(And so it ends, except it never ends)

If you heard a huge crash this week, don’t worry about it. It happens every four years, and it just happened again. That loud noise you heard was just the sound of a head-on collision as NBC’s waning coverage of the 2012 Olympics ran smack into NBC’s waxing coverage of the 2012 Elections, just prior to NBC’s pending coverage of the 2014 Winter Olympics.

No bystanders were injured in the collision; fortunately, dozens of colored pie charts were killed.

Those sneaky Greeks and their sneaky every-four-year’s games. Did they do this to us on purpose? Way back when, while they were thoughtlessly designing Olympic Games instead of going through Socrates’ medicine cabinet and clearly marking the “poison” vials, do you think they knew? Did they foresee that, centuries later and continents away, another democracy would design every-four-year Presidential elections … and then, like calendar masochists, schedule everything to happen during the same year?

In 776 BC, ancient naked people participated in the very first Olympic festival, which, according to the internet, was invented by Al Gore. The games were created to honor the gods and godettes that inhabited Mount Olympus, which, according to MSNBC, was invented by Barack Obama. Those original games were also covered by NBC, back when they were still a tiny start-up called NBG (Naked Broadcasting Guy). And, like our current Olympics, NBC had to deal with a bit of a time delay, while everybody sat around waiting for the famous emperor, Sid Caesar, to get born and invent the Orange Julius Calendar.

The first-ever ancient Olympics didn’t go very well, due to the first-ever wardrobe malfunction. (you didn’t really think all those Greek athletes were naked on purpose, do you?) But the second Olympic Games (Olympiad Deux) were rescued, thanks to the intervention of one Mittus Romnius, a self-starter from the outlying province of Mormos; a man who, like politicians, then and now, had a gift for managing armed naked guys. Contemporaries of Romnius called him a classic entrepreneur, which was a high compliment, given that nobody in BC had invented that word yet. Romnius also invented wind-proof hair.

Historical Sidebar: Generally speaking, that Mount Olympus crowd were just a bunch of loud, vindictive, pouty, pampered whiners, with access to insane amounts of power coupled with zero amounts of accountability. (In other words, they were the BC version of the US Congress.) However, the Olympians did possess one enviable characteristic: they were completely fictitious, which is a delicious concept indeed, especially when you consider the US Congress.

If you watched the tail end of NBC’s 2012 Olympics coverage, it was easy to tell that the Games were wrapping up, because NBC’s crew were desperately scrabbling for airtime filler that they could shove in-between the few remaining, less-popular events. NBC producers were frantically slapping together James Bond retrospectives, re-scoring World War II mini-documentaries, or analyzing the deep-set theatrical motivations underlying some of the character choices made by Benny Hill and Mr. Bean.

At one point, NBC went so far as to provide live coverage of Tom Brokaw making anagrams from British-y words, like Parliament, Lord Mountbatten-Smythe, and body English.

But all that remained for NBC, Olympic-wise, was to cover those “niche” sports that don’t require stadiums (or, to use the classical Greek plural for stadiums, angora).

And these last-day add-on sports are just not in the same popularity class as those timeless, “classic” Olympian crowd-swellers like track & field, swimming, soccer, and Mob Syndicate Badminton Wagering. No, these are the odd cousins; the red-headed step-sports. These are those back-page-of-the-program events that somehow, over the years, managed to sneak their way on to the Olympic schedule next to the “serious” athletic challenges, like running with a little stick, jumping over a high stick, and throwing a pointy stick. You know the ones:

Solo Rhythmic Gymnastics: This sport usually features a tiny female from a country named Belalugosia, dressed like one of the background singers at an Elton John concert, and sporting enough mascara to forge a fake visa for Tammy Faye Bakker. For three minutes or so, she repeatedly dislocates all of her joints, on demand, while waving a long pastel-colored streamer. After she completes her routine, she hops up and down, the mascara waves madly at the audience, and then both collapse into racking sobs. As one might.
Team Rhythmic Gymnastics: Here, we introduce Sir Elton’s full “Rocket Man” chorus, and add hula hoops. For the allotted time, the participants rhythmically gymnasticate in such perfect synchronicity that you would swear they’re computer-generated Belalugosians. And they do it all in time to abnormally unusual music. (I don’t know who selects this music; let’s just say that I wouldn’t want to see that person standing outside my window in a fading twilight.) And then sometimes, just to make a change, the gymnasts will lob what look like giant red Q-tips at the ceiling. As one might.
Full-Contact Speed Monopoly: Actually, I made this one up. But given some of the other stuff going on in the modern Olympics, I had to tell you I made it up, didn’t I?
Dressage: Here’s one that doesn’t even require an athlete at all. Now, I’m not saying horse riding has no value, in the grand scheme of things. I just don’t grasp the Olympic athletic value of watching horses jump over fake fences while being ridden by perky pony-tailed Posture Pals dressed like Cracker Barrel gift shop lawn jockeys.

But all weird things must come to an end – even Hunter Thompson-level weird things, like a major television network trying to pretend, in prime time, that its reruns of the Olympic Games aren’t reruns of the Olympic Games.

And so, now, NBC News must prepare to fly home, switch theme songs, huddle with their counterparts at MSNBC, and gear up for their analysis of the 2012 Presidential Election (quickly, though, before the 2014 Winter Games!)

Are they up to the task of covering a Presidential election with respect, with intelligence, and without pointy sticks? I’ll leave you with this defining Olympic moment, and let you be the judge.

In what is sure to secure them a Pulitzer Prize for investigative journalism, those hard news hawks at NBC broke this momentous sports story in the closing days of the 2012 Games: 16% of Olympic gold medal winners cry during the presentation of their medals. NBC analysts were also able to confirm that British athletes are the most likely to tear up, while athletes from China cry less than any other.

Ooh. Take that, Woodward and Bernstein.