Sitting on a couch watching the Olympics is always a little weird for me. For a lot of years, I went to the Olympics as part of NBC's coverage unit, running the Research Room -- what we liked to call the "brain of the broadcast." From Sydney to Torino, Athens to London, Atlanta to Salt Lake to Vancouver (check out this photo of me hanging with gold medallist Evan Lysacek in Vancouver!), I collected the most amazing group of friends and got to see some of the greatest cities and the most thrilling moments in all of sports.
The start of NBC's coverage on the night of Opening Ceremony always begins with a film short, an inspiring combination of beauty shots and athletes set to emotional music with a hefty narrator doing the honors of setting the stage. As he often does, my friend Aaron Cohen wrote the open for PyeongChang 2018. Sterling K. Brown from NBC's "This Is Us" delivered Aaron's words, words that reminded me a whole lot of a certain story in a certain book that comes out in a few weeks:
"Some of the best stories you'll ever hear...begin in the most ordinary places you can imagine...with people...who had dreams they decided they were never, ever, going to let go of....dreams that have become some of the best stories you'll ever hear."
I haven't been to an Olympics since London. But I am still obsessed, juggling its controversies and corruptions with its moments of inspiration and humanity -- often on the pages of CNN Opinion. So this morning, I'm up early, streaming men's luge on my computer, unable to ever look away.
Happy Olympics, everyone.
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