Bob Costas will step away from Olympic prgramming

[Adam]

Costas Steps Aside From Olympic Coverage

The infection in Bob Costas’s left eye appeared Thursday and spread to his right eye Sunday. When he woke up Tuesday in Sochi, Russia, with both eyes swollen and crusted shut, he told NBC that he could not host that evening’s prime-time Olympics broadcast.

“Both eyes were red and angry on Sunday and Monday,” Costas said by telephone Tuesday morning. Matt Lauer, who is in Sochi as the co-host of “Today,” will fill in.

Costas has been wearing glasses, instead of contact lenses, since NBC’s Winter Olympic coverage began Thursday night.

“It was increasingly uncomfortable with each passing night, but I could cope with it,” he said. “But last night until today, it got to where I couldn’t look in the bathroom light without squinting and blinking and my eye watering.”

On Tuesday, after waking up, he gingerly washed the eyes “to open them to a slit.”

[....]

Costas hopes the symptoms will abate enough for him to return to work Wednesday.

“If it were just a matter of discomfort, I’d be there,” he said. “Everybody’s been on the air at less than 100 percent or feeling lousy.”

The absence will end Costas’s streak of anchoring 157 consecutive Olympic prime-time broadcasts for NBC, dating to the Summer Games in Barcelona, Spain, in 1992, the network said.

It really has been kind of painful to watch him the last couple of nights. This is definitely the best move.

[Dallas]

~Dallas

[Frostbit]

~Dallas

Probably more like , "Don't splash it on your face".

[Dallas]

Dave Matthews band didn't have that song... so... yeah.

~Dallas