The Canadian swimming coverage for the Tokyo Olympic Games will have one familiar voice and one relatively new one.
Byron MacDonald, the longtime voice of swimming on CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation), will be joined by Rob Snoek, who teamed up with MacDonald to cover the Canadian Olympic Trials last month.
Seems like a good time to share that my Olympic PxP assignment has changed. I’ll be covering Swimming from Tokyo. It’s an incredible – and daunting – opportunity but I’m super excited to take on the challenge with talented & knowledgeable on-air partner Byron Macdonald. pic.twitter.com/ndlh620wVb
— Rob Snoek (@RobSnoekLIVE) June 23, 2021
MacDonald has been commentating swimming for CBC since the 1980s, and is also the longtime coach of the extremely successful University of Toronto swimming program and was the head coach of the International Swimming League’s Toronto Titans this past season.
This will be his ninth Olympics calling swimming (CBC didn’t have the rights for the 2012 Games in London).
In 2016, MacDonald worked with Sportsnet hockey insider Elliotte Friedman on the call for CBC in the pool after his longtime partner, Steve Armitage, couldn’t attend due to health issues.
For Snoek, while this will be his first time commentating Olympic swimming, he does have a wealth of experience covering the Games in other sports. At the Rio Games in 2016, Snoek did play-by-play for beach volleyball, and he also called snowboarding at both the 2014 and 2018 Winter Olympic Games.
As he noted in his Tweet above, Snoek’s swimming assignment was a late change, as he was originally slated to cover indoor volleyball in Tokyo alongside Paul Duerden.
Both MacDonald and Snoek have an athletic past as well, as MacDonald was an Olympic finalist in the men’s 100 butterfly back in 1972, while Snoek represented Canada three times at the Paralympic Games in athletics.
MacDonald did a great job as usual. However Rob Snock made MacDonald even better. Well prepared, informative and he cleverly injected humor. Well done to both of you, well suited together and made my Olympics swimming very memorable. Thank You and a big thanks to CBC.
Being married to one of Canada’s all time greatest swimmers “Mighty Mouse” Elaine Tanner have learned a lot about competitive swimming especially watching and listening to Byron MacDonald and Rob Snoek coverage of the Olympic heats and finals. Wow! These two guys especially Byron’s technical knowledge and fine details of each race and individual history of each competitor coupled with the way he delivers live on TV with Rob’s help is a GOLD MEDAL PERFORMANCE
Hey what happened to Steve Armitage?
Outstanding broadcast team. Byron is insightful, articulate, and stays on point during a race. This will be a preferred feed to watch over NBC’s highly edited “Rowdy The Screech Owl Show”.