(Image Source: Los Angeles Times )

BY MATTHEW PICHT

 

ANCHOR LAUREN GORES


In an astonishing victory Thursday night, Team USA’s Tyler Clary broke an Olympic record. He took the gold medal from fellow American Ryan Lochte in the 200 meter backstroke. It was Clary’s first gold, and a triumphant moment for the young swimmer – so triumphant, in fact, Clary decided to relive the experience on Twitter.

Taking advantage of the tape delay, the 23-year-old tweeted along with NBC’s coverage of his gold medal win. Clary told his followers about his warmup routine, thoughts during the race, and his post-victory gratitude for his high-school swimming coach.

In an NBC interview the following morning, Clary characterized his Twitter activity as adding a supplementary narrative to the official broadcast.

“Because of the tape delay last night, I was able to actually tweet what I was thinking during certain parts of the coverage, and give the fans a little bit of the inside scoop while things were happening on TV.”

But a writer for SportsGrid views Clary’s coverage as a deliberate slap in the face to NBC’s heavily-criticized decision to delay Olympic coverage until prime-time.

“This was just his convoluted way of saying ‘I’m going to “live tweet” my race because I can, NBC’, right? … You haven’t gotten the best of us yet, tape delay. Not until Tyler Clary says so.”

Not everyone sees it that way.  SB Nation editor Ryan Hudson says that, posturing aside, Clary’s “live” coverage is one of the best usages of social media these Olympics have seen yet.

(GFX_SBNation)
“London 2012 marks the first Olympiad with a real, impactful influence from Twitter and Facebook. But so far, all that has resulted from that is tweets complaining about spoilers and/or NBC's tape-delay decisions … Until Thursday night.”


After his gold medal win, Clary says he’s planning to compete for a spot in the 2016 Rio Olympics.