As a junior reporter at City News Service in Los Angeles in the late 1970s, I was once assigned to cover a meeting of the group planning the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984.
I had grown up watching the Games on TV, and it was pretty cool to be at an Olympics organizing committee press conference. I had no way of knowing it, but that assignment was, to paraphrase “Casablanca,” the beginning of a great relationship.
Ten years later I was reporter at the City Hall Bureau for the Toronto Star, covering Toronto’s bid for the 1996 Summer Games, which fell to the bid from Atlanta. Jump ahead another decade and I was in Sydney, waking up every day to a view of the famous Opera House and Harbour Bridge and coordinating a large Star group of journalists covering the 2000 Summer Games.
I would go on to cover six Olympics for the Star: Sydney, Salt Lake City, Athens, Turin, Beijing and Vancouver.
Yours truly at the Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver in 2010.
I was one of the lead reporters for “Skategate,” the Salt Lake City 2002 figure skating scandal that ultimately resulted in co-gold medals being given to the Russians and Canadians. I also played a small role in helping Canada improve its Olympic Games performances by asking a key question at the press conference that wrapped up the Athens Games in 2004.
Canada hadn’t distinguished itself at the Games in Greece, and I knew the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which runs the Games, was worried. The IOC likes the host country to do well, partly because it makes their citizens happy and partly because it encourages other cities to bid. I knew the committee was concerned that Canada wasn’t putting enough resources into its Olympic teams in preparation for the Vancouver Winter Olympics, which were just six years away. So, when the IOC held its final media conference after the Athens Games wrapped up, I asked IOC president Jacques Rogge if he was happy with Canada’s performance.
I knew what the answer would be before I asked the question, and Rogge didn’t disappoint. He delivered a strongly-worded missive advising Canada to get its act together prior to Vancouver. The headlines were all over the Canadian media the next day: “IOC Challenges Canada to Do More With Vancouver Olympics Approaching.” Within a few months, Canada’s “Own the Podium” program was launched; an effort (successful, as it turned out) to greatly improve Canada’s Olympic Games medal hauls for future events. I’m sure the issue would’ve come up fairly soon, anyway, but it was nice to ask the question that sparked all the headlines and helped spur Canada into action.
On more of a sporting note, I witnessed Usain Bolt’s awesome 100 meter and 200 meter victories in person in Beijing, as well as Michael Phelps earning his eighth swimming gold medal. And I finished it all off with a 14th row seat to the gold medal hockey game in Vancouver, when the hometown Canadians beat the Americans for a win that lifted an entire nation into a state of euphoria.
Over six Olympic Games, I probably only saw 12 or 14 events in person, as my main job was filing stories to our website, doing quick TV hits and promos for the Star, and organizing our sizable staff of reporters and photographers. I spent the vast majority of my time in the the main press centre, making sure we had everything covered while trying to ensure the journalists’ egos were properly massaged and that prime assignments were handed out (reasonably) fairly.
Still, they were glorious times. I rode around Athens on the back of a fellow Star reporter’s moped on a rare afternoon off. I got to walk along the Great Wall of China and stroll the famous arcades of Turin. In Sydney, I got to watch the closing ceremony fireworks over the famous Harbour Bridge.
I probably downed a thousand McDonald’s Chicken McNuggets over six Olympics, the press centre fare being quite limited most of the time. One day (and I’m not proud of this) in Turin I got into a fierce argument with another reporter at the international press hotel. It was a near fight over a slow-moving toaster, with each of us resolute in the belief that the half-baked piece of bread rotating at a painfully deliberate pace was theirs.
Covering the Games was beyond exhausting; often with days that began at 7 a.m. and finished at midnight. I was usually thousands of miles from home, with my wife left to take the kids to hockey and school events while I pounded away on my computer keys.
Opening Ceremonies at the Beijing Summer Olympics in 2008. Jim Byers Photo
But I loved it. I loved the adrenaline rush of beating our rivals with stories that I often would sketch out well in advance, filling in the blanks on deadline with the winning athlete’s medal colour or Canada’s medal count. I loved learning to say good morning to the volunteer workers in Beijing, Athens and Turin. Most of all, however, I loved being at the centre of the media world for a solid three weeks or, in some cases, a full month.
When you cover a World Series, which I did for the Star in 1992 and 1993, a lot of people in certain parts of the world care a lot. When you cover a PGA tour event with Tiger Woods, which the Star had me do several times, you’re on a lot of people’s radar. But, nothing, not even the World Cup, compares to an event that sometimes sees athletes from 200 nations compete on a global stage.
When you cover the Olympics, you get to see an athlete from a tiny country march into a packed stadium with his flag proudly draped over her or his shoulder, knowing that a half a billion people on TV are watching their every move. You get to see wildly successful wins (Bolt, Cindy Klassen, Ian Thorpe,) and, sometimes, are forced to write about horrible, gut-wrenching lows (the death of the Georgian luger in Whistler).
When you’re at the Games, you feel like you’re at the centre of a whirling hurricane for days on end; doing something most journalists and most sports fans, and even non-sports fans, can only dream of.
My view from press row after Canada won the gold medal in hockey at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Jim Byers Photo
Alas, some 16 years after my last Olympics assignment in Vancouver in 2010, I find myself with plenty of time on my hands and nowhere to go. A guy who has spent the last 18 years of his life as a full-time travel writer and galloped around the world at a record pace finds himself recovering from a November, 2025 stem cell replacement procedure made necessary by a shocking, out-of-the-blue diagnosis of bone marrow cancer that hit me like a ton of bricks last May.
But I’m lucky. I’ve got tremendous family support, and I’ve had spectacular (and free) health care at Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto, one of the world’s top cancer centres.
And, in a few short days, I’ll have hundreds of great reasons to turn on my television set every day. The 2026 Winter Olympics begin in Milan-Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy Feb. 6 and will continue until Feb. 22.
There will be the usual carping in the next few weeks about ice rink construction and athletes’ village deficiencies, and maybe even wonky toasters. But it will all come to a glorious end when the first athlete marches into the stadium to mark the beginning of the Games. There will be 16 days of triumph and heartbreak, of tears and unbridled joy.
I can hardly wait.
