Olympic dreams unlocked

When the Olympics come to your city, it’s not an experience you want to miss. I’m still coming down from the high, the amazing energy, and the joy of the the Paris 2024 games. For two weeks I felt like my job was Olympics in the same way that Ken’s job is beach. It’s hard to capture just how magical it was, but I’ve been able to put together a couple articles to share my experience:

I was honored to be invited by Olympics.com to share my experience on the official site.

I also captured some more thoughts on my OVERRIDE! Substack which is the companion site to my book. It was interesting to reflect on the experience and the athletes and how they embody this spirit of override, providing us with lessons and reminders to carry forward.

Being a spectator was a full-time job. I captured more in these Instagram posts:

I had the BEST TIME at the Olympics + Paralympics. It started with this video. I attended the Opening Ceremonies on the Seine for the Olympics (scoring a last minute ticket! It was VERY wet), 14 Olympic events (gold medal swimming, rowing—where my gold medalist teammate/friend was coaching!, gold medal slalom canoeing—surprisingly fun, gold medal women’s gymnastics—thanks to my book event! where I had my NBC debut because my seat was in front of Jordan Chiles’ parents, beach volleyball at Eiffel Tower Stadium, men’s road cycling did 3 loops in my neighborhood, track & field—purple track!, women’s road cycling did 3 loops in my neighborhood, more swimming—got to see UVAers!, table tennis—saw the French brothers!, diving, artistic swimming—aka synchronized swimming, taekwondo at the Grand Palais, gold medal women’s soccer—USA win!!!), 8 Paralympic events (wheelchair basketball, goalball—a blind/quiet sport, gold medal paralympic swimming—and learning the classifications, sitting volleyball—my 2nd NBC appearance, gold medal para archery, gold medal para equestrian at Versailles, para track and field, and gold medal men’s blind football at Eiffel Tower Stadium—a blind/quiet sport and France won!!!), the Closing Ceremonies for the Paralympics at Stade de France (were I bought 2 Paralympians beer and touched a medal!), Parc des Nations, Club France (such a celebration of French athletes!) and the hot air ballon (and rise!). I did it all within a very reasonable budget—manifest, baby! I saved all my coverage as highlights on Instagram.