DID RACISM COST US MEN GYMNASTICS MEDAL?

I watched the men's gymnastic team competition last night. (I always watch the next day so I can skip the ads.) Both the night of the medal competition and the night of the qualifying, I noticed that the US team was ignoring the only Black member of the team. It was especially apparent the night of the team competition.

The British team was also ignoring its minority member, but one of the British coaches was making sure that the minority member knew that the coach was really supportive. The coaches for the US team mostly also ignored the Black member of the team.

This kind of exclusion is NOT good for team moral.

Additionally, the night of the team competition, the male NBC commentator for men's gymnastics, a former gymnast, made disparaging remarks about the Chinese performance. Several times, after a particularly strong disparaging remark from the man, the female gymnast pointed out how well the Chinese were doing. The man's disparaging remarks did not correlate to the performance being presented. As it became clear that the Chinese were going to win, the disparaging remarks became less frequent. But it looked to me as if the disparaging remarks were because the performer was Chinese, not because the performer was actually doing a bad job.