Journalist Meg Roberts is no stranger to the fast pace of breaking news, but for three weeks during the Olympics, her days were a nonstop buzz of capturing the highs, lows, and everything in between.

Roberts (BA 2016), who currently hosts the 6 p.m. television news at CBC Windsor, worked 11-hour days, seven days a week during the Paris Games, highlighting all the viral moments on a digital show from the network’s Toronto studio.

“Hosting is a special job in a lot of ways because you get so close to the athletes and close to the content,” Roberts said. “We hosted a 15-minute live show in the middle of the day at 1:30 p.m., and I hadn't done that type of format before, completely off the cuff. We really tried to look for moments that resonated with so many Canadians and people around the world.”

She and co-host Dale Manucdoc covered all the captivating moments from the 2024 Games in Paris, from discussing the athletes and their performances to the chocolate muffins served in the Olympic Village that caused a sensation on social media.

“We wanted to focus on the human elements of the Games, like special moments between families and teammates,” Roberts explained.

This is Roberts’ third time covering the Olympics. She first worked as a field producer at the Tokyo Games in 2020, where she saw the Canadian women’s soccer team win gold. For the 2022 Winter Games, she was in Toronto focusing on social media and hosting and returned there for this year’s coverage.

“It’s intense,” she said.

“Every morning, we would go over what people were talking about online and which sports were doing well, and then we’d have our show at 1:30 p.m. Along with that, I had a lot of other commitments, like national television hits, a radio hit every single day, and then we’d film the second show, called Rise and Stream, which was a kind of lookahead for the next day.”

Roberts said covering the Games brings a unique energy that stands out from her usual day-to-day of covering hard news.

“The Olympics, as a whole, is such a positive experience in the sense that so many countries come together, rallying for the same thing, and that energy and the spirit of the Games propel you through those three weeks. It’s exciting every day,” she said.

“It’s almost like breaking news every day. When the men’s 4x100m relay team won the gold medal or when local athlete Kylie Masse won that bronze medal, making her the first Canadian swimmer to medal in three consecutive Olympics, those moments keep you on a high.”

Her biggest takeaway from each experience is recognizing the amount of effort and grit each athlete puts into their sport.

“For me, the most special part of the Olympics is getting to showcase the athletes and their success, but more so, their stories,” Roberts said. “It has taken major sacrifice for our Olympians and Paralympians to get where they are today, and being able to play a small role in telling Canadians their stories is something I do not take for granted and is special every single time I get to do it.”