Is the Internet Ruining the Olympics?

It was bound to happen. There are dozens of sports and hundreds of events in the 2012 Summer Olympics all happening over the pond in a different time zone.

On Monday, minutes before airing Missy Franklin’s time-delayed victory in the 100-meter backstroke, NBC ran a promo for Tuesday morning’s Today show that announced, “When you’re 17 years old and win your first gold medal, there’s nobody you’d rather share it with,” and showed footage of Franklin standing on the medal stand with her gold medal, as well as reuniting with her parents, effectively ruining the suspense for viewers.

CNN announcers have said, "Spoiler alert!" before announcing Olympic results and asking viewers to mute, then showing still photos of American athletes holding up their medals. A lot of good the mute button does in that case.

NBC and everyone else on the web can only post so many spoiler alerts.

Does the up-to-the-minute information everywhere you turn on the web annoy you so much that it's a deterrent from watching the tape-delayed Olympics on TV or is just a reality that people need to deal with?

After all, the Summer Olympics only comes around every four years. If you love gymnastics, isn't it still an awesome experience to see the women's team win the gold, even if you knew the results eight hours earlier, or does it kill that element of suspense?

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