NBC Olympic president defends Leigh Diffey over men’s 100-meter call

Leigh Diffey became one of the key people within NBC’s Olympics coverage this year after he went out on a limb during the men’s 100-meter sprint and initially called the wrong winner.

Noah Lyles ultimately won the gold medal, but Diffey gave the edge to Jamaican athlete Kishane Thompson in the immediate aftermath of the photo finish.

But don’t expect NBC to lose faith in Diffey over one tricky call.

In an interview on the Sports Media with Richard Deitsch podcast, released Thursday, NBC’s president of Olympics production, Molly Solomon, praised Diffey for being “bold” and rallying to hold the rest of the big track and field events in Paris to his usual high standards.

“We’ve always known that our track and field team is A-plus plus plus, but just to shout out Leigh Diffey, he’s a race caller,” Solomon said. “And you have to be bold; you have to be out there. It’s the same thing in all of motorsports. And he knows that, and both he and Ato (Boldon) thought that the Jamaican won.”

Solomon understands that Diffey may have confused audiences at home or interrupted Lyles’ moment, but she believes Diffey has to maintain his fearless style as a broadcaster to continually rise to the moment.

“Perhaps should he have been a little more conservative? Perhaps,” she added. “But when you start to reign that in, you’re not going to get all the other great calls, including my favorite, the 1,500-meter with Cole Hocker.”

In that 1,500-meter race, Diffey was on top of each moment as Hocker made a last-second push for gold. As Lyles got bronze in the 200-meter, Diffey patiently waited before calling the winner as Lyles caught his breath on the ground.

As egregious as some believed Diffey’s mistake to be, he ultimately cleared up the confusion around the 100-meter finish and rallied to make his NBC bosses happy at the Olympics once again.

[Sports Media with Richard Deitsch]