Alex Morgan and Caitlin Clarke are not going to the Olympics

But back to that athletic competition. This is annoying. And the people charged with winning medals can’t be responsible enough to worry about eyes or ratings.

Emma Hayes has been tasked with turning around the fortunes of the U.S. women’s national soccer team. To do that, it can’t bring a roster to Paris that resembles the group that exited last year’s World Cup after winning only one of four matches. Alex Morgan, the American soccer public admires you, and you have earned that admiration. NBC would love to see your familiar faces on their broadcasts. No matter. You are staying at home.

The Paris Summer Games are still four weeks away, and like any Olympics they promise to deliver excellent performances from both well-known stars – Step Forward, Simone Biles, Katie Ledecky and Noah Lyles – and those we’re just discovering. Are. No Olympics are played according to a script, which is both the point and the beauty of the matter.

But it is also true that the US team has lost three real draws before the Games. The new women’s soccer coach, Hayes, opted to move on from Morgan, who is equivalent to the glory days of the USWNT, which, in Hayes’ eyes, can no longer provide that glory. Caitlin Clark, undoubtedly women’s basketball’s most outstanding star, did not make the Olympic team. And Ething Mu, the beautiful and attractive athlete who won gold in the 800 meters, fell during her event at the U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials, forcing her to miss the team in her signature event.

The Olympics aren’t going to succeed or fail because Alex Morgan didn’t make the football team or Athing Mu tripped on a track in Oregon. But think of it this way: The last three Olympics — the Winter Games in South Korea and Beijing, the Summer Games in Tokyo — were held in Asia, making the time difference in the U.S. uninteresting for many viewers to watch in real time. . The previous two – the Covid-delayed Japan Games in 2021, and the winter edition in China next year – were held in empty venues because the pandemic restricted fans.

Then, Paris must return to normalcy. But this is a new normal. Ever since NBC made its outlay to carry six Olympics from 2022-32, consumers have moved even further away from the single-screen, over-the-air viewing experience. Having more familiar characters to follow will help get more people to sit on the couches and turn on the television.

This doesn’t mean, of course, that Morgan should have made the football team or that Clark should have been in basketball. Mu’s fate, determined by the cruelty of track tests with no second chances, has become more cut and dried. Decisions with Morgan and Clark were made based on athletic merit. There is a cruelty in that too.

“Obviously, it was a difficult decision, especially given Alex’s history and record with this team,” Hayes said in a conference call with reporters. “But I felt I wanted to go in another direction.”

That direction is clearly young. Morgan, the mother of a 4-year-old daughter, will turn 35 next week. She is coming off the 2023 World Cup in which she started all four U.S. games and did not score. Hayes, a Londoner, isn’t here just because the Americans failed to reach the World Cup quarterfinals for the first time. She is here because – after a bronze medal at the Tokyo Games and poor performances in New Zealand and Australia last year – the program needed a reboot.

This is contrary to what women’s basketball operations require. Hoopsters have won all seven Olympic gold medals since the 1996 Atlanta Games. This year’s roster includes not only 42-year-old point guard Diana Taurasi, who is looking for her sixth gold medal, but also six more members of the team that won in Tokyo.

“Good perspective and continuity is a very important thing and that’s why we’ve been successful in the Olympics,” USA Basketball CEO Jim Tooley told The Associated Press.

The football team’s perspective: It’s broken, so let’s fix it. The basketball team’s perspective: If it ain’t broke, what’s there to fix?

Waiting to see if these tips work.

There will be a lot to see in Paris. The inimitable Biles will return to the gymnastics competition that tormented her in Tokyo. Ledecky will return to the pool trying to add to her seven gold medals in her fourth Olympics. Lyles will hunt on the track, searching for his gold in the marquee sprint race.

But the U.S. team that will take the boat down the Seine River for the opening ceremony will be without some of its most recognizable faces. This may not help in attracting the audience. But if it ends with more medals, who cares?