An announcer at the Winter Olympics has issued an apology for the comment he made that was caught on a hot mic.
NBC announcer Todd Richards was announcing the Men’s Big Air snowboarding final over the weekend. He was not very entertained by the competition. Richards was caught on a hot mic trashing the competition, saying it was boring.
“That was boring. That was so boring. The qualifier was more exciting” he was caught saying on a hot mic on the Peacock broadcast.
The former Olympic snowboarder quickly went viral for his comments. He has since apologized, though.
NBC/Getty Images
Richards issued an apology for his comments on social media. He made it clear that he wasn't trying to insult any of the athletes.
Olympics announcer issues apology
“This had nothing to do with the athletes, it had everything to do with the drama that went down in qualifiers, we had Val Guseli getting the call-up four hours before the event,” Richards said in his the video, transcribed by Awful Announcing. “We had all kinds of different creative tricks being done, butters off the lip, different kinds of axis of rotation, all these riders trying to get it by doing creative spins. In the final? A lot of people fell, and a lot of people truly did the same trick.”
“It has nothing to do with what these athletes do because the riders come out here and they throw down. I have the utmost respect for them. It really just lent itself to the format, and I thought the qualifier had a lot more excitement,” Richards continued. “I apologize if anyone took that as if I was calling out any of the riders out there because it truly wasn’t about them. These guys are my heroes, they are my friends, they are my colleagues, and they are all rippers. So, huge shout-outs to everyone who came out here tonight and threw down.”
The competition finished with Japan’s Kira Kimura winning the gold medal, Japan’s Ryoma Kimata earned a silver medal and China’s Su Yiming winning the bronze medal.
The 2026 Winter Olympics continue on Monday.