NBC has an age-old formula for its Olympics broadcasts: Crank up the tension, hype the world’s best athletes until they either win or crumble under pressure, and, in between, run dozens of tear-jerky athlete-backstory segments. Tie it all together with gleaming interstitial shots of the host city (as long as it’s not part of a despotic country). What corporate advertiser can resist forking over for all that?
NBC crews will have no trouble making Paris look stunning when the Games get underway on Friday. But the Eiffel Tower will have some serious competition from the backdrop for this year’s Olympic surf competition, 9,700 miles away in Tahiti. There, surfers will drop into a beautiful but terrifying wave called Teahupo’o, which loosely translates to “place of skulls.”
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