yeah, i think that's important. last year (and this year again) we have the salthouse/lawrence beef, which i never thought was much of anything, being pushed as drama. it's not really to my taste, but on the other hand, what's a good angle for bringing new eyeballs and ginning up interest? i used to hate the saccharine human interest stories during the NBC kona broadcasts, so i'm glad we're not doing that.
a few other thoughts:
-
assuming that video was not staged, long comes off looking really foolish to me - he can dish it out but he can't take it. as mentioned, he's the one who famously proclaimed himself to have the "strongest legs in triathlon" and just 24 hours ago was tring to razz the norwegians while photobombing their track workout.
-the canadian in me (who hates confrontation) was feeling all of lionel's agony. in his shoes, i would also have just say there and smiled painfully.
-americans like to think they can talk trash, but as someone who lived/worked in the UK, i assure you that british banter is on another level. laidlow was just doing a regular friday night pisstake and it broke long in half.
otherwise: some potentially interesting matchups, but some that i'll likely skip. seeing the draws now, though, i think it's
far from being a rout for team europe.
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