Despite Tokyo's state of emergency, Raleigh-born woman produces seamless Olympics coverage
Posted August 5, 2021 8:31 a.m. EDT
Raleigh native Susan LaSalla worked for NBC News for 43 years, most notably producing the Today Show for 15 years, and never once concentrated in sports. That’s why when NBC’s executive producer approached her about the 2014 games in Sochi during her early retirement, LaSalla thought she was getting free tickets.
She thought wrong.
“He said, ‘Well, I need a producer.’ And I said, ‘I'm a news chick. I'm not a sports chick; I've never covered sports as a journalist.’” LaSalla said. “And he said ‘You'll be fine.’”
Fast-forward to the Tokyo games, LaSalla ‘the newsie’ as she calls herself, has successfully produced NBC Sports broadcasts for four Olympic Games in a row.
Her work in the 2020 games involves producing an eight-hour broadcast, running from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., Tokyo time. Alongside NBC’s talented analysts and technical crew, LaSalla works with a diverse group in the newsroom from countries such as London, Australia and Bulgaria. Even though most people in the crew had never worked with one another until convening in Tokyo, they still pull off seamless shows.
LaSalla’s experience as a journalist in Tokyo has differed from Sochi, Pyeongchang and Rio because of Japan’s state of emergency due to the COVID-19 pandemic. At the start of the Games, only 8% of that city's population was vaccinated, and Japan’s extra safety measures necessitated that LaSalla and her crew isolate themselves to only their hotel buildings and venues for two weeks upon their arrival in Tokyo.
Even after that quarantine, they are only able to travel within a 15-mile radius of the hotel, so LaSalla isn’t able to go watch any of the Olympic events in person.
“In other Olympics, when you get off work and there's an event that night, you'd be able to go,” LaSalla said. “But you can't do that now. So our world is small; the circumference of our world is small.”
LaSalla and her now tight-knit crew stay busy while cooped up in the studio and are still soaking in the opportunity of covering the world’s largest sporting event.
“I think we're doing a damn good job of it under very, very different circumstances,” LaSalla said. “It's a privilege and an honor to be asked.”
With Bejing on the horizon in 2022, newsie LaSalla hopes to be invited back out of retirement to cover the biggest stage of sports once again.
