Gabby Douglas, Aly Raisman and the Fierce Five gymnastics team headline NBCSN Olympic Games Week programming on Thursday.
NBCSN’s Olympic Games Week, featuring more than 100 hours of Olympic programming through April 26, shifts to Return to London coverage of the 2012 Games. All coverage also streams on NBCSports.com/live and the NBC Sports app.
Eight hours of coverage Thursday includes gymnastics -- women’s team final (7 p.m. ET), women’s individual finals (9 p.m.), men’s all-around (11 p.m.) -- and diving -- men’s finals (12 a.m.) and women’s finals (1 a.m.) -- plus the women’s water polo final at 2 a.m.
LIVE STREAM: NBCSN Olympic Games Week -- Thursday, 7 p.m.-3 a.m. ET
In the women’s gymnastics team final, Douglas, Raisman, Jordyn Wieber, McKayla Maroney and Kyla Ross became the second U.S. women’s team to win an Olympic title after the Magnificent Seven from 1996.
Some had dubbed them the Fab Five before the event, but the quintet preferred a more original moniker -- the Fierce Five -- coined by Maroney.
Two nights later, Douglas became the first African-American gymnast to win an Olympic all-around title.
Douglas completed a remarkable year. Ten months earlier, she missed the world championships all-around final as the third-highest-scoring American in qualifying and was used on one of four events in the team final. She was the only American to go on all four events in the Olympic team final.
The following week, Maroney earned a vault silver medal (and, perhaps more memorably, looked unimpressed on the medal stand). Raisman, the team captain, earned two more medals -- bronze on the balance beam and gold on floor exercise.
In the men’s all-around, Japan’s Kohei Uchimura completed a perfect Olympic cycle, adding gold to his three world all-around titles. American Danell Leyva rallied from 11th place after four rotations to post the highest scores of the night on parallel bars and high bar, snatching the bronze medal.
In diving, the U.S. earned its first Olympic medals since the 2000 Sydney Games. All three synchronized teams made the podium in events won by the dominant Chinese. Then, on the penultimate day of the Games, David Boudia performed the highest-scoring dive of the platform final on his sixth and final dive to take gold by a scant 1.80 points. Boudia had qualified last out of 18 divers out of the preliminaries.
The women’s water polo final pitted the U.S. against Spain. In the first three editions of Olympic women’s water polo, a favored U.S. team was relegated to silver or bronze in 2000, 2004 and 2008. This time, the Americans again appeared vulnerable, tying Spain in group play and needing overtime to get past Australia in the semifinals. They passed the final test, however, taking a 7-2 lead through three quarters and prevailing 8-5.
MORE: Full Olympic Games Week TV, live stream schedule
OlympicTalk is on Apple News. Favorite us!
NBCSN Olympic Games Week -- Thursday, April 16
| Time (ET) | Program | Events | Live Stream |
| 7 p.m. | Return to London | Women’s Gymnastics Team Final | STREAM LINK |
| 9 p.m. | Return to London | Women’s Gymnastics Individual Finals | STREAM LINK |
| 11 p.m. | Return to London | Men’s Gymnastics All-Around | STREAM LINK |
| 12 a.m. | Return to London | Men’s Diving | STREAM LINK |
| 1 a.m. | Return to London | Women’s Diving | STREAM LINK |
| 2 a.m. | Return to London | Women’s Water Polo Final | STREAM LINK |
