The 2024 Paris Olympic Games were historic for Harvard. Athletes that currently represent or formerly competed for the Crimson won a total of 13 medals, the highest medal count for the university since the 1896 Olympic Games. This year’s games also saw an 82% increase in viewership compared to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, amassing over 30.6 million viewers across NBCUniversal’s (NBCU) streaming platforms.
But what goes on when the cameras are off? In interviews with the Independent, three Harvard students share how they spent their summers in Paris interning at the Olympics. Cate Engles ’25 and siblings Reeve Sykes ’26 and Nuzzy Sykes ’28 worked vastly different jobs. While their workdays varied, they all contributed to the elaborate logistics of Paris 2024, bringing new perspectives to the Olympics’ overall success.
Engles had just returned from a spring semester abroad in France before she flew back for her summer internship. Engles is a Romance Languages and Literature concentrator focused on pursuing a career in journalism. Engles said she “knew the Olympics [were] coming” and was interested in working as a French translator back in the fall of her junior year. She figured “something [had] to open up from the broadcasting side of things.” After checking the NBC website almost daily, she applied and was one of four students accepted as a Summer Olympics Hospitality Intern for NBCUniversal.
Every day looked different for Engles. Assigned to accompany NBCU’s clients, NBC Executives, or individuals from NBC’s advertising partners, Engles either attended an Olympic event or went to a curated “Parisian-inspired” cultural program for the clients. She got to see many of the Olympic stars and highlights, from Simone Biles in the beam and floor finals to the 200-meter race where Noah Lyles competed with COVID.
Engles helped navigate the daily hurdles of bringing the clients to the Olympic events and around Paris, which saw an influx of tourists and athletes. She shared the details of how much work the city had to do to “modify itself to take in all those people.” For example, there were “Olympics-specific lanes that if you were in a hospitality group like Coca-Cola or NBC…you [could] drive [and] beat traffic.” Engles also served as a translator for NBC clients and collaborated with the official Olympics staff to move VIPs into the venues. Although many of the staff members spoke English, Engles’ French expertise allowed her to navigate unexpected difficulties with ease. For instance, she solved “technological issues involving the Olympic ticketing application.”
While Engles worked in the operations behind accommodating all the guests, Reeve Sykes’ experience as a runner intern for NBC revealed what it was like to broadcast these games to the world. Her daily job would be “helping the camera crews…like holding the boom or the wires [and] helping them pack their gear” along with checking which events Team USA would be likely to medal in. A highlight of her experience was the two-week duration where the Sesame Street characters were in the NBC office interviewing the medalists.
“It would be like boom, boom, boom all at once,” Sykes explained, describing the Sesame Street production process for the Olympics. The gold medalists they interviewed, like Katie Ledecky or the U.S. men’s rowing four, all had jam-packed schedules, so everything was fast-paced. Sykes said, “We [did] maybe a five to ten-minute little skit interview with [the medalists], and then they go. Then, it’s either we’re going to shoot at this arena, or we’re going to go to this venue, or we’re going to go to the Eiffel Tower.”
For the athletes being interviewed, the Sesame Street skits were a breath of fresh air. When interviewing gymnasts Jordan Chiles and Sunisa Lee, Sykes shared how they were “giggling and taking selfies with [Elmo] and sending pictures to their younger cousins or their nieces and nephews.” Through her observations of the athletes interacting with the Sesame Street characters, Sykes said “I think the interviews can be very tedious for them, especially after they’ve just literally competed against the best in the entire world. They’re tired…and then it’s just Elmo. How can you not be laughing?”
Besides working with Sesame Street, Sykes also helped with interviewing the athletes. One aspect she did not expect was how immediate the interviews were. After one of the water polo matches, for example, Sykes recalled how quickly the athletes arrived. “They walked straight to be interviewed. They wouldn’t even put on a towel. They’d still be dripping.” From this experience, Sykes saw how the reporters captured “exactly how [the athletes] are feeling in the moment right after they have won or lost their game.” Sykes furthered how impressive it was to see the reporters carry a meaningful interview “while they’re in this crazy emotional [state].”
Reeve Sykes’ younger brother Nuzzy Sykes was also working in Paris. Unlike Engles and his sister who worked for NBCU, Sykes was an intern for the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Foundation. According to Sykes, “Since all the United States athletes don’t receive any government funding…the foundation is the organization that does that.”
Sykes’ jobs was assisting with the foundation’s donor gifting programs. Specifically, Sykes was working in the USA house, which was “a big center for American spectators,” and at three hotels where the donors were staying. In addition to dropping off gifts to the donors, he worked on inventory and stocking. Working with the donors, Sykes said his biggest take from this experience was “you never really know someone’s full story until after you talk with them.”
Although these students’ experiences were different, they all expressed how Paris was captured by the Olympic spirit. Engles described that the “crowds were very French.” When talking to locals, the Parisians told her that “they’ve never seen French people come out like that.” Nuzzy Sykes shared that his internship gave him “a lot of perspective…how so many people can come together and work towards one, three-week-long goal.” Detailing her time at the Closing Ceremony, Reeve Sykes recalled that “Thomas Bach, who’s the president of the International Olympic Committee, was saying that the Olympics are a very special time because it creates this very small world where there’s nothing else, just sports…There’s so much harmony. Everyone is there to compete.”
Kaitlyn Hou ’27 (kaitlynhou@college.harvard.edu) felt new levels of patriotism during the Olympics.