FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, July 28th, 2021

TOKYO OLYMPICS – JULY 27 PRIMETIME HIGHLIGHTS ON NBC

“We carry a lot of weight on our shoulders and it’s challenging, especially when we have the lights on us and all of these expectations that are being thrown on top of us.” – Michael Phelps on Simone Biles and the pressure of the Olympics

“She hasn’t ruled it out and I think, most importantly, she just wanted people to know that she was thinking about the team. And that’s so admirable.” – Nastia Liukin on possibility of Biles returning to competition

 “I just think of all the great female swimmers the U.S. has had that haven’t had that opportunity to swim that event…and I’m so glad we could do it in the best possible way today.” – Katie Ledecky to Michele Tafoya on winning gold in the Olympic debut of the women’s 1500m freestyle

Wednesday – Katie Ledecky & Caeleb Dressel Look to Add to Their Medal Count in Primetime on NBC; Brody Malone & Sam Mikulak Lead Team USA in Men’s Gymnastics All Around Live at 6:15 a.m. ET on Peacock

STAMFORD, Conn. – July 28, 2021 – NBC Olympics continued its primetime coverage of the Tokyo Olympics tonight on NBC. Mike Tirico serves as NBC Olympics primetime host and opened coverage on NBC.

Highlights of upcoming coverage include:

    • Katie Ledecky and Caeleb Dressel look to add to their Tokyo Olympics medal count in the women’s 4x200m freestyle and men’s 100m freestyle, respectively, in primetime on Wednesday on NBC;
    • Brody Malone and Sam Mikulak lead Team USA in the men’s gymnastics all around tomorrow morning live at 6:15 a.m. ET on Peacock;
    • Four Americans – Justin Thomas, Collin Morikawa, Xander Schauffele and Patrick Reed – headline the 60-man field in the men’s golf tournament, as the first round gets underway from Kasumigaseki Country Club live Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. ET on GOLF Channel;
    • In pursuit of a seventh consecutive gold medal, Sue Bird, Diana Taurasi and the U.S. women’s basketball team face Japan in group play live at 12:40 a.m. ET (9:40 p.m. PT Wednesday) on USA Network.

 

Following are highlights from tonight’s primetime coverage of the Tokyo Olympics on the networks of NBCUniversal:

HIGHLIGHTS OF MIKE TIRICO’S CONVERSATIONS WITH MICHAEL PHELPS AND NASTIA LIUKIN ON SIMONE BILES:

Phelps on impact of being a star athlete: “The Olympics is overwhelming. There are a lot of emotions that go into it…I could talk about this for an hour. I think athletes, and Olympic athletes in general, I mean talk about ‘weight of gold,’ we need someone who we can trust. Somebody that can let us be ourselves and listen. Allow us to become vulnerable. Somebody who’s not going to try and fix us. We carry a lot of weight on our shoulders and it’s challenging, especially when we have the lights on us and all of these expectations that are being thrown on top of us. It broke my heart. But also, if you look at it, mental health is something over the last 18 months that people are talking about.”

Tirico: “You’ve talked about it a lot, with the pandemic, when that came up and your honesty about you dealing with your mental health. You have said, you have made it public, ‘Hey, it’s okay to not be okay.’ And it’s the phrase you have used, not just for you, but to help the people you can touch with your platform.”

Phelps: “We’re humans, right? We’re human beings. Nobody is perfect. It is okay to not be okay. It is okay to go through ups and downs and emotional rollercoasters. But I think the biggest thing is that we all need to ask for help sometimes, too, when we go through those times. I can say for me personally that it was something that was very challenging. It was hard for me to ask for help. I felt like I was carrying, as Simone said, the weight of the world on my shoulders.”

Tirico: “Is there a place that you think now…is there an understanding now that maybe, as a country, the U.S. can give more support to Olympians for the mental health portion of this?”

Phelps: “I hope this is an eye-opening experience. I really do. I hope this is an opportunity for us to jump on board and to even blow this mental health thing more wide open. It is so much bigger than we can ever imagine. For me, when I started on this journey five years ago, I knew it was big. I knew it was going to be challenging. Five years into it now, it’s even bigger than I can comprehend. So this is something that is going to take a lot of time, a lot of hard work, and people that are willing to help.”

Tirico: “Your Michael Phelps Foundation is helping people learn how to swim for safety, but also making sure there is a balance to it. I’m going to tell you, I think that might be more of your legacy than 23 golds and 28 medals.”

Phelps: “Thank you. With the Foundation, it’s so important to teach kids at a young age to take control of their physical and mental health. You guys hear me talk about that so much. If we’re not taking care of both, how are we ever expecting to be 100%?”

Nastia Liukin on Simone Biles: “In talking to her, she did the right thing. She really wanted to focus on the team, and I think when you actually take a look at what happened on that vault, she got lost. And any gymnast knows – we call it the ‘twisties’ – and she basically was supposed to do a whole ‘nother rotation and got completely lost in the air. It’s a mental kind of error essentially that every single gymnast goes through.”

Liukin on gymnasts getting lost in the air: “It does happen often and I think the most dangerous part is getting lost on a skill like that, and pretty much on every single event that she does, the level of difficulty that she competes is so high and if you are not 100% sure of yourself and where you are in the air, it can be very dangerous.”

Liukin on possibility of Biles returning to competition in Tokyo: “When I spoke with her, she was actually on her way to training. I know she doesn’t even know yet. I think she’s taking it day by day, hour by hour, going to see how training goes. But she hasn’t ruled it out and I think, most importantly, she just wanted people to know that she was thinking about the team. And that’s so admirable.”

Liukin on Biles’ teammates: “The reason we all love the Olympics is what we have seen from the U.S. team tonight. A star obviously unable to compete, but staying on the floor to support her teammates, and then you have three athletes here at their first Olympic Games losing their leader under enormous pressure with the entire world watching. But they continued to fight until the end.”

Tirico closed tonight’s primetime coverage with his thoughts on athletes and the importance of mental health. Click here to watch.

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SWIMMING – NBC

Dan Hicks on the end of the women’s 1500m freestyle: “Erica Sullivan is going to follow the greatest female swimmer of all time, Katie Ledecky, to the wall, who will win gold, and here comes 20-year-old Erica Sullivan to pick up the silver!”

Katie Ledecky to Michele Tafoya on winning gold in the Olympic debut of the women’s 1500m freestyle: “I just think of all the great female swimmers the U.S. has had that haven’t had that opportunity to swim that event. I think of Debbie Meyer, Janet Evans, Chris Von Saltza, Kate Ziegler, Katie Hoff. So many people that I looked up to, I still look up to, they’re great friends of mine, and I’m so glad we could do it in the best possible way today.”

Elizabeth Beisel on the 1500m freestyle: “It’s so hard. Thousands of hours, thousands of meters are put into training for an event like the 1500 and that’s something that Katie Ledecky has done every single day for the past year. Swimmers are really only on the world stage at the Olympic Games. Those four years training for it leading up to it, they are doing the same work they’re doing every single day to get themselves here to compete at this level, and that’s a lot of work to put in.”

Michael Phelps on Caeleb Dressel not competing in the men’s 4×200 freestyle relay: “It’s shocking. In my opinion, he’s probably the best in the 200 freestyle in the world. He can probably put up one of the best times that we’ve seen, and leaving him off that relay, to me, I think it makes it a lot harder to win the gold medal.”

Rowdy Gaines on Ariarne Titmus winning gold in the women’s 200m freestyle: “Nobody is better in the world right now than Ariarne Titmus in the last 50 meters.”

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GYMNASTICS – NBC

Tirico on Biles: “”

Terry Gannon on Jordan Chiles, Suni Lee, and Grace McCallum: “Think about what they have been through tonight. For so long, they have been asked the question repeatedly, ‘What is it like to compete with Simone Biles?’ Tonight, one of the first questions they’ll be asked is, ‘What is it like to compete without Simone Biles?’”

Jordan Chiles to Maria Taylor on unexpectedly competing in two events: “I was shocked, I was overwhelmed. After (Simone Biles) did her vault, (coach) Cecile (Canqueteau-Landi) had came up to me and was like, ‘Jordan, put your grips on.’ I was in so much shock that I didn’t know if she was being serious or not, so I was putting my grips on and I was just like, ‘What am I doing?’”

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ABOUT NBC OLYMPICS

A division of NBC Sports Group, NBC Olympics is responsible for producing, programming and promoting NBCUniversal’s coverage of the Olympic Games. NBC Olympics is renowned for its unsurpassed Olympic heritage, award-winning production, and ability to aggregate the largest audiences in U.S. television history. NBCUniversal owns the U.S. media rights on all platforms to all Olympic Games through 2032. NBC Olympics also produces thousands of hours of Olympic sports programming throughout the year, which is presented on NBC, NBCSN, Olympic Channel: Home of Team USA, Peacock and NBC Sports digital platforms.

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