Kelly VanderBeek is always where the action is.
The former alpine ski Olympian and World Cup medallist wears many hats nowadays, but perhaps her role as an on-air talent covering Olympic athletes is her most enduring.
For an eighth time, VanderBeek of Canmore is part of an on-field reporter, analyst and storyteller for an Olympic Games for English and French speaking audiences across the country. This time around, the sideline specialist is covering women’s 3X3 basketball, skateboarding, and breaking as part of CBC’s broadcasting team.
With a mic in hand and a can-do attitude ready for any challenge, VanderBeek’s career on camera has been nothing short of eclectic, she says. But that's the way she likes it.
“I like the challenge, I like being challenged and I like being pushed,” said VanderBeek. “I think that this environment has this element of performance where people are going to judge you, so there is that sense of I need to show up, I need to be prepared and I need to do justice to the stories I’m telling and be accurate and be authentic so I’m always starving for those things.”
Things like talking on camera, public speaking and breaking down critical moments in the game come naturally to VanderBeek. She’s always had an aptitude for it, beginning when she was carving down ski slopes around the world. However, going to “the other side” from an athlete to an on-air talent wasn’t always in the books.
VanderBeek recalls her first taste on the other side as a teenager in Ontario, doing a news hit at a local TV station before an Olympics she wasn’t competing in. As it turns out, seeds were planted on that day.
“I remember at the end of that segment, the anchor said to the reporter with me, ‘you might be out of a job, she’s pretty good,’” VanderBeek said with a laugh. “That just sort of stuck in the back of my mind a little bit.”
She competed at the Turin 2006 Games, just barely missing out on a bronze medal in super-G. However, she wouldn’t get the chance to compete at Vancouver 2010 due to a torn ACL injury while competing on the World Cup that season.
Though she was passed the Olympic Flame and carried the burning torch for the country as it made its away across Canada, VanderBeek also was passed a microphone and was asked to be an on-air talent, discussing things with sports commentators with in depth knowledge from an athlete’s perspective.
“It ended up going really well and I was on TV a lot,” said VanderBeek.
It went so well, in fact, that TSN and Sportsnet offered her jobs. However, she joked that she would have had to move to Toronto, and that she wasn’t done being an athlete yet, so she kept those contacts in the back of her mind.
By the time 2012 London Games came, she was back in front of a camera, hosting the Raising an Olympian mini-doc features as part of her new path.
“That was really the beginning of me being a broadcaster, reporter and storyteller, which I think was always in my bones,” she said.
At the last Summer Games, VanderBeek was a good luck charm covering the women’s soccer team and their “surreal” journey to a gold medal. She was swept up in the wave of momentum of that special team.
This year for the three urban sports she’s covering, VanderBeek’s put in more hours of research and YouTube she can count. Many would be surprised how much time the media puts into research to make their job flow seemingly like having a chat with a friend over a beer.
She’s become invested in the three, which might be the only time breaking – a dance competition – is part of an Olympics as Los Angeles 2028 hasn’t officially picked it up.
VanderBeek said everyone is recognizing what this moment is within that world.
“At the end of the day I’m a sports fan,” said VanderBeek. “You want to watch and seeing the spectacle that is sport unfold does not get old.”
VanderBeek is in a unique position as a broadcaster. Coming from a high level athletic background, she can relate to the ups and downs and knowing what it’s like to win a medal, but at the same time, what it feels like to just miss out on one.
She hopes that both the audience and athletes will trust her as an authetic storyteller.
“At the end of the day, sport is entertainment. it's here to bring us together, it’s here to rally communities, it’s here to make us healthier and inspire us … It binds us in a way that’s different and that’s the power of sport and I hope to be a part of that,” she said.
Skateboarding starts Saturday (July 27) at 4 a.m. MST, 3X3 basketball starts Tuesday (July 30), with Canada taking on Australia at 10 a.m. MST., and breaking starts Aug. 9 at 8 a.m. MST. A full schedule overview at www.olympics.com. The action is airing on CBC Gem.
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