I felt like writing a thing or two about the non-sports side:
The kits felt like a downgrade on Tokyo by a big stretch. The Tokyo ones had plenty of red, white, and blue and I liked the flag theme. I also liked the big GB on Rio 2016 though. These were just one solid colour and in equal parts classy and boring.
The television coverage was... pretty okay. On the BBC side, it started with JJ Chalmers and Jeanette Kwakye who was added since Tokyo 2020. I thought Chalmers was better on his own for the early shift and the two didn't have chemistry. When they were together, I liked Kwakye more, although I'm not sure they had the same enthusiasm as the others. Hazel Irvine remains an absolute star and she took the afternoon slot, her sports knowledge is ridiculous. Clare Balding took the evening slot. Athletics had its own designated team presented by Gabby Logan, with Jessica Ennis-Hill, Michael Johnson and Denise Lewis. Johnson and Logan could have been there on their own without anyone missing the other two to be honest. I also think they really dropped the ball with the field events. A lot more should have been shown live. Balding I think captured the excitement average people would have for the Olympics pretty well, and I really liked Mark Foster and Becky Adlington on swimming. Other important analysts included Chris Hoy and Laura Kenny for cycling, as well as Matthew Pinsent for Rowing, and I liked Hoy especially. There was also a red button stream which I think got things pretty correct, it was rare that a GB medal chance or big event wasn't being shown on at least one of them. The commentary was generally quite good whenever they had a BBC one and not a world feed one, with Steve Cram, Andrew Cotter, Adrian Moorhouse, Simon Brotherton and others. A big loss from Tokyo 2020 was Lutalo Muhammad who I thought was very good. Isa Guha and Mark Chapman did the highlights show and from what I recall they were quite good although I hardly watched it. The ceremonies were presented by Balding with Irvine and Cotter doing a good job on commentary.
Eurosport also was pretty good although I watched far less of their studio stuff, which they barely did, a big loss in my book because it ties the Olympics together instead of just being a collection of sports. They did have a show, Bonsoir Paris, presented by Laura Woods which I saw a bit of but I was mostly Olympicsed out by then. However, their unfussy way of picking whatever sport you wanted was still good, especially with the BBC's defiencies on certain sports, especially athletics field events.
Thanks a million for doing my job for me during the Paras Now, this time, for real, I need a snooze.
