The 2012 London Olympics begin one of their busiest days Saturday morning, with Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova looking for tennis gold, beach volleyball continuing in the men and women's brackets, and the first events in track and field getting underway. There's swimming, too—Michael Phelps has a chance to win one more medal, with Missy Franklin also spending her last day in the pool. There's also team handball, if you find team handball as fascinating as I do. Here are the TV listings for Saturday's action, spread across a million NBC stations:
On NBC, live coverage begins with Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova competing for Olympic gold in women's singles at 8 AM. Track and field coverage begins at 10:15, interrupted by men's volleyball between Russia and Brazil at 10:45. The track cycling final is at 1:00, a USA men's water polo match is at 1:40, and you'll see the remaining rowing finals at 2:45. Beach volleyball closes out their live coverage at 4 PM.
Beach volleyball begins at 7 AM CDT on NBC Sports; after that you'll see cycling, as a palate cleanser, and then Team USA basketball takes on Lithuania at 8:30. Then you've got the brilliant Bryan brothers looking to bring gold to the US in men's doubles tennis, and at 1 PM Team USA will play New Zealand in field hockey. Equestrian and shooting follow, if you like that sort of thing before the 4 PM-6 PM matchup between Bulgaria and Argentina in men's volleyball. NBC Sports's coverage concludes at 6 PM, with a beach volleyball match between—you guessed it—Brazil and the Czech Republic.
MSNBC starts even earlier, with a men's soccer quarterfinal between Japan and Egypt. Men's water polo follows at 7:45, with Montenegro vs. Romania, then at 8:30 there's more soccer, between Mexico and Team Senegal. Then it's badminton, with Brazil/Honduras's soccer match sandwiched between—an all-China gold medal final in badminton comes on at 10:15, with the women's doubles final between China and Japan at 12:45. Quarterfinal soccer play ends at 1:30, when Great Britain meets the Republic of Korea (that's the one that's an actual republic.)
CNBC has boxing on from 2:30 to 5:30; no word as to whether Jim Cramer will be participating.