“My foundation was built at ���ϲ�����,” McCrudden says from the Team USA High Performance Center (HPC), set up exclusively for Team USA to provide American athletes with a place to eat, train, relax and get a reprieve from the stress and chaos of the games.

“They can do some recovery—whatever that looks like for them—and then we also have a lot of outdoor space, so people are in hammocks or on chairs and there are games. It’s like camp,” McCrudden says.

Falk College alumna Maggie McCrudden worked at her first Olympic Games as a dietitian for the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, helping athletes eat right to be able to perform at the highest level.

The HPC is about 20 minutes from the Olympic Village, featuring training facilities, meal options, sports medicine, private meeting spaces, recovery space, video review areas and dorm accommodations. The complex includes pools, indoor and outdoor track and field equipment, strength and conditioning facilities, volleyball and basketball courts, fencing strips and archery targets. McCrudden says the goal of the HPC was to provide a “home away from home” for the athletes.

McCrudden has worked for the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee for three years, but this was her first time working at an Olympic Games. She and a food service team from Colorado Springs, Colorado, prepared and packed pallets of USA-branded food tailored to athletes’ preferences that were shipped to Paris before the Olympics.

She says her education at Falk College and her experience as a collegiate athlete on the put her on the path to success.

“Being a part of a major sports school and an athlete has helped me so much in my current role because I feel like I understand what the athletes are going through,” McCrudden says. “I understand the ‘go, go, go’ mentality and sometimes just needing a little help.”

McCrudden ran into other members of the Orange family at the Olympics, including fellow Falk College alumnus and ’17 and her former rowing teammate, Hattie Taylor ’17, who she watched for Great Britain.

“I always say wear red, white, and blue but bleed Orange!” McCrudden says.

McCrudden will return to the U.S. after transitioning responsibilities to a colleague for the Paralympic Games, which run Aug. 28 through Sept. 28.

Story by Cathleen O’Hare

Noah Eagle is handling play-by-play duties for NBC’s coverage of Team USA men’s and women’s basketball at the Summer Olympics.

The Super Bowl. French Open tennis. Primetime college football and basketball games between nationally ranked opponents. The radio play-by-play voice of the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers.

In the ever-competitive field of sports broadcasting, what Noah Eagle ’19 has accomplished in his six-year professional career is quite impressive. In May, Eagle’s hard work was recognized by his peers, as he won the Sports Emmy Award for Outstanding Personality/Emerging On Air after his debut season calling “Big Ten Saturday Night,” the weekly primetime Big Ten football game broadcast on NBC and Peacock.

Noah Eagle (center) won a Sports Emmy Award for Outstanding Personality/Emerging On Air after his debut season calling “Big Ten Saturday Night,” the weekly primetime Big Ten football game broadcast on NBC and Peacock. He’s pictured with sideline reporter Kathryn Tappen (left) and color commentator Todd Blackledge.

Eagle’s ascension has been meteoric—the Clippers hired him right after he graduated with a broadcast and digital journalism degree from the —and he’s just scratching the surface of his potential. His next assignment takes him to Paris, France, as the play-by-play broadcaster for Team USA men’s and women’s basketball at the Summer Olympics.

For someone who grew up a “massive” fan of the NBA, broadcasting Team USA games at the Olympics is a “special honor,” says Eagle. Especially since he will call games involving NBA players he has long admired—like LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Steph Curry—and will be on the mic as the U.S. women’s team pursues their unprecedented eighth consecutive gold medal.

“Basketball has been a passion of mine for a long time, and when I look at this specific assignment, it’s a dream come true. Watching Team USA at the Olympics helped grow my love for the sport, especially the ‘Redeem Team’ in 2008 that brought back the gold medal for the U.S. I remember parking myself on the couch during those Olympics and watching LeBron James play with Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, Jason Kidd and Carmelo Anthony, ���ϲ����� basketball royalty. Those were legends of the game. Now, I’m calling Team USA games with LeBron, K.D. and Steph, who are legends of the game. There’s something special about calling basketball games while representing your country,” Eagle says.

The father-son sportscasting duo of Ian Eagle ’90 (left) and Noah Eagle ’19

Sportscasting and a love for ���ϲ����� runs in the family. Noah’s father, Ian ’90, has handled play-by-play for CBS Sports’ NFL games since 1998 and concluded his first year as the network’s lead announcer for the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. His mother, Alisa (Terry) Eagle ’90, earned a retailing degree from what is now the , and his sister, Erin ’21, earned an advertising degree from Newhouse.

“When I’m calling games, I’ve always got an orange wristband on my right wrist that shows my Orange connection,” Eagle says. “There’s always so much love to the ’Cuse. As my mom always says, ���ϲ����� is our happy place.”

Before the Olympics began, Eagle sat down with SU News to discuss his “surreal” career journey, how he’s preparing to call Team USA’s basketball games and the lessons he learned from his debut performance at the Olympics in 2021.

At the age of 27, you’ve already worked the Super Bowl, served as the radio voice of the Los Angeles Clippers, called French Open tennis action and broadcast countless college football and basketball games. How would you describe your ascension in sportscasting?

Noah Eagle

It’s quite surreal. I never anticipated my career going this way, but that’s what I love about this field. You never know the path you’re going to take. Everybody’s sportscasting path is different based on timing and circumstances. I was fortunate to not only have something open up [the Clippers radio play-by-play job] but to have people who believed in me and put my name out there for that job. Olivia Stomski [director of the Newhouse Sports Media Center and professor of broadcast and digital journalism and television, radio and film] is at the top of that list, and I had so many great mentors around campus who played a massive role in my career.

I’ve gotten lucky that I’ve gotten chances to do some big things, and my viewpoint has always been if you get the chance to do the big thing, you better step up and knock it out of the park. I’ve loved every second and hope this journey continues for a long time.

How have you been preparing for the Games?

Learning about every team and putting my broadcast boards together [with key facts and figures for each team]. Before that, I read a book on the original Dream Team because I wanted to make sure I knew my history of why there weren’t professionals allowed on the United States’ teams before 1992, why they changed that rule and how that decision has impacted the Olympics. Now, it’s preparing for the men’s and women’s competitions, making sure I’m knowledgeable about the teams and players.

It’s an honor to call basketball games at the Olympics, but my preparation is no different than if I was preparing to call a high school, college or NBA game. You put the team together on your broadcast board and make sure you have all the information you think you might need. Preparing gets easier with each game because you’ve got a much better sense of the teams based on the flow of how these games go.

What lessons did you learn from your first Olympic assignment in 2021 calling 3-on-3 basketball from NBC’s headquarters?

Because of being prepared for any outcome, you’d better be ready to deliver a memorable call for the big moments that matter the most, the moments that are guaranteed to live on the longest in the gold medal games. It can’t just be the standard, run-of-the-mill call. I don’t necessarily spend the night before thinking about what I’m going to say, but before our broadcast starts, I have a general idea of the direction I’m going to go. If you’re trying to think of it in the moment, that’s when things can go awry.

What does the world’s attention, and huge influx of visitors, mean for these grand architectural sites? Jess Myers, assistant professor in the , looks at the issue through an urban planning lens. Myers lived in Paris in 2012 when the Summer Olympics were held in nearby London.

While hosting the Games is a huge coup for the host city, it is also a huge challenge, particularly regarding infrastructure.

“Hosting the Olympics is a big deal, but it can also be an urban development disaster for cities if they’re not careful about it,” Myers says. “The danger is that you build up a lot of new infrastructure, then don’t end up using it afterward in everyday urban life, or those things end up being abandoned where they could have been repurposed into housing, a new subway line or something to that effect.”

In the case of London, much of the main Olympics infrastructure was located around the periphery, so the city center was not tied up with the security mechanisms that accompany the Games. “You could still walk around and experience the city’s iconic architecture,” Myers says.

This year’s Games—and Paris—present different challenges. Conflict around the world has resulted in extraordinary security at the Olympics. As some events are happening at the landmarks—beach volleyball at the Eiffel Tower and equestrian events at Versailles for instance—the experience of these landmarks is affected.

Jess Myers (Photo by Farideh Sakhaeifar)

“The beautiful, fabulous thing about Parisian monuments is that they’re very much integrated into the urban fabric of the city,” Myers says. “You can take a casual free walk down the river Seine and see incredible things. You see the Eiffel Tower, you see the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais. You see the Invalides, you see the beautiful Pont Alexandre III. There is a continuity in the urban fabric. With the security mechanisms put in place, all of that linearity, the way that Paris is a walking city, gets truncated and split up. So rather than seeing the monuments as things that are flowing within an urban fabric, you see them as these objects through security fencing.”

Bringing the events into the city has taken the focus off the periphery, which is where immigrant communities have historically made their home. “These spaces are also beautiful, and people who live there are proud of these places,” Myers says. “By not celebrating the periphery, you lose out on being able to celebrate what all of those communities have brought to Paris, which is so much cultural and political energy and modernization.”

Holding events at historic landmarks, such as the Eiffel Tower and Versailles is a great celebration of Paris (think of medal winners posing for photographs at these grand sites), but restricts access to these sites to ticketholders.

“You don’t have that very Parisian happening, that idea that you are walking and just stumble upon something that’s quite striking,” Myers says. “Those are excellent images for tourism, but the downside is also for small businesses who experience a drop in foot traffic.”

Not only do these iconic landmarks serve as locations and backdrops for Olympic events, they will live on after the Games have ended on medals and commemorative coins.

“The Eiffel Tower is a commercial symbol of Paris, and it’s one of those things that’s often more celebrated internationally than it necessarily is in the everyday life of the city,” Myers says. “It is used to represent France in a way that is quite general and doesn’t necessarily get to the specificity of what the city is. This is the nature of trying to put together a unified national vision instead of celebrating the quirks and the specificities of Paris.”

“It seems like while there is a celebration of these beautiful Parisian monuments, there’s also a desire to almost remove them from their context as if they’re hovering just above the city. And that feels to me like a missed opportunity,” Myers says.

What will Myers, a former track runner, be watching during these Paris Games? “I love [U.S. athlete and women’s 100-meter competitor] Sha’Carri Richardson. Also, the women’s Jamaican track team is incredible. I hope we’ll see some very special efforts in track this year,” Myers says.

More about Myers’ experience in Paris can be found in her podcast, “.”

Tony Callisto

As more than 10,000 athletes have prepared to take part in the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, France, so too have the security personnel tasked with keeping the Olympic Village and athletic venues safe.

Tony Callisto, emergency management instructor and retired ���ϲ����� senior vice president for safety and chief law enforcement officer, has had plenty of experience managing large-scale events, including concerts and athletic events at the JMA Wireless Dome.

SU News sat down with Callisto to ask him for his thoughts on security needs for the Olympics and what it takes to be a good candidate for a career in emergency management.

As someone who has been involved in large-scale event planning, what is the number one thing that keeps you up at night?

Having been involved in many major and large-scale events, the number one thing that would tend to keep me up at night would be the possibility of the need for a mass evacuation or an incident of mass casualties. In planning for these types of events, having a multi-phased evacuation plan with detailed evacuation routes, locations for post-evacuation mustering/areas of refuge and ensuring event staff are fully trained on the evacuation protocols are critical for preparation.

Further, in these types of incidences, it is possible that there would be mass casualties, therefore having a preplan with appropriate medical responder staffing in place is also critical to the success of a large event.

Those in charge of security in Paris have openly discussed their top concern of terrorism. Businesses in the region are worried that tight security will hurt their bottom line. How do you balance the two?

(Credit: Paris 2024/pawel.gaul/Florian Hulleu)

As we think about the Paris Olympics, as with any major international event, the possibility of intentional disruption or even an act of terrorism has to be considered in planning. There are several key elements in security planning, including full threat assessment and analysis, full vulnerability assessment of the venues and protocols for the event, and development of strategies to limit access to only those authorized to be present, and ensuring each of those who are present undergo security screening at specifically designated access points.

In my experience, the less access points there are the better; however, understanding that there will be a significant number of spectators, there needs to be enough controlled access points to accommodate the volume and account for the possibility of the need for evacuating.

All of this does have to be balanced with the enjoyment of the spectators and participants, the ability of businesses to provide services and support the spectators and participants, and limiting the disruption to unrelated businesses impacted by the significant increase in activity and volume in the area.

Without a doubt, as with any major event, there will be business interruptions associated with traffic, street closures, extraordinary building uses, heavy pedestrian activity and increased security measures. The best plans will include sufficient event staffing and training to make the flow of pedestrian and vehicular traffic, spectator access and security processes occur as seamlessly and efficiently as possible.

When an anomaly occurs, there must be a sufficient and swift response from authorities with an immediate focus on protecting life and property, and an urgent secondary focus on recovery and resumption of activities. All of this requires mitigation strategies, preparedness, response capabilities and recovery capacity.

A secondary concern this year is a shortage of security contractors. Is workforce always a concern in public safety?

Of course, in this post-pandemic era, recruitment, training and retention of qualified personnel to provide event-related services and security is a public safety concern. Planners must ensure that there are sufficient financial and benefit incentives to attract qualified and competent event staff. Planners will also have to ensure that training provided to event staff is robust and relevant to the risks, as well as to the services necessary for the success of any major event.

With today’s incredible technology, high resolution video surveillance, paired with behavioral pattern recognition and other analytics, will be a significant force multiplier. Likewise, interoperable radio communications will enable those operating the camera and imaging systems to relay live time critical information to security and law enforcement staff on the ground for rapid response.

All of this requires outstanding leadership and the use of a well-coordinated and integrated “unified command,” including leadership representation from law enforcement, security, event management, fire and emergency medical services organizations.

With regard to the day-to-day staffing needed for general public safety, the same staffing concerns are common around the U.S. and abroad. There are no simple answers, so making these jobs as attractive as possible tend to be the necessary actions to minimize the problem, and ensuring a well-coordinated command structure, using the newest proven security technologies, will help to keep the athletes, fans and community members safe.

You teach classes in emergency management in the College of Professional Studies. What are the qualities of your most successful students?

I find the most successful students in classes about crisis and emergency management tend to be those students who are excellent critical thinkers, have a sense of vision and purpose, and understand the importance of mission.

In the emergency management and crisis management disciplines, mitigation through risk identification and analysis, preparedness through development of protocols and conducting drills and training, response capabilities, and a forward focus on recovery tend to be key components. Students who can think critically, have excellent writing skills and have efficacy to consider appropriate contingencies, tend to excel in crisis and emergency management studies.

Rower Kamile Kralikaite, a 2024 All-American, three-time All-ACC First Team selection and two-time All-ACC Academic Team honoree, will represent Lithuania in the upcoming Summer Olympics.

Being a skilled rower earned an athletic scholarship to ���ϲ�����, where she helped the claim the first Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) championship in school history.

Her proficiencies on the water also earned Kralikaite the opportunity of a lifetime representing Lithuania in the women’s pair competition at the upcoming Summer Olympics in Paris, France.

To qualify for the Olympics is a dream come true, especially being from such a small country. I still can’t believe I get to represent my country on this big stage. — Kamile Kralikaite ’24

But there was a time not that long ago, before Kralikaite came to the United States, when she wanted to abandon her rowing career. Recruited by a local coach when she was just 13 years old because she was tall and athletic, Kralikaite left her family and friends to begin a three-year training project focused on qualifying for the 2018 Youth Olympics.

While Kralikaite enjoyed the sport, her entire life revolved around rowing, and she experienced burnout from the arduous training sessions with no days off. Then came the decision that helped turn things around for Kralikaite: enrolling at ���ϲ����� as an international relations major in the and .

Once on campus, Kralikaite discovered that she was so much more than a talented rower. She formed tight friendships with her fellow student-athletes and coaches and rediscovered her love of rowing. Kralikaite credits her coach, , with helping her heal and find a healthy balance between rowing and her personal life.

“I will forever be happy and grateful for my experiences at ���ϲ�����. I met so many cool people that supported me and helped me reach my goals,” says Kralikaite, a 2024 All-American, three-time All-ACC First Team selection and two-time All-ACC Academic Team honoree. “It was incredible how much we were able to achieve. Winning the ACC championship for the first time in school history was amazing. Everyone was selfless and wanted the same goal and worked tirelessly to help our team achieve success. It was the best experience.”

Kamile Kralikaite (right) and her partner, Ieva Adomaviciute, will vie for a gold medal in Paris in the women’s pair competition.

Kamile Kralikaite

Kralikaite, who hails from the tiny central Lithuanian city of Kaisiadorys (population: 8,334) will vie for a gold medal in Paris after she and her partner, Ieva Adomaviciute, in Belgrade, Serbia, last September. The top 11 boats qualified for the Olympics.

The begins on July 28, with the semifinals on July 31 and the final on Aug. 2.

“Our goal is to qualify for the A final, which would be huge. Right now, we’re producing some good speed from our boat, and we feel good. You wish for the gold, but as long we give it our absolute best against the world’s best, I know we’ll do well,” says Kralikaite, who along with Orange teammate Martyna Kazlauskaite, won the 2023 U23 World Championship in Plovdiv, Bulgaria.

Before she takes center stage with the world’s best rowers, Kralikaite sat down with SU News to discuss how she’s preparing for the Olympics, the thrill she feels representing Lithuania and how her time on campus fueled her holistic development.

How have you been preparing for the Games?

Kamile Kralikaite (back) and her partner, Ieva Adomaviciute, preparing for the Olympics.

The last couple of weeks has been about mental preparation, because you can’t gain too much speed at this point. I’ve been going for runs, working on my breathing, doing exercises and training on the water. I train six to seven hours each day. My goal is to be as brave and confident as I can during my races.

My preparation started almost a year ago. I knew we’d be racing against women who had more experience than I did, so I started working on becoming as mentally strong as I could. I treated trainings as if we weren’t just going up against ACC or NCAA competition, but also the competition I’d see in the Summer Olympics. When it comes time to compete, I’ve put myself in that situation a million times before mentally, so I know to just give it my best effort.

How can you describe the thrill of qualifying for the Olympics and representing Lithuania?

To qualify is huge, a dream come true, especially being from such a small country. Our whole Olympic rowing team is very young. Seven of our eight athletes are going to their first Games. It’s such a cool feeling and I still can’t believe I get to represent my country on this big stage. Lithuanians have been so supportive to those of us who qualified, and it’s great to know all that hard work paid off.

What’s your pre-race routine?

I started listening to this intense techno music and I just started feeling very brave. I’d walk around feeling like a winner and acting like a winner. If you walk into the room when you’re about to warm up and you’re already scared and fearful, you’ve already lost. I also write down and say out loud to myself that I am enough, which sounds so simple, but it’s a very powerful message. Whether you’re lining up for a race at ���ϲ����� or in Paris for the Olympics, we’re all equal. Once the race starts, it’s about whoever wants it more and whoever was better prepared. Maybe some of my competitors have been in the sport longer, but I plan on giving my absolute best.

I also always wear my ���ϲ����� gear whenever I warmup. But in the Olympics, there’s rules that we have to wear the official uniform when we race, so I have to take off my ���ϲ����� gear. But I know I will have Orange Nation cheering me on!

How have you embraced the power of positive thinking?

I like visualizing success. It’s very powerful because you put yourself in a place where you see yourself achieving. Rowing is a sport where you line up and give it everything you’ve got for two kilometers. Your body is going to be in extreme pain for six to seven minutes. You have to be ready for it and not get scared when your competitors are around you, so visualization and practicing breathing exercises has helped me a lot.

How much did you grow during your time on campus?

Kamile Kralikaite (center) in action with her ���ϲ����� teammates.

I fully grew into the person I am today because of ���ϲ�����. I started to love myself again, to love life and love people. I started to see how much better everything is when you work together versus when you’re trying to achieve everything by yourself. My coaches showed me how to be the best possible version of myself. I was surrounded by the best people and they made ���ϲ����� such a special place.

In his work with the U.S. Track and Field team, sport analytics major Dan Griffiths attended the New York City Grand Prix Meet–the final meet for track and field athletes before the U.S. Olympic Trials.

The 2024 Paris Summer Olympics and Paralympics are here and representatives from the Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics at ���ϲ����� will have an impact on this year’s Games–and, quite possibly, future Olympic Games.

The Falk College representatives who are involved in several unique ways with the Olympics and Paralympics include current Falk students Dan Griffiths and Livia McQuade, Department of Sport Management Associate Professor Jeeyoon “Jamie” Kim, and Sport Management graduates and former ���ϲ����� student-athletes Freddie Crittenden III ’17, Kristen Siermachesky  ’21 and Lysianne Proulx ’21.

Here are their stories:

Student: Dan Griffiths

Dan Griffiths spent this past academic year working with the ���ϲ����� cross country and track and field teams.

At ���ϲ����� and now with the U.S. Track and Field team (), sport analytics major Dan Griffiths ’26 is helping to revolutionize how performance data is collected and analyzed.

When Griffiths started working with the ���ϲ����� track and field and cross country teams before the 2023-24 academic year, the teams weren’t utilizing a data-gathering system. But the student-athletes were using Garmin wearables to track their own data, so Griffiths built his own application and a tool that transported all of their data into his application, which then created spreadsheets he used to analyze that data.

With Griffiths’ help, the ���ϲ����� women’s cross country team won its since 2011. Throughout the academic year, Griffiths conducted and presented his research at various national competitions and conferences, including the (he was runner-up in sport analytics research), and the inaugural Sport, Entertainment and Innovation Conference () last week in Las Vegas.

Griffiths’ success at ���ϲ����� and his interest in track and field led to his connection with USATF, which gave him the freedom to explore his areas of interest. Using a combination of the latest technology, Griffiths helped create three-dimensional models to best understand an athlete’s musculoskeletal forces.

“For throwers (discus, shotput, javelin), my work focused on using a pose estimation model to detect patterns that could be linked to longer, more powerful throws,” Griffiths says. “For sprinters and distance runners, I used pose estimation data to monitor overtraining and track progress throughout the season and before meets.

“I also conducted extensive research for multi-event athletes in the heptathlon and decathlon,” he adds. “This research aimed to understand how fatigue affects scoring in multi-events and how different training sequences can reduce fatigue.”

Griffiths shared his work with the coaches, and at least two of the athletes he analyzed will be participating in the Olympics: javelin thrower Curtis Thompson and 400-meter runner Alexis Holmes. During his time with USATF, Griffiths traveled to the New York City Grand Prix Meet–the final meet for track and field athletes before the U.S. Olympic Trials–and the Olympic Trials in Eugene, Oregon.

“The thing we think about every morning is ‘How can we win another gold medal today?’” Griffiths says. “Having the opportunity to combine everything I’ve learned and truly be a trailblazer and innovator for USATF and those athletes, especially in a track and field biomechanics context, has made me uber-passionate about the work we are doing at ���ϲ����� and the future of AI/analytics and sports.”

The track and field events run Aug. 1-11.

Student: Livia McQuade

Sport Management major Livia McQuade will attend the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games to serve as a resource for U.S. athletes, their families and their sponsors.

Livia McQuade ’25 is a sport management major and sport event management minor who has spent this summer in Loveland, Colorado, as an athlete relations intern with . Olympus is a management and marketing agency that provides top sponsorship opportunities and marketing strategies for Olympic and Paralympic athletes.

In her role, McQuade has interfaced with athletes from the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic teams and their partners, and with the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee and other national governing bodies. Her projects have included reviewing contracts, building athletes’ personal websites and organizing outlines for athletes’ speaking engagements.

“I’ve had a truly incredible experience within the Olympic and Paralympic Movement–during a Games year of all times!” McQuade says. “Through it all, I’ve had the privilege to work with some of sport’s most impactful Olympians and Paralympians, including Apolo Ohno, Jessica Long, Noah Elliott, Sarah Adam, Alex and Gretchen Walsh, Alex Ferreira and Steve Serio.”

McQuade, the executive vice president of the in Falk College and co-chair of the club’s 2024 , says she wants to work with the Olympic and Paralympic movement following graduation and this internship has been an invaluable step in that process. Her experience with Olympus will continue in September, when she’ll attend the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games to serve as a resource for U.S. athletes, their families, and their sponsors. The Paralympic Games run from Aug. 28-Sept. 8.

“I could not be more grateful and excited,” McQuade says of her upcoming experience in Paris. “My leadership (at Olympus Sports Group)–Ian Beck and ’16–have thrown extraordinary opportunities my way, and they will remain valuable mentors long into my career.”

Freddie Crittenden III, shown here competing for ���ϲ�����, will represent the U.S. in the 110-meter hurdles event in Paris.

At the U.S. Olympic Trials in late June, longtime U.S. hurdler  ’17 qualified for his first Olympic Games by running a personal-best 12.96 seconds in the 110-meter hurdles. Crittenden finished second overall to teammate and three-time world champion Grant Holloway, who recorded a time of 12.86.

A public health major at Falk and former All-American for the ���ϲ����� track and field team, Crittenden just missed a bronze medal at the World Championships last summer and now at age 29, the Olympic Trials may have been his last opportunity to qualify for the Olympics.

“It feels amazing. Honestly, I’m still in shock and I’m trying to figure out what happened,” Crittenden said immediately after his Olympic Trials run. “But it’s an amazing feeling to come out here and accomplish what I’ve been trying to accomplish for the past 17 years. It’s beautiful.”

Two former sport management majors and ���ϲ����� student-athletes, rower Kristen Siermachesky ’21 and soccer goalkeeper Lysianne Proulx ’21, are alternates for the Olympics with .

Proulx is Team Canada’s third-choice goalkeeper, meaning she will be activated if either the starting or backup goalkeeper is injured. Although she didn’t start at ���ϲ����� until her junior season, Proulx recorded the fourth-most saves (281), second-most saves per game (5.3) and seventh-most shutouts (eight) in program history.

Since graduating from ���ϲ�����, Proulx has excelled in professional leagues in Portugal, Australia and now in the United States with of the National Women’s Soccer League. This past February, Bay FC acquired Proulx from Melbourne City for what Melbourne City described as a record-breaking transfer fee for an outgoing A-League player.

A native of Montreal, Quebec, Proulx represented Canada in the FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup and FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup. She went to the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup as Team Canada’s third-choice goaltender behind Kailen Sheridan and Sabrina D’Angelo, who have maintained their positions for the Olympics.

Former ���ϲ����� goalkeeper and sport management graduate Lysianne Proulx (center, with ball) is an alternate for Team Canada’s soccer team.

Like Proulx, Siermachesky will be available to her team if an injury occurs. But unlike Proulx, her path to Canada’s rowing team featured a different sport at ���ϲ�����: ice hockey. She played four years as a defenseman at ���ϲ����� and recorded a black-and-blue inducing 132 blocks in 125 games for the Orange.

After graduating from ���ϲ�����, the native of New Liskeard, Ontario, considered playing ice hockey overseas but decided to pursue her graduate degree in sports administration at North Carolina. She wanted to continue her athletics career, but North Carolina doesn’t have an ice hockey team. Then-���ϲ����� ice hockey coach Paul Flanagan suggested she try rowing and contacted the Tar Heels’ coach to make that connection.

Siermachesky’s athleticism and potential caught the eye of the Team Canada Development Team, which asked her to move to British Columbia to train with the national team. Just three years into the sport, she is now on the cusp of competing in the Olympics and it’s likely she and Proulx will remain in the mix for the next summer Olympics in Los Angeles in 2028.

The rowing competition runs from July 27-Aug. 3, while the women’s soccer tournament started July 24 and runs through Aug. 10.

Associate Professor Jeeyoon “Jamie” Kim at the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics.

Faculty: Jeeyoon “Jamie” Kim

 is an associate professor in the Department of Sport Management who studies the long- and short-term social and economic effects of hosting the Games and other major sporting events. Kim is the former manager of the Korean Olympic Committee, and on Aug. 8 she’ll present at the 11th International Sport Business Symposium in Paris.

Kim’s presentation will focus on how the , an Olympic-style event for athletes between 15 and 18 years old, can better impact their host city and support the aims of the Olympic Movement.

“The hope for Olympic sport participation legacy is grounded on the ‘trickle-down effect’ (i.e., watching Olympians compete will inspire youth to participate in sport),” Kim says in a recent Q&A. “For the Youth Olympics, the event can also be a steppingstone for younger athletes to compete on the international stage and grow to become Olympians. Additionally, the Youth Olympics offer many grassroots-level sport opportunities (e.g., sport camps, collaboration with local schools) to encourage the general youth to learn about Olympic sports.”

To combat youths’ dwindling interest in the Olympics, the International Olympic Committee added break dancing, sport climbing and surfing to the lineup for Paris. Kim says this is a critical time for the future of the Olympics as upcoming Games in Paris, Milan Cortina (2026), and Los Angeles (2028) will be held in traditionally strong sports markets where there are opportunities to increase interest.

“Paris 2024 will be the first Olympics to include breaking in the official program,” Kim says. “We will have to see how the event turns out. But, so far, looking at the Olympics qualifiers series and the ticket popularity, it seems like there is a lot of interest garnered for the sport.”

Kim spent five-and-a-half years with Korean Olympic Committee as a member of its International Games, International Relations and 2018 PyeongChang Olympics task force teams. While in Paris, Kim will conduct research in Korea’s Olympic Hospitality House and share her findings with students in her Olympic Sport Management and Olympic Odyssey courses.

And Kim plans to attend the women’s individual finals event of her favorite summer Olympic sport, archery. “Korea has been very strong in the sport historically, and it is always fun to watch a sport where my team does well,” Kim says.

Champions Park Catwalk (Credit: @Paris2024)

The 2024 Paris Olympics is almost underway. The glory for the world-class athletes and the excitement for the spectators make for a riveting Games—crucial for the success of these Olympics and, more importantly, for the longevity of the Games.

That sustained legacy is considered high priority for host countries and the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

, associate professor of sport management in the , studies Olympic sport legacy, specifically how young people are drawn into the games as sport participants and viewers.

With the median age of viewers of the Olympics in their 50s, Kim says now is a critical time for the IOC to take opportunities to create excitement around the games for younger people, including adding in new sports, such as this Olympics’ newest event: break dancing.

For the 2018 Games, Kim was awarded funding by the IOC’s Olympic Studies Centre to better understand the impact of the games and develop strategies for drawing in young people, for her project “Building a Sport Participation Legacy Through the 2018 Winter Olympic Games.” Kim found that “social influence” from friends and family played the biggest role for younger people in Asia to be drawn into the Games.

Kim, who worked for the Korean Olympic Committee, assisting in its bid for the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics, more recently will present in August in Paris at the International Sport Business Symposium on her research on the Youth Olympic Games.

In this Q&A with SU News, Kim shares information about her research and getting youth involved and engaged with the Olympics.

What is the research around the Youth Olympics that you will be presenting at the 11th International Sport Business Symposium in Paris?

It is an abstract titled “Investigating the Legacy Governance Process of YOG (Youth Olympics Games) Organizing Committees for Building a Sustainable YOG Legacy.” It is an interview-based case study (e.g., 2016 Lillehammer, 2018 Buenos Aires, 2024 Gangwon) investigating how Youth Olympic Games Organizing Committees manage its Youth Olympics’ legacy throughout the bidding, planning, execution and post-games phases.

What impact does the Youth Olympic Games have on participation in Olympic sports?

The hope for Olympic sport participation legacy is grounded on the “trickle-down effect” (i.e., watching Olympians compete will inspire youth to participate in sport). For the Youth Olympics, the event can also be a stepstone for younger athletes to compete at the international stage and grow to become Olympians.

Additionally, the Youth Olympics offer many grassroots-level sport opportunities, such as sport camps and collaboration with local schools, to encourage the general youth to learn about Olympic sport.

How important is it to get and keep youth interested in the Olympics/Olympic sports for the sake of the Games’ longevity?

Medals of the 2024 Paris Games (Credit: @Paris2024)

Not garnering enough attention among the youth has been a critical issue. The median media viewership’s age in the North American market is in the mid-50s. The IOC is very aware of the situation and has been putting in a lot of efforts to tackle the issue (e.g., addition of new sport such as breaking, changing event formats to be more entertaining, incorporating esports).

This is a critical period for the IOC and the games’ longevity, but also with great opportunities as the upcoming games will be hosted in traditionally strong sport markets where there are a lot of room for growth in Olympic interest (2024 Paris, 2026 Milan-Cortina, 2028 Los Angeles).

Could the inclusion of break dancing or other new and upcoming “sports” be seen as a way to be more inclusive, to get younger people’s attention on the Games?

Paris 2024 will be the first Olympics to include breaking in the official program. We will have to see how the event turns out. But, so far, looking at the Olympics qualifiers series and the ticket popularity of breaking (currently, very, very popular), it seems like there is a lot of interest garnered for the sport.

What is your favorite summer Olympic game to watch?

Personally, archery. Korea has been very strong in the sport historically, and it is always fun to watch a sport where my team does well (I will be attending the women’s individual archery finals event at the 2024 Paris Olympics).

Check out a as she answers questions about the Olympics.

Matthew Huber

But could a global event with millions of people from all over the world converging in one place ever be considered sustainable?

In this Q&A with SU News, , professor of geography and the environment in the , discusses his perspective on the 2024 Paris Olympics’ sustainability goals and broader implications around global energy equality.

The Paris 2024 Organising Committee pledged this is the most sustainable Olympics ever, but it’s still a massive operation buildup of infrastructure and a global event that brings in millions of people to one location. Can the Olympics even still be considered green?

This reminds me of the 2007 Academy Awards when “An Inconvenient Truth”—Al Gore’s breakthrough climate documentary—won an Oscar and the academy declared the award ceremony was the first one to be “carbon neutral.” People are rightly skeptical when massive, spectacular (and ostentatious) events, which entail displays of wealth and large-scale resource and energy use, declare themselves “green.”

The fact is we still live in a world where roughly 80% of all energy use comes from fossil fuels so it’s quite difficult for much to be “green” (without engaging in dubious and sometimes fraudulent practices of “carbon offsetting”) let alone such a massive undertaking such as this.

One aspect of the Paris committee’s efforts was to not have air conditioning for the athletes’ accommodations but many countries, such as the U.S. and other wealthy nations, are supplying their athletes with air conditioning. What does it say about sustainability efforts to combat climate change when wealthy countries can still do what they want while less wealthy countries do not have that same privilege?

Apartment buildings in the Olympic and Paralympic Village in Paris (Credit: @Paris2024/Rapheal Vriet)

The weird irony to me is that France has an electricity grid that is nearly 100% carbon free (notably due to the roughly 70% derived from nuclear power and the remainder from mostly renewables). So it’s not clear to me exactly why limiting AC use even makes sense from a climate perspective.

If their reasoning goes beyond climate (e.g., the larger environmental impacts from electricity use) then obviously it’s having exactly the opposite effect: prohibiting AC is leading to inefficient and haphazard efforts on the part of some countries to bring their own AC in. It would be much more rational and efficient to simply provide centralized AC to all participants.

Your point about the inequality between nations is an important one and underscores how the solution would be for France to provide decarbonized AC for all. Analogously, the world actually needs to come together to decarbonize the energy systems of rich nations, and in some cases invest in providing basic (decarbonized) energy services to poor nations. We still live in world where roughly 800 million people have zero access to electricity and roughly four times that number have very little and intermittent access. We take electricity for granted, but I believe it should be a human right.

There are discussions around future summer Olympics being moved to a different month to avoid searing hot temperatures. Is this another example of a larger global issue of how humankind will have to make these life adjustments around warming conditions?

Yes, this is what climate scholars call “adaptation.” I could imagine a world in which it would make more sense for the “Summer” Olympics to be held in spring or fall, and (sadly) it might even be really hard to hold a Winter Olympics at all (unless one plans on counting on the highly energy-intensive practice of producing snow!).

The challenge is we’ve built an entire human civilization in a period of planetary history called the “Holocene,” which has been defined by an unusually stable and warm climate. There is so much that will need to change now that it appears these conditions no longer exist.

For media who wish to schedule an interview with Huber, please reach out to Daryl Lovell, associate director of media relations, dalovell@syr.edu.

Sydney Bergan ’23 will cover the upcoming Summer Olympics in Paris as an audience editor for USA Today.

The internship that launched Sydney Bergan ’23 on a path to covering the upcoming Summer Olympics in Paris, France, started off on an unexpected trajectory.

As a junior at ���ϲ�����, Bergan landed an internship through the prestigious Dow Jones News Fund with McClatchy, but instead of serving as a reporter—which was her career ambition—Bergan was assigned to the digital media program as an audience engagement intern.

Bergan spent 10 days enhancing her digital media literacy skills at Arizona State University, taking curated stories and repackaging them for different audiences. From there, Bergan worked as an intern for The Charlotte Observer and The News & Observer. Before long, The Sacramento Bee hired her as an audience editor while she was still enrolled in classes at ���ϲ�����. Now, she’s an audience editor for USA Today.

Being an audience editor was the perfect blend of content creation and newsworthiness. Bergan excelled by understanding how to create stories that resonate with audiences, and she enjoyed having conversations with people about what types of content they want to see.

Sydney Bergan

“I thought of myself as a reporter and I always knew I loved people and telling their stories,” says Bergan, who earned a magazine, news and digital journalism degree from the .

“But once I started, I just fell in love with the audience engagement work. I love the content creation and curation side of journalism. It allows me to be creative. I do a lot of content design for USA Today, coming up with stories that will reach our audiences wherever they’re looking for their content. I love looking at the analytics to see what stories, videos or graphics perform well and which ones don’t. It’s all so fascinating.”

Her next assignment will take her to Paris to create content around the Summer Olympics for USA Today. It’s a dream come true for Bergan.

“I love the Olympics. Always have. It’s crazy I’ll be covering the Summer Olympics! It just feels so surreal,” Bergan says. “I worked hard to get here, and I know I’ve got this, but there’s some imposter syndrome at play. This is a big deal. I’m working with journalists who have covered the Olympics many times before. I’m the new kid on the block and am just trying to learn as much as I can and soak it all in.”

Before she arrives in Paris, Bergan sat down with SU News to discuss her content strategy for the Olympics, the must-have interview or piece of content she’s hoping to create and the valuable lessons she learned on campus.

What does the job of an audience editor entail?

In the simplest terms, my job is to get eyes on articles and content in unique and creative ways through platforms like our website and our social media. We’re the behind-the-scenes people who use our news judgment and understanding of the platforms to determine where content will perform the best.

A lot of people say they feel they have more than enough content to consume out there, but they have a hard time breaking it down and understanding it. We do a lot in the social media video space through explainer posts on our Instagram and Facebook pages that help break down complex issues into the five things you need to know.

What’s your Olympic content strategy?

You don’t know what the big story is until you get there. I’ll be doing a lot of cultural content, showing the audience the sights and sounds of Paris during the Olympics. You have this iconic European city playing host to an iconic event. Part of my job is figuring out what people who aren’t there would want to see. What is it like to be in Paris while the Olympics are going on? What’s the food like? What’s the atmosphere? What are people talking about? What’s on the mind of the Olympians? Every day is going to be fun and exciting, and I’m ready to make videos and content that resonates with people.

What’s one must-have interview or piece of Olympic content you want to create?

If I could talk to [gymnast] Simone Biles or [swimmer] Katie Ledecky, sign me up! But they are obviously in high demand. I’m just really excited to see the venues and show our audience how integrated they are into the city. Beach volleyball is being played underneath the Eiffel Tower. Marathon runners are literally running through the city. Equestrian is happening at the Château de Versailles. There’s so many different, fascinating utilizations of this space and I just want to do it all.

What is the most valuable lesson you learned from your time on campus?

News judgment. News judgment is very hard to come by, recognizing what deserves the spotlight. Those skills have been essential every day of my career and it all comes back to the years of training we had at ���ϲ����� and in the Newhouse School. The class activities where you identify the lead of a particular situation. Working as an editor for The Daily Orange, I was coming up with stories all the time. All that practice became muscle memory and now it’s part of my toolkit. Had I not spent all that time learning what a lead should look like and what is the most important news story of the day, I wouldn’t have that strong news judgment I have today.

Mike Tirico ’88, NBC’s voice of the Olympics, talks about getting ready for the games, his commitment to helping our young broadcast students and his love for ���ϲ�����.

When the Olympic Games begin later this month, one of the University’s best-known alums will be front and center. In many ways it’s a role Mike Tirico ’88 knew he wanted at an early age.

“My mom will tell you, even as a little kid, I was walking around pretending to be a sportscaster,” he says. “This is what I wanted to do in life.”

As the athletes prepare for competition, Tirico is preparing to anchor NBC’s daily Olympics coverage as he’s done since 2016. But as most broadcast fans know, Olympics studio host is only part of the Tirico portfolio, which includes “Sunday Night Football,” PGA golf, and thoroughbred and Indy racing among others. Those sports he knows well. This summer he’ll be put to the test with new Olympic sports, all while trying to avoid making waves.

“Surfing is happening in Tahiti at the Olympics, I put up my hand to volunteer to be the surfing correspondent,” says Tirico, who adds with a smile that “for some reason, they went with Colin Jost from ‘Saturday Night Live.’ I don’t know what I should read into that but it’s fine.”

Break dancing is another sport new to the games and according to Tirico a sign of the athletic times. “It does speak to what the Olympics does in trying to reach out to new generations and keep the youth of the world involved,” he says. “There was a time that snowboarding came in the Olympics and people were asking why. Now, snowboarding is one of the cornerstones of the Winter Olympics.”

In this “’Cuse Conversations” podcast, Tirico talks about getting ready for the games, his sleep schedule while in Paris (it’s rough), his commitment to helping our young broadcast students and, as a first-generation student who met and married his wife here, his love for ���ϲ�����.

Check out podcast featuring Tirico. A transcript [PDF] is also available.

What are your most memorable moments from the Games?

This would be the fifth Olympic Games I cover, the fourth as the primetime host and watching Americans win gold medals in person, those stick out for me. When we say the Olympics brings the world together, I don’t mean to be too Pollyanna about it because the Olympics are flawed in many ways, they are impacted by politics and corruption and all this stuff that’s happened, those stories have been well reported for years. But just the fact that there’s somebody in South Sudan who is training the same way somebody is training in South San Francisco for the same event and they get to meet in the middle and figure out who’s better, that’s still really freaking cool for me.

With 30 different Olympic sports and more than 10,000 athletes, and knowing your busy sports coverage schedule, how do you find the time to prepare?

Mike Tirico

If I’ve learned anything, it’s you can’t be prepared for everything at the Olympics. The key is to know how to access it and, oftentimes, that is our research team. The unheralded heroes of Olympic coverage for generations have been and continue to be the research teams who work year-round on the details of the competition.

In the lead up to it, it’s go over all the stuff so you know where it is but don’t memorize it because you can’t. You can’t know everything about each of the 10,000-plus athletes or every sport, all the 200-plus countries or delegations that will come down the river, in this case, the opening ceremony in France.

So, it is learn how to prepare for it and really focus in on the stuff we cover the most—swimming,  gymnastics, track and field, basketball, volleyball, beach volleyball, women’s soccer, men’s soccer. Know that and then know the big athletes, the 50 or so that will become somewhat familiar names to households around America.

In many ways you are not starting from scratch here, are you?

You’re not starting from zero, you’re starting from, “Okay, I remember this in Tokyo and let’s just build on that.” And I think, during the years now as well, maybe I wouldn’t have been paying attention to the world swimming championships that were on, but now that I know this is my job and I’m getting ready for this Olympics, which gets you ready for the next one, you pay more attention. The global athletes, international athletes are on my radar way before I open up a book and say, “Okay, today is swimming day, let’s start cramming for swimming.” It helps significantly to have some gray hair in the chair.

Mike, you and I have been friends for many years, having worked together at WTVH in ���ϲ�����. If we could go back, what would you say to young Mike, the sportscaster at TV5?

I wish I could tell younger Mike to have a little broader view and be adventurous more. I think being adventurous as a journalist is impactful and I think, over time, we start to feel that a bit more. I think you know you’ve done the job, you’ve established yourself. It’s so hard to fake confidence but that’s what you have to do at an early age. I’m 21, 22, here I am trying to ask Jim Boeheim a question. Jim Boeheim, at that point, knew a thousand times more about basketball than I did and I’m trying to ask an impactful question and make a difference and I wish I would’ve had a little more ability to fake my confidence and get through that stuff back then. And that, if you’re prepared, you’re going to be all right and you don’t have to doubt yourself.

Note: This conversation was edited for brevity and clarity.

Students in Brad Horn’s Managing Global Brands of Sport: An International Public Relations Study class learned about global sport through the communication lens during a three-week immersion experience in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Historically, the Olympics have provided countless memorable athletic achievements—the Miracle on Ice men’s hockey team upsetting the Soviet Union at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York; the Dream Team capturing gold at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain; gymnast Kerri Strug shrugging off an ankle injury to lead Team USA to its first-ever team gold medal at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia, just to name a few.

And while there are sure to be impressive performances when the world’s best athletes converge in Paris, France, for the upcoming Summer Olympics, the Games are also an opportunity to showcase the global power of sport, which is the focal point of recently concluded Managing Global Brands of Sport: An International Public Relations Study class, held for three weeks in Lausanne, Switzerland, as part of an immersion experience for students.

Brad Horn

“We focus on how to bridge the gap between what Americans know about sports in our country compared to global sport through communications,” says Horn, associate dean for strategic initiatives and professor of practice in public relations in the .

“Look ahead to what the U.S. is going to see in sport. We’re hosting the 2026 World Cup, the 2028 Summer Olympics are being held in Los Angeles and the 2034 Winter Olympics potentially will be hosted in Lake Placid. This is a decade where those working in U.S. sports will be working with and dealing with global sport entities like never before, and there’s a big knowledge gap. I want to do my part to help prepare students to better understand that landscape.”

Horn’s professional background in communications and public relations includes working for more than 20 years in Major League Baseball (MLB) and with the Baseball Hall of Fame, serving as an ambassador at the World Series, the World Baseball Classic, the All-Star game and MLB International before heading up communication and education for the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency.

“This idea of global sport has always been part of my DNA,” says Horn, who sat down with SU News to discuss the objectives of his class, the important takeaways and how his students leave with a broadened understanding of the global power of sport.

Describe the goals and important takeaways of the class.

Students pose on the floor of the Union Cycliste Internationale’s headquarters in Aigle, Switzerland.

This is an immersion into global sport through the communication lens. We look at how organizations communicate through their sport or their sport’s governing body about cultural and geopolitical issues with stakeholders around the globe. The idea is to give students various perspectives from organizations like the International Olympic Committee, FIFA, the International Testing Agency, anti-doping agencies, FIBA, the World Baseball Softball Confederation, the Union Cycliste Internationale and more. These were some of the bigger organizations we visited this year.

Our students also work a two-day Hosts and Federations Summit, where 300 delegates came to Lausanne to pitch their cities on major sporting events, to pitch their sport to match with a city or to pitch their rights to sell these sporting events. It gives students a chance to look at sport in an entirely different way than what we think about in the U.S., which is so focused on the four major sports [football, basketball, baseball and hockey] and on college sports. They get to study how global sport governance works and how communication is developed at a central office. It’s an immersion that gives them a front row seat into global sport communication.

How did you incorporate the upcoming Summer Olympics into your class?

We’re trying to understand the origins of sport in places like Greece, Switzerland, China and Australia. The origins are not in the four major sports in America, which are so young compared to the historical lens of the Olympiad. We look at the lessons we’ve learned during the modern Olympics by bringing people together across cultures. We look at moments like the 1936 Summer Olympics in Germany, when Adolf Hitler used the Olympics as his propaganda and Jesse Owens, the great Black American track and field athlete, refused to interact with Hitler and his racist agenda while winning four gold medals.

We spend time trying to understand the idea of Olympism, a philosophy that emphasizes the wholeness of body, will and mind, combining sport with culture and education. We examine how the media prepares for the Games, the questions the press could be asking the host country and how people are representing their nations from a media standpoint.

We then look at how the Olympics create this idea that sport unites us during a time when the world is so polarized. As communicators, there are two questions we always want to answer in public relations: Who are we trying to reach and what are we trying to get them to do? In sport, we’re not just trying to get a box score out there and hope fans see it. We’re trying to think deeply about passion and fan engagement and how we can unlock this fandom.

Influenced primarily by an American viewpoint on sports, what are some of the reactions students have when they come over for this immersion experience?

These students realize that the U.S. is not the center of the sports world. We went to the Centre for Sport and Human Rights to help students understand that not everything that glitters is gold when it comes to sport. There are human rights atrocities and violations of athletes’ rights. There are violations of worker rights when stadiums are being built for competitions. Migrant workers died building stadiums for the World Cup in Qatar.

These issues are all becoming bigger with each passing day. I feel very passionate about this immersion experience because it truly gives students a sense that sport is a lot more than just the NBA Finals, the Super Bowl or seeing a great Aaron Judge home run. Globally, sports are tied into societies and into national pride, and communicating across those cultures is really challenging.

Farhana Sultana

is a professor in ���ϲ�����’s Maxwell School. Her areas of expertise include environmental justice, sustainability and political ecology. Professor Sultana co-wrote this about the Cop28 climate conference. She comments below on the sustainability measures around the upcoming Paris games and is available for interview.

Professor Sultana says:

“The Paris Summer Olympics has created a buzz around sustainability, with the goal to half the emissions of prior games. Planners stated goals to reduce carbon footprint and emissions across sectors such as transportation, construction, and operations. Historical lack of transparency, accountability, greenwashing, and tweaking at the margins of sustainability have plagued such massive events.

“What’s often overlooked are justice implications locally and globally, in terms of local social and environmental impacts long-term, as well as global climate injustices via rise in greenhouse emissions, problematic carbon offset programs, resource extraction issues, waste dumping, and ecosystems impacts. Whether Paris offers significant changes remain to be seen.”

To request interviews or get more information:

Daryl Lovell
Associate Director of Media Relations
Division of Communications

M��315.380.0206
dalovell@syr.edu |
news.syr.edu |

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, professor of geography and the environment at ���ϲ�����’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, shared his thoughts below. If you’d like to schedule an interview with him, please reach out to Vanessa Marquette, media relations specialist, at vrmarque@syr.edu.

Huber writes: “As long as well-meaning ‘green’ policies continue to foreground taking away modern comforts, they will generate angry backlash (and in this case the opposite effect of more emissions as countries inefficiently seek to keep their athletes cool in a uncoordinated fashion). This is not unrelated to the electoral losses Greens endured in the recent EU elections (and could hit France itself soon).”