Stories From the Sidelines

A lot of folks — especially the ones on the other end of the conversation — might brand them as the necessary evil of televised sports.
We speak of the genre known as the sideline reporter, that intrepid person you'll often hear cut into a game broadcast with some breathless tidbit of information. Sometimes, it's entirely useful stuff but way too often, it's wasted airtime (you no doubt know of what I speak).
But that being said, a few of these folks who stand so close to the action deserve a hearty thumbs up for their work at Vancouver 2010. Indeed, they've helped provide some of the most compelling interview moments so far during these Winter Olympics.
Allow me to elaborate. Canadian speed skater Christine Nesbitt is a rather shy sort who was left all but speechless by her gold-medal triumph in the women's 1,000 metres earlier today. But TSN's James Cybulski got Nesbitt to reveal some true emotion when he asked her about sharing the moment with her longtime coach, Marcel Lacroix.
"He's the only one who always believed in me," Nesbitt said, her eyes welling up with tears as she spoke.
Now I have to admit I posted a smart-assed remark on Twitter about that — Cybulski and I are both from Ottawa and we've known each other for awhile — but I also felt a lump in my throat watching it.
All because someone asked just the right question.
It was more of the same the night Alex Bilodeau won Canada's first gold medal of these Games in men's moguls. TSN's Katherine Dolan, who's done some fine work of her own at Cypress Mountain, asked Bilodeau what it meant to do it in front of his older brother, Frederic, who suffers from cerebral palsy (Alex calls him his biggest inspiration). The response was raw and emotional. But very, very real.
Great television? You bet. But that's the Olympics are all about. And why millions of us can't get enough of it every four years.