Jeff Caplan’s Minute of News: The Olympic flame, snuffed

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SALT LAKE CITY — Usually – I may have to surrender my man card here – but usually, I get a little misty, and a tear might fall onto my cheek when they extinguish the Olympic flame. 

Maybe you also get swept up in the exhilaration and drama of the games, winter or summer. 

This time, with Breakdancing, Basketball and Simone Biles. Leo swimming in the pool. Lyle sprinting on the track. The sports you never think about like canoeing and the ones you can try at home like table tennis and trampoline. 

I love it and when they add the final exclamation point – the flame becoming a flicker and then becoming a memory – I get choked up. But not this time. Not a bit.

When it was time to extinguish the flame, there was no torch, no bonfire. Just Leo Marchand walking out.

In his hands, the swimming champion was holding a little gas lamp with an itty bitty flame. Maybe an inch. 

Six people formed a circle and they blew it out like a birthday cake. Talk about an anti-climactic finish. Everybody was saying “that’s it?” 

I got cheated out of my one cry.

Now I have to save tear  tear for 2026 and the Winter Games in Milan Italy. My eventual goal, from my bucket list, is to cry just a little bit in person at the closing ceremonies in 2034. It’ll be awesome. 

Jeff Caplan is the host of Jeff Caplan’s Afternoon News on KSL NewsRadio. Follow him on Facebook and X. 

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