The Paris 2024 Olympics ended this Sunday afternoon (11), but Globo still had time to make one last mistake on Fantástico. When showing the event’s medal table, the broadcaster made a huge mistake and put the flag of the United Kingdom in place of that of Japan, which came in third.
The electronic magazine’s sports presenter, Alex Escobar, was responsible for showing the final positions of the countries in France – and, indirectly, was linked to the team’s decline. The United States finished first with 40 gold, 44 silver and 42 bronze medals – 126 in total.
The vice-leadership went to China: 40 gold medals, 27 silver and 24 bronze, with a total of 91 podiums. Third place went to Japan: 20 gold, 12 silver and 13 bronze – 45 in total.
That’s exactly where Globo stumbled badly. Instead of the flag of Japan – one of the best known (and simplest) in the world, as it’s just a white rectangle with a red circle in the middle – the broadcaster used an image that represents the United Kingdom – blue and red and white with the Union Jack.
To make matters worse, the British were only in seventh place – in other words, far behind Japan. The region under King Charles’ control had 14 gold, 22 silver and 29 bronze medals (65 medals in total). It was behind Australia, France and the Netherlands.
Brazil finished 20th with three gold, seven silver and ten bronze medals. The performance was lower than Tokyo-2021 and Rio de Janeiro-2016, when it won seven gold medals at each Olympics.
Globo’s mistake becomes a joke
Internet users did not miss the opportunity to mock the broadcaster for the serious error. “Did the Japanese flag change? I don’t know… it looks beautiful!”, Yanna Albuquerque joked on the social network X.
“Japan with the English flag in Fantastico”, said Guilty as Mary laughed. Evandro Silva added, “They put the English flag in place of the Japanese flag” – the two also confused England with the United Kingdom.
“Japan with the flag of Great Britain? What is this?”, asked Leandro Galvão. “Passed with the new flag of Japan”, joked Gazeta presenter Arthur Pires.
