'That's what it means to her/him!'...

[johnr]

...over a shot of the victor, is the most irritating piece of commentary there is.

[tee rex]

On a similar note, I sometimes wonder if football punditry (prattling) has seeped into commentators' brains. Sometimes they are themselves football commentators, after all.

"Who wants it more?" might have some meaning in extra time for the FA Cup final, when one team may indeed want it more, but it's hard to see how this extra wanting will assist two divers trying to synchronise their moves.

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

The taekwondo commentator was a keen soul but strayed into Jonathan Pearce territory at times today. "Bianca Walkden, from Liverpool, on a long and winding road to being one of the fab four on the podium".

[Snake Plissken]

Oh Christ, he was irritating. "The sound of Liverpool echoes around the arena" was probably only in the top 5 worst.

[San Bernardhinault]

"Who wants it more?" might have some meaning in extra time for the FA Cup final, when one team may indeed want it more, but it's hard to see how this extra wanting will assist two divers trying to synchronise their moves.

To be fair, in the little interview that NBC showed afterwards with Tom Daley (and Matty Lee, although he wasn't allowed to say anything apparently), Daley said "this time is different because all we did was visualise the gold medal. It's amazing the power of visualising things" as if the other competitors weren't doing that, and that he's the only one it occurred to and nobody questions what would happen if two different competitors did the same visalualising.

So, er, totally vacuous nonsense seems to have been the order all round in the synchro-diving. If the competitors are at it, why not the commentators too?

[tee rex]

It's quite hard to get much info about the OBS commentators (who I assume many of us are hearing, at least on some sports). Mark Watson is the annoying Kiwi who churns out the cliches on anything from slalom canoeing to BMX. Some are quite good, a couple of Aussies I don't know do the gymnastics and were basically telling Biles' trolls to sod off when she won the medal, good on them. My secret favourite is the posh horsey woman, because she is enthusiastically on everyone's side ("Well done you!" she exclaims, as the obstacle is negotiated). When so much commentary is tediously nationalistic, it's a nice change.

But their names are a mystery for the most part.

[ursus arctos]

That has to be a conscious choice and may be related to the fact that many of them are under contract to other non-Olympic outlets as well.