Eye Infection Forces Costas to Step Aside From Olympics Coverage

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The infection in Bob Costass left eye appeared Thursday and spread to his right eye Sunday. When he woke up Tuesday in Sochi, Russia, with his eyes swollen and crusted shut, he told NBC that he could not host that nights prime-time Olympics broadcast.

Both eyes were red and angry on Sunday and Monday, Costas said by telephone Tuesday morning. Matt Lauer, who is in Sochi as a co-host of Today, will fill in.

Costas has been wearing glasses, instead of contact lenses, since NBCs Winter Olympic coverage began Thursday night.

It was increasingly uncomfortable with each passing night, but I could cope with it, he said. But last night until today, it got to where I couldnt look in the bathroom light without squinting and blinking and my eye watering.

On Tuesday, after waking up, he gingerly washed the eyes to open them to a slit.

He added: You hear it called pinkeye or conjunctivitis, but, as a practical matter, I havent had it before. You have swelling and stinging and burning and eventually tearing. And last night was the most difficult night of the five. But when I left, I fully expected to be back tonight.

While in the NBC studio, he has treated the eyes with cold compresses in the breaks between taping his segments. Now, he will spend 24 hours in a darkened room, taking antibiotics and using eye drops, while still using the compresses.

Jim Bell, the executive producer of NBC Olympics, said: Its day to day. We hope and expect that it will just be one day, but we are prepared in case he needs a little more time.

Costas said he hoped the symptoms would abate enough for him to return to work Wednesday.

If it were just a matter of discomfort, Id be there, he said. Everybodys been on the air at less than 100 percent or feeling lousy.

The absence will end Costass streak of anchoring 157 consecutive Olympic prime-time broadcasts for NBC, dating to the Summer Games in Barcelona, Spain, in 1992, the network said.

Costas said he could not recall sickness sidelining him since he was supposed to host the broadcast of the A.F.C. championship game between Cleveland and Denver in January 1990.

I woke up that morning with food poisoning, which is as lousy as you can feel while knowing youre not going to die, he said. They took me to the hospital, and, as I remember, I took my suit thinking theyd stick me with an IV and Id still go to Mile High Stadium. But then the ceiling started to spin over my head. And I recall a nurse saying to me, with IVs in my arm: I know you from television. You look different.

Costass eye condition has produced a bit of a kerfuffle on social media, which Costas said he ignored, although he has joked about his condition on the air.

All I can sense, he said, is that people see this for what it is: that at the worst possible time, a guy comes down with something, and theyre sympathetic.

Bill Carter contributed reporting.

A version of this article appears in print on February 12, 2014, on page B17 of the New York edition with the headline: Eye Infection Forces Costas to Step Aside From Olympics Coverage.

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