As someone who’s covered several Olympics now, what stands out to you, in a broader sense, about Paris 2024?
This is going to be a gender-equal Games, which is really exciting. The IOC [International Olympic Committee] has been working towards this for many years, and now there’s this nice split down the middle. There’s something really special about the Olympic Games, in that it’s always unified a lot of people. Now, you see equally men and women competing on this stage, and that can be really inspirational. I think that’s mission accomplished.
The IOC is [also] working towards attracting a younger crowd . . . We’re going to see breakdancing make its Olympic debut, and a Canadian — he goes by B-Boy Phil Wizard — is the [Pan American] champ. That’s pretty exciting on those bigger stages of gender equality, getting younger and adapting to the times, and Canadians being forces in those sports as well.
This is the first Olympics since COVID that won’t be hindered by social distancing restrictions. The fans are back. How significant is that for the athletes?
A lot of them, when I spoke to them after Tokyo, as much as they enjoyed their experience, they said that it just felt weird — it was cavernous. In some ways, that’s the one part that was sad. They didn’t have that energy from the crowd, they didn’t have the ability to run into the arms of their family members. They’re going to get that in Paris. They deserve that. They deserve all the energy that comes from fans cheering them on, seeing their country’s flag being waved in the crowd . . .
As someone who’s been covering the Olympics for a decade now, can you take us back to a moment when things just went truly, chaotically wrong on-air?
The biggest challenge I probably had was when I got sick in PyeongChang [in 2018]. I needed to run to the ladies’ room quite a few times — and it wasn’t that easy to access the bathroom in PyeongChang. You had to go outside in the middle of winter in these blustery winds, walk along a metal platform where you could slip and break your neck, and then go inside another building, down two flights of stairs . . . There was one night where I was really sick and there was a lot of running back and forth, having to pretend that I wasn’t gasping for air when I got back on TV. I would throw to a highlight, and then the second I did, I was racing back to the bathroom. Sometimes when you’re away from home for too long, you can get worn down and you can get sick. But the show must go on and you’re still trying to do a broadcast around it — without, you know, puking on-air [laughs].
Is it different covering the Olympics than, say, the NHL? How does “objectivity” factor in when it’s almost taken for granted that even the broadcasters are all rooting for Canada?
Yeah, it’s a good point. In pro sports, it’s a different kind of fanbase . . . [During the Olympics], everyone is cheering for the maple leaf. Everyone feels the highs and lows of the athletes. Having said that, you still want to maintain journalistic integrity — if there is an exceptional storyline, you still have to do it justice. Doesn’t matter where the athlete is from, it’s still incumbent on us to share that. But there is also an understanding that if a Canadian does do something exceptional, you’re supposed to come out and say, “This is fantastic. Start the party!” And I think it’s because it’s a different type of fandom, it’s a different type of loyalty when the Olympics come around.
2024 Paris Olympic Games, airing from Saturday, August 3, on CBC
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Having started her broadcast journalism career volunteering with a regional Toronto TV station while studying at York University, Petrillo quickly built an impressive résumé from those humble beginnings — covering the NHL, NBA, FIFA and more. In 2016, she became the first full-time female in-studio personality on CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada. Also in 2016, she became the first woman in the country to host her own daily sports radio show, via TSN’s Leafs Lunch. Along the way, she’s won two Canadian Screen Awards.
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Making her Olympic debut at Sochi in 2014, Petrillo has remained a staple of CBC’s international sports coverage ever since — continuing with the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, which wrap this weekend after two more days of athletic intrigue.