The Sports Report Olympics edition: Opening ceremony is best ever

Welcome to our Olympic newsletter on the first real day of competition. I’m John Cherwa and I’ve never watched an opening ceremony that was as creative as the one in Paris. Now it’s time for competition.

There are lots of reviews of the opening ceremony plus the reports from our staff on-site. So, I’ll just offer some random thoughts watching the opening ceremony live from afar. The primetime show was much tighter and and eliminated the slow parts.

—Best opening ceremony ever, despite the non-stop rain. We’ve come a long way from 84 grand pianos in the L.A. Coliseum peristyle in 1984.

—Glad I’m not the artistic director for the LA28 opener. You better be upping your game. Let’s see, Seine or L.A. River? OK, anybody got any other ideas.

—Once you disavow yourself of the notion that most everything has to be live, it really opens your options.

—We’ll forgive the fact that Lady Gaga is not French, we think the people of France have too. She was fantastic, as always.

—Many great moments in Paris but in 2012 when James Bond (Daniel Craig) escorted Queen Elizabeth II to the London Games first by helicopter and then pretending to parachute into the ceremony has yet to be topped.

—The tribute to menage a trois was both edgy and unexpected. Although it would have been funnier if it were a man, a woman and a French poodle. (But no funny business with the dog.)

—Watching at home, I didn’t mind the rain a bit.

—What were the Minions doing in the opening? Oh, that’s right, NBCUniversal. The Minions stealing the Mona Lisa was a pointless bit that was easily the low point of an otherwise terrific opening ceremony.

—Kelly Clarkson, whose syndicated show is distributed by NBCUniversal, (see a theme here) added nothing to the broadcast. Peyton Manning added even less. But they didn’t get in the way.

—As the ceremony went on, you could see it was losing some of its allure because of the heavy rain.

—The finish of the torch run seemed to go on forever. But it was well forgotten with the rising cauldron and Celine Dion. She was beyond belief and a great moment to finish on.

—I would love to have the Robitussin concession in Paris for the next week.

Has the Mona Lisa ever been stolen?

Now that you wondered, we asked our uncredited co-author Mr. Google, who reported that the painting was stolen in 1911 by an employee at the Louvre, who wanted to return it to Italy. Obviously, he was caught and the work of art was undamaged. Now, what Dan Brown has planned for the Mona Lisa remains to be seen.

Planning your day

There will be 24 sports in competition today, 21 of them for the first time these Games. It’s a fact, if you sleep like a normal person, you will miss some live events. But, don’t worry, if anything happens, NBC and its various platforms, will catch you up. For example, as you are reading this, you missed the U.S. men’s team gymnastic qualifying. It went at 2 a.m. PDT. The women’s synchronized springboard diving also went at 2 a.m.

Likely, the top watch today will be swimming finals, which will be on between 11:52 a.m. and 12:44 p.m. But feel free to join the broadcast at 11:45 a.m. or so. One thing about the swimming, and most events at the Olympics, is they go on time. Very tight schedule. Katie Ledecky competing in the women’s 400 freestyle will be the marquee final today and will also come up first. She’s trying to up her total of 10 Olympic gold medals. No need to watch the qualifying heats.

If you watch all of the men’s soccer match between the U.S. and New Zealand, which starts at 10 a.m. PDT, you’ll miss the start of the swimming. If the U.S. loses this match, it’s all but over. No knockout round likely in its future.

Unfortunately, there is another high interest event during that time window, the men’s street skateboarding. That’s the event that Nyjah Huston should dominate as he is, by some standards, the best on the world. He had a bad day in Tokyo three years ago and didn’t medal.

If you are up early enough, the U.S. plays Greece in women’s water polo at 6:35 a.m. Check our TV listings for the channel you can find these events. Or go to Peacock where you can find it all.

Gold for Hoda Kotb

We call this mostly daily feature the “downfall of journalism” as we chronicle the number of times “journalist” Hoda Kotb hugs an athlete. She picked up one on Thursday, but she was in gold-medal form on Friday with five more, mostly from her visit to the Team USA Welcome Center. (Note: we do not count double hugs on the same person on the same day.) She pressed cotton with three members of the U.S. BMX team and U.S. sprinters Noah Lyles and Tamari Davis. All were full frontal hugs, unlike the side-hug she had with Davis on Thursday.

The hug total:

Kotb with U.S. athletes: 6

Lester Holt with Jill Biden (or others): 0

Savannah Guthrie with athletes: 0

Times reporter David Wharton with athletes: 0

Must-read links

Let’s catch up on some stories you might have missed, but shouldn’t have:

Your TV guide

How can you watch the Games today? Check out Saturday’s Olympic TV listings.