Plus, she shares her favorite Olympic host cities.
Going into the Olympics, we all have a few athletes we’re rooting for.
But what makes us connect to these athletes we’ve never met and really only watch every few years? Katie has a clue. “NBC does a fantastic job of making us feel like we’re all invested in these athletes,” she says. “We get to know them, their backstories, the triumphs, and disappointments.” Getting to know the competitors is one of her favorite aspects of the Olympics.
Don’t forget, Katie’s covered the Olympics a whopping seven times, so she’s connected with her fair share of competitors. But some stand out. “There have been so many highlights,” she says. “I loved Gail Devers. She was an amazing athlete and had come back from a diagnosis of Graves’ disease. She fell during the hurdles, but received a gold medal in the 100 meters and ended up competing in FIVE Olympics!” she recalls. Katie loves her so much, she interviewed her again last year.
But Devers isn’t the only athlete who’s touched Katie’s heart. “I loved meeting Rulon Gardner, who came out of nowhere to win a gold medal in Greco-Roman wrestling in Sydney. Annie Leibovitz took our photo for Vanity Fair,” she recalls. Some of the Olympians she’s been most touched by are ones she watched compete from home. “When speed-skater Dan Jansen finally won a gold medal in Lillehammer after some heartbreaking falls (he learned his sister Jane had died of Leukemia on the day he was set to compete in Calgary, his family encouraged him to compete and he fell seconds into the race), he did a victory lap holding his daughter Jane on his shoulder, named after his late sister, it made me cry…and I wasn’t even there! I was watching from home.”
Of the seven Olympics she’s been to, she has her favorites. “My favorite Olympics was probably Sydney in 2000. I’d never been to Australia and I fell in love with the place and the people. Also, because of the time difference, we broadcast around 11 p.m. every night and there were a lot of spectators who’d been enjoying a few too many Foster’s Lagers and they’d always scream, ‘Aussie Aussie Aussie, oi oi oi!” Katie recalls. “Ian Thorpe was all the rage — he was a great swimmer.”
In terms of the cities she visited for the games, “Torino, the setting of the 2006 Winter Olympics was really fun because of all the chocolate and it’s the birthplace of the ‘slow food’ movement, so was ahead of its time. I also bought some nice Gucci boots there — on sale of course.” She continues, “I loved skiing in Salt Lake City, even though I’m not a very good skier, and Athens was wonderful too. I loved being in Atlanta because my sister Emily and her husband George came, along with my parents, so that was special.”
She adds, “Every city was such an adventure.”
