Friday was the end of the three day lead-in to the Olympics where a couple of sports get underway but not very much is happening. From beginning to end the US action on Friday lasted only about six hours with a good break in there was well. On Saturday the action will be nearly nonstop from 7:30 AM to 8 PM with a bonus beach volleyball night cap three hours later.
August 5th Recap:
Archery
On the last day before the Olympics really swing into action there was just one event going on in Rio. The archery competitors all participated in a 72-arrow ranking round to set the seedings for the individual and team events to be held over the next week. The men went first and Brady Ellison was in top form posting a 690 that was second only to a world record 700 from Kim Woo-Jin of Korea. Finishing 15th with a 674 was Zach Garrett while Jake Kaminski ended up 31st with a 660.
Now if you focus on those seeds.. #2, #15, #31… you may quickly realize that they are closely bunched on the bracket. Indeed if Ellison and Kaminski both win their first matches they will face off in the second round. And the winner of that would face Garrett if he wins his first two matches. Unfortunately the US has three of the eight in one eighth of the bracket and thus only one will be able to reach the quarterfinals and try to medal. As far as matchups go it’s Kaminski vs. Marcus D’Almeida on Tuesday at 3:18 PM, Ellison vs. Ali Elghrari on Tuesday at 3:31 PM, and Garrett vs. Haziq Kamaruddin on Wednesday at 3:18 PM. I believe the round of 32 matches for all of them would be later on those days.
In the meantime the three will team up to try and secure a medal in the team event on Saturday. The US is seeded second after posting a score of 2024 and has a bye to the quarterfinals where they will face Chinese Taipei or Indonesia at 2:15 PM. The entire team competition is tomorrow so they will keep competing as the day progress if they advance.
On the women’s side the only one competing is Mackenzie Brown who was up and down at times in her ranking round but finished 19th with a 641 score. She’ll face Claudia Mandia in the first knockout round on Monday at 8:26 AM.
August 6th Preview:
All times ET!! All events should be available online via NBC’s Olympic website and apps (assuming a cable package that gives you access). What is live in ET/CT is often tape delayed in MT/PT. Yell at NBC for their ridiculous decision to tape delay an Olympics happening one hour east of ET, it’s insane.
Archery
As mentioned previously, Brady Ellison, Jake Kaminski, and Zach Garrett will begin the men’s team event at 2:15 PM against Indonesia or Chinese Taipei. Semifinals and a bronze or gold medal final will follow if the US advances. The archery matches should be live as part of MSNBC’s coverage from 2:15-5 PM.
Basketball
The first of many beatdowns of the Olympics is expected on Saturday when the US men face China at 6 PM. This matchup doesn’t feature much intrigue as these two sides met twice in warmups for the Olympics with the US winning by 50 and 49 points. The game will be shown live on NBCSN.
Beach Volleyball
It won’t be until 3:30 PM before beach volleyball gets underway for any Americans when Jake Gibb and Casey Patterson take on Jefferson Pereira and Cherif Younousse to open up their pool play. The sport will keep us up late on several occasions though and Saturday is one of them as April Ross and Kerri Walsh Jennings won’t hit the sand until 11 PM when they face Mariafe Artacho and Nicole Laird. The Gibb/Patterson match will air live on NBC as will Ross/Walsh Jennings later in the evening.
Boxing
Two Americans will enter the ring for round of 32 matches on Saturday. Carlos Balderas starts the lightweight division with a match against Berik Abdrakhmanov at 11:15 AM while Nico Hernandez has a late afternoon 4:30 PM matchup with Manuel Cappai in the light flyweight division. You might be able to catch the Balderas fight live on Telemundo while NBCSN will have them tape delayed as part of their coverage from 9 PM-12 AM.
Cycling
Cycling will begin on Saurday with the men’s road race, only 150.1 miles. Brent Bookwalter and Taylor Phinney will be racing for the US and the race will include Tour de France winner Chris Froome of Great Britain. It begins at 8:30 AM. The road race will be covered live by NBC during their coverage from 8-10:30 AM and by NBCSN in their coverage between 10:30 AM and 3 PM.
Equestrian
The start of the eventing competition will take two days to get through all of the dressage programs but two Americans are in the ring tomorrow. Boyd Martin is the first American out at 10:36 AM while Clark Montgomery goes at 3:14 PM. You’ll be able to catch the equestrian coverage on USA between 3 and 4 PM. One would think they might get Montgomery’s on live, but that’s not certain.
Fencing
The first gold of Rio in fencing will be handed out on Saturday in the women’s individual epee event and two American sisters are in contention. Courtney Hurley will start in the round of 32 at 9:45 AM against Yana Shemyakina while Kelley Hurley faces Nathalie Moellhausen at 10:15 AM in the same round. The other American is Katharine Holmes and she takes on Erika Kirpu at 9:45 AM as well. The round of 16 and quarterfinals proceed pretty quickly after the round of 32 before the semifinals and finals come later in the day. You won’t get much fencing coverage on TV tomorrow as the only scheduled coverage is the final on tape delay during CNBC’s coverage from 5-8 PM.
Field Hockey
Competing in the third straight Olympics for the first time the US hopes to build on a competitive showing in London as they open up with a must win matchup against Argentina at 4 PM. The US has defeated them in the Olympics four years ago as well as in the Pan American games so it’s a winnable matchup and with the top four in the group of six advancing a win in this one could be a difference maker in the quest for the quarterfinals where anything could happen. This one will be shown live on USA.
Gymnastics
While there isn’t really and drama about how the US team will do in qualifying for the men’s event (hint – they’ll make it) the real question on Saturday is how individuals do overall and in each event because Saturday’s qualifying round is what will determine who gets to compete for individual all-around titles as well as individual event titles. The US competes in the second group to take to the apparatus at 1:30 PM. Chris Brooks, Jake Dalton, Danell Leyva, Sam Mikulak, and Alex Naddour make up the team this year. Looking to watch it live? Your only chance will be online as NBC will delay their coverage until the evening telecast from 8 PM-12 AM.
Rowing
No medals at stake in rowing tomorrow as all we will see is the opening heats of several events. Gevvie Stone is in the second heat of the women’s single sculls which begins at 8:30 AM. In the men’s pair at 9:30 AM Nareg Guregian and Anders Weiss are in the first heat. Meghan O’Leary and Ellen Tomek will be in the second heat of the women’s double sculls at 10 AM while Anthony Fahden, Edward King, Tyler Nase, and Robin Prendes in the men’s lightweight four will have to wait to the third and final heat of the 11 AM event. Finally in the 11:50 AM women’s quadruple sculls Tracy Eisser, Megan Kalmoe, Grace Latz, and Adrienne Martelli will be in the second heat. Rowing will be covered in two places tomorrow, live on NBC between 8 and 10:30 AM and delayed on NBC between 3 and 4:15 PM.
Rugby Sevens
Rugby makes its return to the Olympics on Saturday with the beginning of the women’s event. The US will compete twice on Saturday, opening at 12 PM against Fiji and closing the day against Colombia at 5 PM. The Fiji match will be shown live on NBCSN while the Colombia match will be live on CNBC.
Shooting
The shooting events get underway with two events beginning and being decided on Saturday. Sarah Scherer and Virginia Thrasher will take part in the women’s 10m air rifle qualification round at 7:30 AM with hopes of advancing to the final at 9:30 AM. The other event being held is the men’s 10m air pistol with the qualification round at 12 PM featuring Will Brown and Jay Shi and that event’s final at 2:30 PM. The women’s rifle final will be live on NBCSN but there is no planned TV coverage of the men’s pistol event.
Soccer
Having already secured a win over New Zealand on Wednesday the US could more or less lock up the group by beating France on Saturday in their 4 PM game. The matchup of the #1 and #3 teams in the world according to the FIFA rankings could be a final four preview and was a great contest in 2012 when the US went down 2-0 early but rallied for a 4-2 win. NBCSN will be your destination for this game.
Swimming
Six events begin on Saturday with four of those ending later in the day and two more moving into evening semifinals. Things start off at 12:02 PM with Chase Kalisz and Jay Litherland in the fourth and final heat of the men’s 400m individual medley. Next up is Dana Vollmer in the fourth heat and Kelsi Worrell in the fifth heat of the women’s 100m butterfly at 12:28 PM. Starting at 12:48 PM Connor Jaeger takes part in the sixth heat with Conor Dwyer in the seventh heat of the men’s 400m freestlye. That’ll take a little while and it’s not until 1:32 PM that we’ll see Maya DiRado in the fourth heat and Elizabeth Beisel in the fifth heat of the the women’s 400m individual medley. The final individual event to start is the 2:04 PM men’s 100m breaststroke where Kevin Cordes and Cody Miller are together at the center of the fourth heat. The afternoon will wrap up with the US 4x100m freestyle relay team competing in the second heat of that 2:15 PM event.
In the evening we’ll see finals of men’s and women’s individual medley events as well as the men’s 400m freestyle and the women’s 4x100m freestyle. With no semifinals in those events swimmers will need a top eight time in the heats. In the other events it’ll be an evening semifinal so the heats in the afternoon only require a top 16 time to advance. The swimming events will all be live for ET and CT with afternoon heat coverage on NBC as well as the evening coverage.
Table Tennis
One of the more interesting potential storylines on Saturday will be that of 16-year-old Kanak Jha in the table tennis event. He starts the men’s singles competition with a matchup against Nima Alamian at 9:30 AM and would expect to have one more match later in the day if he wins. Jha is supposed to be a potential star but this is certainly not the Olympics where he will be in his prime. Lily Zhang opens her women’s singles competition by taking on Gremlis Arvelo at 10:15 AM while Jennifer Wu faces Eva Odorova at 11 AM. Much later in the day Yijun Feng is the last of the individuals to start as he faces Zhiwen He in the first round of the men’s singles event. NBCSN is planning to show the Zhang match on delay during their coverage from 1-4 PM while Jha’s and Wu’s matches will be on delay on MSNBC’s coverage from 2:15-5 PM. Any second round matches the US athletes would compete in would be shown on delay on NBCSN between 9 PM and 12 AM.
Tennis
It’s hard to talk about exact start times in tennis since matches do vary in length quite a bit and they don’t make any promises that you won’t be on an hour after the match before you started if it goes quickly, but we do know that Madison Keys will lead off the day with her singles match against Danka Kovinic. It’s a busy day for the US on the tennis court as in addition to Keys we’ll see Jack Sock take on Taro Daniel around 11:30 AM, Sloane Stephens take on Eugenie Bouchard in a tantalizing North American matchup around 2:30 PM, and three men’s matches around 1 PM: Brian Baker against Yuichi Sugita, Steve Johnson against Darian King, and Denis Kudla against Andrej Martin. Later in the day, not before 5:45 PM, Venus Williams will face Kirsten Flipkens. If it’s tennis you want it’s all live and on Bravo, though you’ll only get a single match at a time of course.
Volleyball
The US will start their quest to take home gold for the first time by battling potential 51st state Puerto Rico in their Olympic opener at 4:05 PM. Puerto Rico has never been to the Olympics so this will be a big moment for them. Telemundo will have coverage from the start while NBC will have most of it live but won’t have the very start.
Water Polo
Water polo will get underway with the US men taking on defending gold medalists Croatia at 9:20 AM. With four of the six teams in the group moving to the knockout round it’s certainly no must win for the US but it would be a great way to start their Olympics. The match will be live on NBC.
Weightlifting
The US only has four athletes competing in weightlifting in Rio and one of them will get it over with on the very first day. Morghan King will take part in the women’s 48kg competition at 6 PM. There is only one group of competitors in that weight class. Coverage of the event will be delayed on NBCSN between 8 and 9 PM.