2023 Sports Emmys: NBC Sports’ Chris Connolly on Pulling Off the Operational Feats of the 2022 Beijing Winter Games

The network was awarded the Sports Emmy for Outstanding Technical Team - Event

After the COVID-19 pandemic postponed the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, NBC Sports were tasked with producing two separate Games in two countries in six months. Jumping from Japan to the Chinese capital of Beijing, the network’s operations team dealt with numerous obstacles, but through thorough planning and steadfast determination, the 2022 Winter Games were completed within an organized and safe working environment.

At the 2023 Sports Emmys, NBC Sports’ VP, Olympic Venue Engineering, Chris Connolly, describes how his team’s hard work translated into winning the title of Outstanding Technical Team – Event and what it means to be a part of a dedicated ops division at NBC Sports.

Those credited on the project included:

Technical Supervisors
Jason Abrams, Harvey Acks, Terry Adams, Christopher Adams, John Arvelo, George Bailie,Nathan Balogh,Gary Bartunek, John Baxley, AndreyBelousov, Anna Berg, Kamal Bhangle, Marsha Bird, Jaime Birty, Vilson Botelho, Jane Brady, Terrence Brady, Martin Brosthaus, Dimitri Browne, Matthew Burns, Kevin Callahan, James Calorossi, Timothy Canary, Nicholas Cap, Tristan Case, Lillian Cereghino, Adella Choi, Dora Chong, Christopher Connolly, Alex Cosgrove, David Crane, Bridget Cugle, Stephen Curtis, Ian Dawes-Kuchta, Anthony Delisa, Michael Della Sala, Naika Denerville, Michael Donoghue, Todd Donovan, Michael Drazin, Shea Eady, Locke Eady, Derek Ehmen, Ecce Eraslan, Blaise Fernandez, Errol Foremaster, William Gahagan, Stacey Georgiou, Guillermo Germade, Kenneth Goss, Matthew Green, Peter Grinter, Marsha Groome, Noah Halloran, Leonza Harris, Rickey Hayes Jr, Shane Hendrick, John Herrholz, Dana Holland, Erin Hurley, Brian Irizarry, Charles Jablonski, Darryl Jefferson, Guillermo Jimenez, Jason Johnson, Lee Kalinsky, Craig Kaufman, Krystyna Kosciuzko, Daniel Lake, Robert Landau, Terri Leopold, Sean Light, Brian Longenecker, Luis Lopez Alvarez, Christopher Lubbers, Robert Madden, Karl Malone, Edward Martinez, Nobuko Masuno, Joseph Maurer, David Mazza, Andrew McCullough, Lisa McLeod, James McNamara, Zachary Meyers, James Miles, Dennis Milewski, Kyoko Mizukawa, Kristen Moorby, Andres Mora, Michael Muffoletto, Aavery Mundt, Lubos Murin, Jonathan Muro, Kari Nelson, Atila Ozkaplan, Jeff Park, Andrew Parr, John Pastore, John Pearce, Tom Perley, David Person, Ken Phelan, Timothy Phillippe, Kathryn Piper, Thomas Popple, Vincent Rao, Richard Ricco, Daniel Robertson, Julianne Ryan, Susan Saladino, Sotiris Salamoris, Robert Sanders, Ryan Soucy, Neil Staite, James Stuart, Cecilia Sun, Bryan Tabares, Takashi Tajima, Fuminori Takumi, Michael Tinari, John Tomlinson, Matthew Tompsett, Dominic Torchia, Kregg Van Meter, Michael Wallace, Matthew Ward, Shannon Ward, Michele Watson, Victor Wilder, Ian Woods, Pete Yarusavage, Lukas Zahas, Charlotte Zoller

Senior Technical Directors
Gabriel Bell, Mark Causey

Technical Directors
Edward Collins, Jonathan Collins, Derrell Harman

Electronic Camerapersons
Liam Adam, Aaron Blackwill, Jacob Blau, Jason Bourne, Simon Bradshaw, Erik Brush, Philip Bryden, Timothy Burke, Scott Caldwell, Kenneth Cavalli, Samson Chan, Michael Coker, Jeffrey Cuales, Jeffrey Cummings, David Didinger, Ara Dramm, John Duffy, Jeff Engerbretson, Donald Fenwick, Daniel Foard, Craig Frankenhoff, Curtis Gaston, Michael Germond, Ilco Giel, Patrick Griffard, Clifford Hake, Matthew Hardwick, Travis Johnson, Daniel Kasman, Randall Koury, Gregory Kubik, Salvatore Livia, J. Scott Lucas, Douglas Maguire, Matthew Marsden, Michael Matthews, Graham Maunder, Robert McDonald, Jay Morgan, John Murphy, Douglas Nelson, Timothy Persinko, Michael Pigeon, Richard Quinton, Bill Real, Patrick Rondou, Don Russell, Vincent Scammon, Sascha Schoeberl, Steven Schwartzbach, Ryan G Scott, Joseph Shaw, Jeffrey Smith, Benedict Sommer, Kai Stendel, Simon Stevenson, Thomas Stone, Jeremy Vicente, Tito Villasenor, Alexander Walker, James Wedlake, Scott West, Price Wetherill

Graphics Operators
James Annucci, Bianca Beck, Stephen Belmont, Lee Blair, Selena Cohen, Clayton Connell, Shaun Coy, James Dormany, Patrick Farrell, William Grant, Tyler Hynes, Stanislav Iordanov, Jennifer Lorentz, David Melfi, Matthew Mick, Bill Mitchell, Ann Smith, Jessica Torrico, Susan Walker, Kristy Weir, Ty Westerman, Shawn Hendrickson Weyer, Emma Wiatrzyk, Craig Wilkie

Lighting Directors
Steven Brill, Jeremy Dominik, Jon Goss, Sheryl Wisniewski

Senior Audio Engineers
Patrick Brady, Michael Dicrescenzo, Nuno Duarte, Steven Miller, Ryan O’Gorman, Rodrigo Thomaz

Audio Engineers
Phil Adler, Stephan Ahonen, Daniel Beigel, Perry Clark, Erin Crain, Fredrick Domenigoni, Timothy Dunn, Donald Garcia, Jeremy Katz, Anthony Kremer, William Laing, Shuo Li, Giovanni Lima Jr, Benjamin Majchrzak, Sam Mannis, Joshua Miller, Michael Moran, Fawzi Nijem, Alexandra Parral, Randy Pekich, Levi Radcliffe, Richard Rahner, Duncan Richards, Juan Rocha, Tony Scaife, Glenn Stilwell, Dale Tong, Chan Wai Hang, Colin Whitehill, David Wolcott, Alina Wong

Audio Assistants
Korey Evans, Leon Frank, Ryan Hunt, Michael Kramer, John McKallip, Timothy Pogorzala, John Steigerwald, Andrea Sumner

Digital Replay Operators
Douglas Bell, Arthur Cole, Carl Dolan, Jon Epstein, Howard Feinberg, Dimitri Gammer, Todd Giery, James Groh, David Larose, Lisa Menzies, Thomas Newman, Philip Paulin, Marc Ravin, Aaron Rhinehart, Daniel Siejak, Amanda Smerage, Roland Stockli, Kimberlee Tessean

Senior Maintenance Engineers
Jared Bessette Kirton, Dave Erskine, Mohamad Firdaus Bin Abdullah, Alyssa Genereux, David Greene, Dan Harb, Josh Hawfield, Jason Hotchkiss, Dave O’Brien, Tessa Potter, Brian Proksch, Graham Rendell, Orin Smith, Stephen Sontag, Samuel Stephens, Marcus Tresenriter, Scott Tucker, Rick Ulmer, Roberto Vazquez Almansa, Derrick Whittington

Video Engineers
Ed Austin, Silvano Avila, Izani Bin Ismail, Alex Bryson, Simon Burley, Pat Calhoun, Kameron Chones, David Cividanes, Michael Coulombe, Vincent Cuviello, Sarah Derusha, Graham Drew, Paul Dryden, Darrell Eden, Renato Feijo, Sean Fitzpatrick, Ian Gunn, Simon Halliday, John Han, Anthony Lestochi, William Lorenz, Trevor MacHalick, Abdul Majid Madasha Kader Sultan, Steven Martin, Dwain McArthur, Nicholas Mellor, Ricardo Gomes Melo Gonçalves, Mark Morel, Sean O’Donnell, Juan Padilla, Andrew Perez, Mark Perschel, Jon Reynolds,EdwardRobertson, AlexRodriguez,CarlSchroeder,StuartSholar, Marc Silverman, James Stewart, Taras Stokes, James Toten, Harris Upham, Diego Villalba, Samuel Wagner

Broadcast Media Managers
Emerse Kardhordo, Vicki Smith

Broadcast Network Engineers
Stephen Nikiforow, Harry Ryan

For more of SVG’s coverage of the 2023 Sports Emmys, visit SVG’s YouTube channel. For more, video interviews, and podcasts with experts from across the sports video production industry, visit SVG On Demand and SVG PLAY.

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