Bob Costas Announces He’ll No Longer Anchor NBC’s Primetime Olympics Coverage

Bob Costas joined Today on Thursday to make a special announcement: He will no longer be primetime host of NBC’s Olympics coverage. Costas worked his first Olympics in Seoul, South Korea, in 1988. He then became the primetime host for the Barcelona Olympics in 1992, and has been doing it ever since. Costas said he’ll be handing the reins (notice the avoidance of “passing the torch”) to Mike Tirico.

“I’m gonna be like the rest of the country watching Mike Tirico, who will be an able successor, for the Winter Olympics in South Korea, starting a year from today,” Costas said.

Through his nearly 30 years of covering the Olympics for NBC, there’s one moment in particular that stands out from all the rest.

“I always go with Muhammad Ali lighting the torch in 1996 in Atlanta,” Costas said, adding, “When he stepped out of the shadows and Janet Evans handed him that torch and you saw him trembling that way, somehow even in that condition, he was just as charismatic and magnetic as he’s ever been. And even in silence, speech having been taken away, he was just as profound in his own way as he was when he was at his most vocal.”

Meet the adorable and hilarious Family Feud contestant who had Steve Harvey cracking up:

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