The Olympics Sap-o-MeterUsain Bolt might be the world's fastest man, but mom runs away with the night yet again.
By Josh Levin, Derek Thompson, and Chris Wilson Posted Thursday, Aug. 21, 2008, at 10:27 AM ETThe Sap-o-Meter team chatted online with readers about this project; read the transcript. The Olympics Sap-o-Meter is now a widget. Add it to your Facebook page or blog. Check out Slate's complete coverage of the Beijing Games.
Usain Bolt may have set the world record in the 200-meter dash last night, but another story line outpaced his performance in the final Sap-o-Meter tally: the dead-mom narrative. As American volleyball star Misty May-Treanor sprinkled her mother's ashes over the sands of China after winning the gold, NBC littered its coverage with enough treacle to overwhelm even the most hardcore Sap-junkies. The final tally: a blistering 53 Sap Points.
NBC's saccharine coverage can feel more like a marathon than a sprint, but Wednesday night had its own runaway winner—mom, with another 16 mentions. Like Bolt's dominating performance in the 200 meters, mom benefited from both its own strong performance and underperforming competitors. Dream, which as of yesterday had been neck-and-neck with mom for gold medal in sentimentality, lagged with a paltry four mentions. Picking up the slack, golden earned a record-high seven mentions, receiving a major boost when America's "golden girls" May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh topped the podium for the second consecutive Olympics.
Sappiest Line of the Day: "Misty, moments ago we saw you and your dad embrace and that you scattered your mom's ashes on the sand. Describe your emotions as you did that."—NBC's Heather Cox, asking Misty May-Treanor for insight on the peculiar way she's celebrated her Olympic titles
The Sap-o-Meter Tag Cloud
adversity
battled
cancer
challenges
courage
cry
death
dedication
determination
dream
emotion
glory
golden
hardship
heart
hero
inspiration
inspire
journey
magic
memory
miracle
mom
mother
Olympic-sized
overcome
passion
proud
sacrifice
spirit
tears
tragedy
triumph
For a primer on how the Sap-o-Meter works, check out our first entry. Did we miss your favorite moment? Send your Sappiest Line of the Day suggestions to .
Sap-o-Meter History
(click on any bar to read that day's entry)
Josh Levin is a Slate senior editor. You can e-mail him at and follow him on Twitter. Derek Thompson is a Slate intern. Chris Wilson is an associate editor at Slate in Washington, D.C. Follow him on Twitter. Illustration by Nina Frenkel. Interactive feature design by Matt Dodson.
Remarks from the Fray:
Fantastic! This is the literally the best meta-analysis of anything ever created! (Yes, I know I am using treacle-speak--which requires misusing "literally.") I have disliked the Olympics for at least 20 years because of all the inspirational stories. Just show the d*mn games! Every single person at the Olympics has an inspirational story; and, by God, NBC will make sure we know about it--ad nauseum. One theory is that the treacle make sports broadcasts more appealing to women thus increasing the TV ratings; I express no opinion on that theory.
Treacle has infected every other sport as well. "LeBron James's dog's previous owner's daughter's friend had cancer!" If you try to avoid the treacle by attending the games in person, you get bombast instead. Everyone uses the "LET'S GET READY TO RUMBLE" style in arenas now.
All the athletes and all the facilities may be better these days, but everything else is worse.
--Travis McGee
(To reply, click here.)
Sappy though the television coverage may be, has anyone else tried the online coverage? It is absolutely amazing. Not even an audio commentary -- just pure events. And you can watch many of them in their entirety.
The internet coverage is the The Best Coverage of the Olympics Ever.
--zzzuucx
(To reply, click here.)
You don't need a meter to detect the inanity of NBC's Olympics and other sports coverage. Just a pair of ears and an interest in the sport involved -- which their commentators typically are lacking.
But NBC is outdoing itself with the Olympics. The other night there was a woman's swim heat and one of the competitors was named "Miley". That caused the NBC commentator to completely ignore what was happening on screen and go off on a riff about Miley Cyrus and Hannah Montana. If you made up stuff like this in a novel, people would say it was too unbelievable!
--bubba_barry
(To reply, click here.)
Any chance of exporting the Sap-o-meter technology to Australia?
Trust me. Over-the-top, myopic and occaisionally nauseating Olympics coverage is not an exclusively American phenomonon. We might have to change a few of the key words or phrases to include gems such as "Aussie battler", "ANZAC Spirit" and "mateship", but otherwise I would love to run the Sap-o-meter over the 7 Network coverage.
--Downunder bloke
(To reply, click here.)
(8/16)
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Remarks from the Fray:
Fantastic! This is the literally the best meta-analysis of anything ever created! (Yes, I know I am using treacle-speak--which requires misusing "literally.") I have disliked the Olympics for at least 20 years because of all the inspirational stories. Just show the d*mn games! Every single person at the Olympics has an inspirational story; and, by God, NBC will make sure we know about it--ad nauseum. One theory is that the treacle make sports broadcasts more appealing to women thus increasing the TV ratings; I express no opinion on that theory.
Treacle has infected every other sport as well. "LeBron James's dog's previous owner's daughter's friend had cancer!" If you try to avoid the treacle by attending the games in person, you get bombast instead. Everyone uses the "LET'S GET READY TO RUMBLE" style in arenas now.
All the athletes and all the facilities may be better these days, but everything else is worse.
--Travis McGee
(To reply, click here.)
Sappy though the television coverage may be, has anyone else tried the online coverage? It is absolutely amazing. Not even an audio commentary -- just pure events. And you can watch many of them in their entirety.
The internet coverage is the The Best Coverage of the Olympics Ever.
--zzzuucx
(To reply, click here.)
You don't need a meter to detect the inanity of NBC's Olympics and other sports coverage. Just a pair of ears and an interest in the sport involved -- which their commentators typically are lacking.
But NBC is outdoing itself with the Olympics. The other night there was a woman's swim heat and one of the competitors was named "Miley". That caused the NBC commentator to completely ignore what was happening on screen and go off on a riff about Miley Cyrus and Hannah Montana. If you made up stuff like this in a novel, people would say it was too unbelievable!
--bubba_barry
(To reply, click here.)
Any chance of exporting the Sap-o-meter technology to Australia?
Trust me. Over-the-top, myopic and occaisionally nauseating Olympics coverage is not an exclusively American phenomonon. We might have to change a few of the key words or phrases to include gems such as "Aussie battler", "ANZAC Spirit" and "mateship", but otherwise I would love to run the Sap-o-meter over the 7 Network coverage.
--Downunder bloke
(To reply, click here.)
(8/16)