Dear Jim Bell,

Please fire Tom Hammond.

I’m not expert on broadcasting or television production. Heck, the biggest race I’ve called is a 8:47 high school two mile. But when it comes to bad announcing, I’ve watched enough track on TV to heed the words of the Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart – “I know it when I see it.”

Hammond is a veteran announcer known for his work calling Notre Dame football and Kentucky Derby races. He’s also has been NBC’s man for track and field since the 1991 Tokyo World Championships, but it’s clear that he knows little about the sport. Not only does he constantly misidentify runners but Hammond has the knack of missing critical developments during a race and offers little to no accompanying observations to the analysis of his color commentators.

The men’s 100 meter final was a prime example of Hammond’s ineptitude. The 100 meters is track and field’s main event, the one race that everyone watches every four years. Usain Bolt ran a brilliant race to retain his title as World’s Fastest Man, but Hammond’s call of the race was flat-out terrible. From the halfway point of the race on, Hammond doesn’t even describe the action in the race, but instead fumbles his way through the names of top competitors. It wasn’t until the final 15 meters when Bolt had all but wrapped up the gold medal did Hammond even indicate the sport’s biggest star was in the lead. That’s simply unacceptable. (Watch the 100 meter race video here)

The issue at hand? Specialization. BBC announcers Steve Cram and Brendan Foster follow track and field year-around and thus are able to gather more information to use in their broadcasts. Ato Boldon and Dwight Stones are good as NBC’s color men for the same reason – track and field is their sole focus. Hammond, on the other hand, spends 11 months of the year studying up on 20-year-old defensive backs and three-year-old thoroughbreds.

NBC has an incessant need to feature their big name announcers in their Olympic broadcasts. Sometimes the result is okay but in other instances it’s disastrous.  There are people in television passionate about track and qualified to be primetime play-by-play announcers. Road running guru Toni Reavis and ESPN’s Mark Jones come to mind.

The need for change is critical. Track and field appears in the living rooms of American families once every four years. Rather than presenting a telecast that complements the amazing performances on the track, we set the sport back by featuring the voice of an man incompetent at calling the sport. I certainly hope Tom Hammond is not the voice of NBC track and field come Rio 2016.

Sincerely,

Kevin Liao

Follow @RunLiao

But with attention that Jones receives comes feelings of anger, resentment and blatant jealous on the part of her hurdles teammates Dawn Harper and Kellie Wells, the silver and bronze medalists, respectively, in the event.

Appearing on NBC with Michelle Beadle, the two had some choice words to say about Lolo. See video below.

Were Dawn and Kellie right to criticize their teammate like that? Perhaps not, but it is understandable that the women who actually got on the medal stand should be celebrated for their achievements.

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Bolt had a subpar start for his standards but caught his opponents by the midway point of the race and blasted his way past them in the final 50 meters to win by 12 hundredths of a second ahead of countryman Yohan Blake.

American Justin Gatlin, the 2004 gold medalist, was third. Gatlin was convicted of a doping violation in 2006 and forced to sit out of competition for four years. Now at the age of 30 and eight years after glory in Athens, Gatlin reached the medal stand for the second time.

Heading in the race, many speculated about Bolt’s fitness after the double world record holder lost to Blake in both the 100 and 200 meters at the Jamaican Olympic Trials. Those losses came after Blake’s breakthrough season in 2011 when the man nicknamed “The Beast” won the 100 meter world title after Bolt false started and ran the second-fastest 200 meters of all-time.

Bolt was said to be struggling with back issues after the Jamaican Trials, but after visiting renown German doctor Hans Muller-Wohlfahrt, word was that Bolt was training well at the Jamaican Olympic training camp in Birmingham.

Minus the slow start, Bolt put all the pieces together on Sunday evening. His time was the second-best ever, just shy of his 9.58 second world record but besting his time of 9.69 seconds set in the Beijing Olympic final.

In other words, don’t doubt Usain Bolt. Whatever doubters may say about his partying and lack of commitment to training, Bolt has gotten it done whenever it has been absolutely necessary. Don’t be surprised if something special happens when Bolt and Blake match up later in these Olympic Games.

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