Five-time Olympic gold medalist Missy Franklin will make her broadcast debut at this weekend’s opening stop of the FINA Champions Swim Series in Guangzhou, China.
The 23-year-old will work as an analyst alongside Steve Schlanger of NBC.
The broadcast will begin at 8 am ET on Saturday and 7:30 am on Sunday and will be live on The Olympic Channel along with the NBC Sports app and NBCSports.com.
Franklin announced her retirement from the sport back in December after dealing with numerous health issues that dated back all the way to 2014. In addition to her five Olympic golds, she retired with eleven LC World titles, including a historic six at the 2013 Championships in Barcelona.
The competition this weekend brings an intriguing new format that will feature just four swimmers in each timed final event and prize money on the line. The winner of each race earns $10,000 USD, followed by $8,000 for second, $6,000 for third, and $5,000 for fourth.
The athletes competing received invites, with only the 2016 Olympic medalists, 2017 World medalists, world record holders, and the highest ranked swimmers in the world this year getting the call.
This will be the first of three stops, as the series will move to Budapest May 11-12 and then Indianapolis May 31- June 1.
The Americans scheduled to compete this weekend are Michael Andrew, Anthony Ervin, Dana Vollmer, Kelsi Dahlia, and Molly Hannis. For a full preview of the meet click here.
I would hope that when Missy reviews the tape of her broadcasts that she will take a piece of paper and count the number of “absolutely”s vs the number of “phenomenal”s over the course of the two shows. Everyone has to start somewhere, but a very limited vocabulary is a hindrance.
BTW, she was not “at” the meet in Guangzhou, any more than broadcasts were “from” Budapest last year or Japan this year [SCM Worlds], but in a Colorado studio [convenient for Missy] using a live feed from the competitions.
Dara Torres is an excellent commentator, not sure why she isn’t doing it. I heard her doing some swimming on the radio for Westwood 1 and she was great.
What makes for good commentary for the sport of swimming?
Here’s a race where I think they nailed it. The two commentators complemented each other to tell the story of the 200 fly between Chad LeClos and Michael Phelps at London 2012.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGMoYB8ORYo
Nicole Livingstone and Bruce McAvaney
insane to think she’s still only 23 years old.
And doesn’t swim for three years already.
Good luck Missy! You will do great.
Missy be like Ian Thorpe looking down at the flailing arms drifting further & further from their 144s / 3.40 & 155/ 2.04 . ‘Lane 4 is doing their best .’
New game. Take a drink when she uses like in a sentence
Alcohol poisoning, hospital, stomach pump, more alcohol poisoning, hospital, death.
Not if you drink orange juice 😉
….then severe acid reflux……
Livestream Andy is waaaaaayyyyyy sexier