As the first full day of the Olympics gets going there will be American athletes competing in events all over London. The first athletes to start will be competing in women’s shooting at 3:15 AM ET and the last to start will be beach volleyball that won’t start until 6 PM ET, almost 15 hours later. We’ll go event by event to talk about what they will be doing.
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It appears almost everything is available online at nbcolympics.com with the exception of the qualifying rounds for shooting.
All times mentioned from now on are ET.
Archery
The men’s team competition will take place on Saturday. As the 4th seeded team the US won’t begin competition until the quarterfinals begin at 10 AM. In the quarterfinals the US will either take on #5 Japan or #12 India, depending on who wins the round of 16 matchup. If the US wins they will move on to the semifinals at 11:40 AM, likely against #1 South Korea. If the US were to lose in the semifinals they would play in the bronze medal match at 12:33 PM. If they were to win the semifinal they would play for gold at 1:01 PM.
The most likely outcome on Saturday for the US is winning in the quarterfinals, losing to an amazing Korean team in the semifinals, and then playing for the bronze against France or China.
The format will involve each team of three athletes shooting four sets of six arrows (two per person). Highest total over 24 arrows wins. The tiebreaker is a three-arrow sudden death shoot-off. If that is tied the closest arrow to the middle is the winner.
NBC Sports Network will show archery from 11:15 AM – 12 PM and then some more at 5:45 until 7 PM.
10 AM – Men’s Team – Quarterfinals
11:40 AM – Men’s Team – Semifinals
12:33 PM – Men’s Team – Bronze Medal Match
1:01 PM – Men’s Team – Gold Medal Match
Badminton
The US will see their badminton competitors get underway at 3:50 PM when Howard Bach and Tony Gunawan take on Jung Jage-sung and Lee Yong-dae of South Korea. Jae-sung/Yong-dae are the 2nd seed in the badminton tournament. The competition does begin with a group stage where the top two move on, so Bach/Gunawan will continue to have a chance even if they do suffer defeat.
MSNBC should have coverage from 4 to 4:30 PM.
3:50 PM – Howard Bach/Tony Gunawan vs. Jae-sung/Yong-dae – Group Stage
Basketball
The US women’s basketball team will be starting their group stage on Saturday as well when they take on Croatia in the first of five group stage games. Croatia is playing in their first Olympics after they finished 5th at the 2011 EuroBasket, their best ever finish. They should be an easy first win for the US as Croatia is ranked 31st in the world currently.
The match will be on NBC and the special basketball channel.
11:45 AM – Women’s Group Stage vs. Croatia
Beach Volleyball
The first competitors to get underway for the US will be Josh Gibb and Sean Rosenthal at 5 PM when they take on Chiya/Goldschmidt of South Africa. At 6 PM Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh will begin their quest for a 3rd straight gold medal when they take on Cook/Hinchley of Australia. The US teams are expected to win both of these matches.
The beach volleyball matches are available on NBC live (men’s match) and on tape delay in the evening (women’s match).
5 PM – Men’s Beach Volleyball – Josh Gibb/Sean Rosenthal vs. Chiya/Goldschmidt – Group Stage
6 PM – Women’s Beach Volleyball – Misty May-Treanor/Kerri Walsh vs. Cook/Hinchley – Group Stage
Boxing
The draw is in for boxing. The US competitor in bantamweight, Joseph Diaz Jr., will start things off right away at 8:30 AM when he faces Pavlo Ishchenko of Ukraine. Later in the day the middleweight contender, Terrell Gausha will take on Andranik Hakobyan of Armenia at 5:15 PM. Both competitors will be looking to move on to the round of 16 on next week.
Boxing will be taking center stage on CNBC from 8:30 til 11:30 and from 3:30 to 6:30.
8:30 AM – Men’s Bantamweight – Joseph Diaz Jr. vs. Pavlo Ishchenko – Round of 32
5:15 PM – Men’s Middleweight – Terrell Gausha vs. Andranik Hakobyan – Round of 32
Cycling
The men’s road race will start at 5 AM in The Mall in London. Timmy Duggan, Tyler Farrar. Chris Horner, Taylor Phinney and Tejay van Garderen will be the competitors for the US. Tour de France winner Bradley Wiggins will be a part of the field and is expected to help push 2011 World Road Race Champion Mark Cavendish to a Great Britain gold. The race will be 250km (155.3 miles) long.
Cycling will be part of NBC’s coverage starting at 5 AM and finishing at 11 AM.
5 AM – Men’s Road Race
Equestrian
The equestrian competition gets started on Saturday at 5 AM when the first day of the dressage portion of the eventing competition begins. I don’t have any information on the order of riders, but the US will have Will Coleman, Riana Coudray, Phillip Dutton, Boyd Martin, and Karen O’Connor participating. The dressage portion will involve scores between zero and ten for ten required elements. An average of the judges will be taken to give a score between zero and a hundred. The number of penalties is equal to 1.5 times the gap between the score and a perfect 100. The three best riders during the eventing competition will be combined to form the team score so we will begin to see how that comes together as well.
Equestrian coverage will be available on NBC Sports Network at 1:45 for an hour til 2:45.
5 AM – Eventing – Dressage Day 1
Fencing
Three fencers will see their Olympics begin on Saturday at 5:30 AM with the women’s individual foil competition taking place. Those three are Lee Kiefer, Nzingha Prescod, and Nicole Ross. Their are only six matches in the round of 64, none of which will involve US competitors, so the US won’t see their day begin until 6:50 AM with the round of 32. We know that the Nzingha Prescod will be facing Aida Mohamed in the round of 32 at 7:20 AM and Nicole Ross will be facing Ines Boubakri at the same time. Lee Kiefer will take on the winner of Anna Bentley and Monica Peterson, the time is unclear at this point. The schedule for the further rounds are below. None of the US competitors would meet until the semifinals. The earliest the the US competitors would face a medalists from last year’s World Fencing Championship is the quarterfinals (Nicole Ross and Nzingha Prescod) and the semifinals (Lee Kiefer).
Fencing will be covered from 9-9:30 and from 4:30-5 on MSNBC.
6:50 AM – Women’s Individual Foil – Round of 32
9:10 AM – Women’s Individual Foil – Round of 16
10:30 AM – Women’s Individual Foil – Quarterfinals
1 PM – Women’s Individual Foil – Semifinals
2:10 PM – Women’s Individual Foil – Bronze Medal Match
2:40 PM – Women’s Individual Foil – Gold Medal Match
Gymnastics
The US men have been placed into Subdivision 2 and will thus begin their round at 10:30 AM. Each of the five athletes will compete on each of the five apparatus. The top eight total team scores advance to the team final, the top 24 individual total scores advance to the individual all-around final (maximum of two per country), and the top eight on each apparatus advance to the individual apparatus final (maximum of two per country). The US will see fierce competition between the five gymnasts (Jake Dalton, Jonathan Horton, Danell Leyva, Sam Mikulak and John Orozco) for the two individual all-around final spots but should qualify for the team final with ease.
The US gymnastics round will be part of NBC’s primetime coverage on tape delay.
10:30 AM – Men’s Artistic – Qualification – Subdivision 2
Rowing
Eight of the US rowing teams will start their competition on Saturday when they compete in the heats for their events.
Things will get under way at 4:30 AM when the women’s pair competition begins. Sara Hendershot/Sarah Zelenka will be in heat 1. The best boats in that heat will qualify for the final on Wednesday while the rest will compete in a repechage on Monday.
At 4:50 AM the women’s quadruple sculls begins and the US will be in heat 1. The same scenario of only the best boats reaching the final automatically and the others competing on Monday is in play here.
In men’s eight, which starts at 5:10, the US is in heat 1 and will again face the same format as the other rowers on Saturday.
In men’s lightweight four we finally see more than two heats! The US is once again in the first heat at 6 AM but the format is a little different. The top three boats qualify for the semifinals on Tuesday while the bottom two in the US heat will take part in the repechage on Sunday.
The men’s quadruple sculls teams will start at 6:30 AM and is in heat 1 facing the same scenario as the lightweight four team, with the repechage being on Monday and the semifinal on Wednesday.
The men’s pair team of Thomas Peszek/Silas Stafford will start at 7 AM and feature the same format as the previous event. The difference is that the pair’s team is in heat 2 which only has four competitors, so only one will be sent to the repechage instead of two.
In men’s single sculls, at 7:30 AM, Ken Jurkowski will be one of 33 competitors, so the event is quite different! Jurkowski is in heat 6 of the event and will need to finish in the top four of five to move on to the quarterfinals on Tuesday. If he finishes 5th he would head to either semifinals E/F which are used to seed finals E and F for determining placement way down the line or a repechage for a 2nd chance at the quarterfinals. The Olympic site indicates the later, but the numbers don’t make any sense for how it would work so I’m leaning towards the former. Hopefully it doesn’t matter!
Finally in women’s single sculls at 8:30 AM heat 5 will feature Gevvie Stone. In this event it seems the top four will move on to the quarterfinals on Tuesday while a couple repechages will be held on Sunday for the eight boats who don’t qualify from the heats directly.
The rowing heats will be covered on tape delay from 2:30 to 3 on NBC.
4:30 AM – Women’s Pair – Heats
4:50 AM – Women’s Quadruple Sculls – Heats
5:10 AM – Men’s Eight – Heats
6 AM – Men’s Lightweight Four – Heats
6:30 AM – Men’s Quadruple Sculls – Heats
7 AM – Men’s Pair – Heats
7:30 AM – Men’s Single Sculls – Heats
8:30 AM – Women’s Single Sculls – Heats
Shooting
Two competitions will start and two champions will be crowned on Saturday when the women’s 10m air rifle and the men’s 10m air pistol competitions take place. Daryl Szarenski and Jason Turner will take part in the 10m air pistol competition while Jamie Gray and Sarah Scherer take part in the 10m air rifle event. The qualification round will involved 60 shots in the air pistol and 40 in the air rifle. Each shot is scored to a maximum of 10 and the top 8 shooters move on to the final.
In the final there are only 10 additional shots (these scored to a maximum of 10.9) and the score is added to the qualification score to provide the final score.
The shooting will be covered from 6-6:45 on NBC Sports Network.
I don’t think the qualification rounds will be shown online at all, just the final rounds.
3:15 AM – Women’s 10m Air Rifle – Qualification
6 AM – Women’s 10m Air Rifle – Final
7 AM – Men’s 10m Air Pistol – Qualification
10:30 AM – Men’s 10m Air Pistol – Final
Soccer
After a successful start to their Olympic campaign, the US women will look to solidify their position atop Group G when they take on Colombia Saturday. A win by the US, which is expected, would likely lock them into the quarterfinals and move them one step closer to winning Group G and avoiding a potential matchup with Japan in the quarterfinals.
The soccer game will be available at noon on both the NBC Sports Network and the special soccer channel.
12 PM – Women’s Group Stage vs. Colombia
Swimming
The swimming competition gets off to a quick start on Saturday as six events get underway and four medals are awarded.
Starting at 5 AM, we will see the 400m Individual Medley heats. Michael Phelps will be in heat 4, Ryan Lochte in heat 5. The top eight swimmers by time from the heats will move on to the final later in the day.
Next at 5:26 AM the women’s 100m butterfly heats get going with both Claire Donahue and Dana Vollmer in heat 6. The top 16 qualify for the semifinals later in the day.
At 5:47 AM the men’s 400m freestyle begins with Conor Dwyer and Peter Vanderkaay both in heat 4. In this even the top eight will move on to the final held later in the day.
Then at 6:17 AM the women’s 400m individual medley begins and Caitlin Leverenz will hit the pool first in heat 4 followed by Elizabeth Beisel in heat 5. Once again the top eight move on to the final later in the day.
Next at 6:52 AM the men’s 100m breaststroke gets underway with Brendan Hansen in heat 4 and Eric Shanteau in heat 5. The top 16 will move on to the semifinals held later in the day.
The morning session ends at 7:16 AM when the 4x100m freestyle relay team will take the pool featuring a combination of Natalie Coughlin, Missy Franklin, Jessica Hardy, Lia Neal, Allison Schmitt, and Amanda Weir. The US will be in heat 1 and once again the top eight move on to the final later in the day.
At 2:30 PM, we will see our first medal awarded with the 400m Individual Medley final. Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte are expected to go head-to-head for the gold.
Next at 2:40 PM the women’s 100m butterfly semifinals get going with both Claire Donahue and Dana Vollmer likely involved. The top eight will move on to Sunday’s final.
At 2:49 PM the men’s 400m freestyle final begins with Conor Dwyer and Peter Vanderkaay both in contention.
Then at 3:09 PM the women’s 400m individual medley final begins. Caitlin Leverenz and Elizabeth Beisel are the two US competitors going for the gold in this event
Next at 3:30 PM the men’s 100m breaststroke semifinals gets underway with Brendan Hansen and Eric Shanteau likely competing. The top eight times qualify for Sunday’s final.
The first day will end at 3:50 PM when the 4x100m freestyle relay team will hope to swim for gold featuring a combination of Natalie Coughlin, Missy Franklin, Jessica Hardy, Lia Neal, Allison Schmitt, and Amanda Weir. The US will be in heat 1 and once again the top eight move on to the final later in the day.
Swimming will be covered on tape delay from 1:30 to 2:30 (heats) and the afternoon session will be shown during primetime. All of it will be tape delayed.
5 AM – Men’s 400m Individual Medley – Heats
5:26 AM – Women’s 100m Butterfly – Heats
5:47 AM – Men’s 400m Freestyle – Heats
6:17 AM – Women’s 400m Individual Medley – Heats
6:52 AM – Men’s 100m Breaststroke – Heats
7:16 AM – Women’s 4x100m Freestyle Relay – Heats
2:30 PM – Men’s 400m Individual Medley – Final
2:40 PM – Women’s 100m Butterfly – Semifinals
2:49 PM – Men’s 400m Freestyle – Final
3:09 PM – Women’s 400m Individual Medley – Final
3:30 PM – Men’s 100m Breaststroke – Semifinals
3:50 PM – Women’s 4x100m Freestyle Relay – Final
Table Tennis
The table tennis competition will start early for the US as Timothy Wang has to play a preliminary round match at 5:30 AM to stay in the competition. Wang will be facing Kim Song Nam of North Korea. If Timothy Wang wins his preliminary round match he will play Lin Ju of the Dominican Republic in the 1st round. Lily Zhang will star her run in the women’s singles competition when she faces Molnar Cornelia of Croatia at 6:15 AM. Finally Ariel Hsing will start her competition at 10:15 AM against Silva Yadira of Mexico. It appears if Zhang wins she would face #25 Kim John Jing of North Korea. If Hsing wins she would face #19 Ni Xialian of Luxembourg in the 2nd round.
NBC Sports Network should have the Wang match live during their coverage from 5 AM to 6 AM.
5:30 AM – Timothy Wang vs. Kim Song Nam – Preliminary Round
6:15 AM – Lily Zhang vs. Molnar Cornelia – 1st Round
10:15 AM – Ariel Hsing vs. Silva Yadira – 1st Round
1:45 PM – Timothy Wang vs. Lin Ju – 1st Round (ONLY IF WINS FIRST MATCH OF DAY)
3:30 PM – Women’s Singles – 2nd Round
Tennis
The US will see three of their four men’s singles competitors get underway on Saturday. Ryan Harrison will be the first at 6:30 AM when he starts against Colombia’s Santiago Giraldo. Next up will be John Isner at 8:30 AM when he takes on Belarus’ Olivier Rochus. Finally Donald Young will start at 10:30 AM against Italy’s Andreas Seppi.
Two of the four women’s singles competitors will play on Saturday starting with Christina McHale at 6:30 AM against Ana Ivanovic of Serbia. The other woman to start will be Serena Williams who will also take on a competitor from Serbia, Jelena Jankovic, at 9 AM
None of the US women’s doubles teams will take part in the competition on Saturday, but both of the US men’s teams will. Bob and Mike Bryan will get things underway at 12:30 PM when they start things off with a match against Bellucci/Sa of Brazil. John Isner and Andy Roddick will continue things at 2:30 PM when they face off against another Brazilian duo, Melo/Soares.
Bravo is the home for tennis coverage and will be on live from 7 AM to 3 PM.
6:30 AM – Ryan Harrison vs. Santiago Giraldo – Round of 64
6:30 AM – Christina McHale vs. Ana Ivanovic – Round of 64
8:30 AM – John Isner vs. Olivier Rochus – Round of 64
9 AM – Serena Williams vs. Jelena Jankovic – Round of 64
10:30 AM – Donald Young vs. Andreas Seppi – Round of 64
12:30 PM – Bob Bryan/Mike Brayn vs. Bellucci/Sa – Round of 32
2:30 PM – John Isner/Andy Roddick vs. Melo/Soares – Round of 32
Volleyball
Finally the US Volleyball team will start their group stage when they take on South Korea. South Korea is back at the Olympics after missing out on Beijing. They have finished outside of the top ten at the last two Volleyball World Championships, so the US should be expected to win.
The Volleyball match will be available live on NBC from 3 PM to 5 PM.
3 PM – Women’s Group Stage vs. South Korea
