an amazing voice in this sport and her Twitter feed is absolutely perfection. That being said, I don't remember her doing a lot of commentary for the Olympics in ages. She was mostly doing collegiate commentary. On primetime it was Elfie Schlegel and then Nastya Liukin and now Sam Peszek

It was so strange. She is the voice of Olympic diving like Rowdy Gaines is for swimming.

NBC did it in gymnastics, too- they pushed out the gym equivalent of Cynthia Potter, Kathy Johnson-Clarke, and have been trying out a series of former athletes who in my opinion are not qualified for the role and make watching gymnastics annoying. In the replay I’m watching, Laura Wilkinson is doing the announcing and she’s terrible.

In the past it’s been easy to get the European feeds with generally superior announcers, but it’s been hit-or-miss this Olympics and I can only seem to get them for less popular sports.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What? I love her but haven't heard anything.

It was so quick I almost missed it. Just kind of like "bye, thanks for the memories" and then FIN.

Yeah they panned to her in the booth while she was still in work mode, in polo shirt with headphones on, very strange!

No idea what’s going on but I had the same question/reaction. She’s been a great voice of the sport for so long! I will miss her for sure.

Does she usually comment on all the diving? I don’t follow diving closely, but I happened to be watching the synchronized diving segment when they announced her retirement and I also thought it was odd and abrupt. And it’s even odder if it turns out that she usually comments on the diving events which are yet to happen.

Anonymous wrote:What? I love her but haven't heard anything.

It was so quick I almost missed it. Just kind of like "bye, thanks for the memories" and then FIN.

What? I love her but haven't heard anything.

I’d love to know this as well. I happened to catch a sort of teary ‘goodbye and thank you’ and that was it. Was so strange. Maybe it’s what she wanted? She’s the only voice of diving, as far as I’m concerned!

...and without a proper send-off? It was so strange.