The London Olympics opened today.
Nothing like sitting down with a beverage and spending a couple hours watching people shoot air rifles at targets. Then again, who could have predicted that poker would make good TV.
Anyway, I hate to start a controversy before the competitions are in full swing. Yet, in the spirit of hard-hitting storytelling you’ve come to expect from this corner, I feel an obligation to point out the conflicting reports in the number of athletes that the United States sent to London.
If you go to the Team USA website, you’ll find a serious looking Michael Phelps with words announcing the 529-member USA team.
But if you scroll over the adjacent video, we find out that we’re about to meet 530 athletes.
What the heck is going on?
Is it 529 or 530?
And if it’s the latter, I want to know who that 530th athlete is.
It turns out that the discrepancy in count is confusing the media as the storytelling marches on.
There are stories highlighting the 529 athletes representing America like this USA Today story.
And there are stories touting the USA’s 530 athletes like this Reuters story:
I don’t want to go “Oliver Stone” on you, but there’s something very peculiar going on.
I will keep investigating.