Mike Tirico made a mistake but quickly corrected it.
An NBC anchor quickly apologized on social media for misidentifying the Martinique flag as the Palestinian flag during the men’s basketball gold medal ceremony in Paris.
Martinique-born France’s Mathias Lesole wore the island’s flag over his shoulders as he accepted his silver medal after losing to the U.S. in the final.
“You saw one of our reserve centers, Lessol, with the Palestinian flag draped over his shoulder,” Tirico told NBC. “We are certainly conscious of any representation of the Middle East conflict by our players who play in these games.”
The two flags have a similar white, green and black colour scheme, but Tirico confused it and apologised just minutes later given the obvious sensitivities surrounding the situation in the Middle East.
“I acknowledge as quickly as possible my error in misidentifying the Martinique flag as the Palestinian flag during today’s men’s basketball awards ceremony,” Tirico wrote to X. “They are similar yet clearly different, which is of great importance to all involved.”
“We apologise for the error and will make the correction on air during tonight’s primetime programme.”
The quick apology appears to have rectified what could have been a sticky situation: Most of the reaction to Tirico’s apology was in praise of the admission of error, rather than criticism of the mistake itself.
2024 Paris Olympics
The U.S. team defeated France, 98-87, in a memorable gold medal game, with Stephen Curry hitting four three-pointers with 2 minutes, 43 seconds left in the game to seal the victory for the Americans.
