Elon College alumni work 2024 Summer time Olympics

Elon alumna Zora Stephenson ’15 received to spend her summer time exploring the streets of Paris together with her husband and witnessing historical past. As a reporter for NBC Sports activities, she received a front-row seat to moments corresponding to Simone Biles’ All-Round gold medal win.

Stephenson was busy all through the Paris Video games the place she was a sideline reporter for gymnastics on each the daytime and primetime broadcast, together with being the sideline reporter for the Knockout Stage of Olympic basketball. She additionally hosted a each day podcast referred to as The Podium, which she recorded in her lodge room on daily basis. 

Stephenson had a nonstop schedule through the Olympics because of juggling a podcast, researching and making ready for her reporting assignments, discovering time to work out and spending her days and nights on the numerous Olympic arenas masking excessive profile occasions.

After working as a distant social media host within the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, the Paris Video games was the primary on-site Olympics that Stephenson labored at. She stated it was an unbelievable expertise.

“The Olympics are simply magical,” Stephenson stated. “It is a kind of issues you must expertise it to grasp, however for a number of weeks, it is like the entire world comes down and celebrates each other and cheers for each other and has pleasure for the place they’re from. There’s so many issues that go on on the earth that divide us, however the Olympics brings us collectively.”

Stephenson noticed some unbelievable moments for the U.S. whereas reporting on the Olympics. She witnessed the ladies’s gymnastics staff profitable gold, the lads’s gymnastics staff profitable bronze and each gold medal video games for basketball. She additionally interviewed gamers like Lebron James after the lads’s basketball semifinal, the place Group USA was down by 17 factors to Serbia and got here again to win in a final second thriller. 

Stephenson stated her favourite a part of working the Olympics was with the ability to see greatness up shut.

“You may’t assist however be impressed by these people and their tales, and hopefully you inform their journeys in one of the best ways doable,” Stephenson stated.

Caroline Brehman ’18 additionally spent her summer time in Paris masking the Olympics. Brehman photographed numerous occasions for EPA Pictures.

Brehman stated her schedule relied on the day, some days working over 12 hours after which different days for 4 or 5. 

“I had some actually early mornings and a few actually late nights so on a regular basis was totally different,” Brehman stated.

Brehman stated the hectic and unpredictable schedule could be very tiring.

“It is a variety of enjoyable, however it’s additionally exhausting,” Brehman stated. “I’ve very supportive family and friends who’re interested by what it is like, and I have never had a variety of time to speak with them and catch up.”

Brehman stated her favourite occasion to {photograph} was gymnastics as a result of it’s such a visible sport and since it was cool to see Simone Biles up shut.

Brehman stated she would like to {photograph} one other Olympics.

“I am unhappy it’s virtually over,” Brehman stated. “It seems such as you’re away at summer time camp in a method. You are seeing all these totally different folks and all you are specializing in is that this and I do not wish to have to return and take care of the whole lot else I’ve left behind. So I might positively like to shoot one other Olympics.”

One other alumna who represented Elon on the Summer time Olympics was Ellie Whittington ’18. Whittington wasn’t in Paris, nevertheless, however working in Stamford, Connecticut, at NBC Sports activities headquarters and helped create content material in-studio and working numerous social media accounts. 

Whittington had an intense schedule, working a 13-hour shift from midday to 1 a.m. Throughout her shift, she coated numerous occasions stay as they occurred and created totally different content material for social media to make the American viewer wish to watch NBC’s Primetime present.

Although that is her third time working the Olympics, Whittington nonetheless is amazed by the spectacle of the Video games. 

“What makes it so cool is that everybody’s eyes are on the Olympic Video games, and it is the one time that we as People can come collectively and cheer on fellow People as they compete towards the world,” Whittington stated. “I actually love that side, and I simply take it as its method for me to advertise these athletes which have labored their entire lives to be on this type of stage.”

Whittington stated it’s actually cool to see the social media content material she made go stay on the web.

“Once I’m scrolling by myself private social media, I will see associates which have shared this actually cool second or this graphic they actually appreciated from a sure sport, and I am like, ‘Oh my gosh, I made that,’” Whittington stated.

A few of the content material she made for social media had been explanatory movies, explaining the ins and outs of obscure Olympic sports activities. She stated it was superior attending to be taught these sports activities she didn’t know beforehand.

Whittington stated she loved seeing sure Olympians like gymnast Steven Nedoroscik escape and go viral, and he or she beloved with the ability to make content material out of these athletes.

“We’re nonetheless media, we’re nonetheless storytelling, we’re nonetheless journalists, and so it was cool as a result of my staff was like ‘Oh my gosh, this man’s gonna be a sensation,”’ Whittington stated. “How can we make memes out of him? How can we make humorous issues? How can we make good content material? How can we promote him?”

Whittington, who stated that she noticed many Elon alumni and professors work on the Olympics this 12 months, believes Elon helped her imagine in herself and get to the purpose the place she may work at such excessive profile occasions just like the Olympics.

“They offer us the professors. give us these instruments of find out how to interview, find out how to discuss to folks, find out how to work in an setting like NBC,” Whittingon stated. “I actually imagine that Elon is within the high echelon of find out how to be an expert.”

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