Elliotte Friedman's Olympian gaffes shouldn't tarnish his work in sports broadcasting

There were three shocking moments during Thursday night's Olympic swim program at the Rio Games.

The first was that a CBC announcer would screw things up and award the gold medal in the men's 200 invididual medley to the wrong guy. 

The second was that the same announcer would follow that horrible gaffe moments later by misidentifying the eventual Canadian gold-medal winner in a historic race.

The third was that the guy who committed both broadcasting crimes was Elliotte Friedman.

Of all the announcers this country has produced, Friedman would have been among the last candidates you'd have expected to make a gaffe - any gaffe - and certainly not ones this big. Over his two decades in sports broadcasting, he has established himself as one of the most reliable reporters in the business; a conscientious, hard-working guy who almost always gets it right.

Until Thursday, on the biggest stage of his life, when he committed errors that overdubbing will erase on video, but will never fade from Olympic memory.

``You can’t deliver that performance on this stage," Friedman told Michael Rosenberg of SI.com on Friday. ``You can’t. It’s not acceptable. It just isn’t.”

At no time did Friedman try to hide, or point fingers - except at himself.

Despite making such an egregious error in the first race, Friedman instantly took to Twitter to apologize for somehow placing American Ryan Lochte first and Michael Phelps fifth, when in fact it was the reverse.

It was that ability to own up to his error that kept the usual online trolls from eviscerating him (mostly).

But it was the regard the rest of the media holds him in that brought out a flurry of support.

Friedman even refused to use an understandable and convenient excuse to explain his night from hell: He's a hockey guy who never called swimming before until he was thrust into the role when Steve Armitage's heart issues kept him from going to Rio.

“Not a chance,” he said. “And I would really appreciate it if you didn’t make it, either. You’re here to do a job. Do the job.

“We know the rules going in. If you’re gonna get the glory if you do well, you get the criticism when you do badly.”

Also to his credit, Friedman somehow overcame the error in Oleksiak's race and got the finish correct amid some confusion over a tie for gold.

It may have been what kept him from a career change.

“If I didn’t say that she’d won the gold, I would have been on a flight this morning and I would have gone home," he said. ``I would have quit. There’s no question in my mind.

``You can’t deliver that performance on this stage. You can’t. It’s not acceptable. It just isn’t.”

On Friday night, though, it was back to work.