Petes voice making Olympic calls
Rob Snoek covering snowboarding, freestyle skiing in South Korea
Rob Snoek has been to 17 Olympic and Paralympic Games as an athlete and broadcaster but it never gets old for the radio voice of the Peterborough Petes.
The Port Hope resident is in Pyeongchang, South Korea to cover snowboarding and freestyle skiing slope style for CBC television broadcasts. He called Canada’s first medals of the Games on Saturday.
Snoek competed in the 100 and 200 metre dash and running long jump at the Paralympic Games in Barcelona (1992), Atlanta (1996) and Sydney (2000). His best finish was a fifth place in each event. He also ran the 400m in Sydney. Snoek is a below-the-knee amputee due to a congenital birth defect.
As a broadcaster, Snoek has worked at the Olympics in Salt Lake City (2002), Athens (2004), Torino (2006), Beijing (2008), Vancouver (2010), Sochi (2014) and Rio (2016). He covered all of those Paralympics except Sochi and also did the 2012 London Paralympics. He’s covered sports like track and field, beach volleyball, field hockey, water polo, snowboarding, moguls, sledge hockey, wheelchair basketball, among others.
As an athlete and having covered athletes, Snoek said events like world championships and X Games are big but “athletes are kind of blown away by the scope of the Olympics. It’s a monstrosity of an event especially the Summer Olympics but Winter Olympics is big, too.”
Snoek has been a part of some memorable Canadian Olympic moments.
“In Sochi I had the honour of calling Canada’s first Olympic medal. It was Mark McMorris in snowboard slope style. That was fun and significant. I was working alongside his brother Craig who was my colour commentator. That was a unique experience to watch how Craig handled that and how professional he was and, yet, you could sense the innerexcitement.
“For Paralympics it was Chantal Petitclerc the wheelchair racer who did the almost unfathomable winning five gold medals in Athens in ‘04 and five gold medals again in Beijing in ‘08. She won a few more in London in 2012. I called all five back-to-back in 2004 and 2008.
“Calling Canada’s sledge hockey gold medal in 2006 in Torino was something that was pretty awesome.”
While the work is intense Snoek has found time to see sites and take in events outside of what he’s covering, on occasion.
“In Sochi, the Canadian women’s hockey team and women’s curling team both played for gold medals and I was able to get to both and see them in their entirety. That was pretty exciting. It’s something you don’t really expect and is kind of a bonus,” Snoek said.
“You don’t know if you’re going to get that opportunity. It depends on how things happen. I know I have certain days that look like a day off but in a sport like snowboarding or freestyle skiing they leave days open on purpose so if something happens with the weather. If one of my colleagues gets sick or has a conflict because of weather I might have to slide into another sport.”
Three host cities stood out above the others for Snoek.
“Sydney, Australia totally got the Paralympics and they might have been the first place that really did get it,” he said. “They did an amazing job. Their fans, their support of their athletes and star performances was really neat.
“As a broadcaster, the London Games was phenomenal. They totally got the Paralympics as well. The standard was Sydney until London came along and catapulted them to another level. It was exciting to be in the midst of that.”
Vancouver was special for the Canadian pride displayed.
“The way the Vancouver Olympics took over Granville Street and the energy and the Canadian pride was amazing. My hotel to my workplace was about two kilometres and there was a bus I could take but I didn’t take the bus. I walked it because it was phenomenal – this Canadian cultural experience. Even when it was midnight. It was awesome to be a part of it.”
Perhaps the least impressive experience, he said, was in the birthplace of the Olympics in Athens.
“We thought they were going to get the Games in 1996 and the IOC decided they weren’t ready. To be honest, they still weren’t ready in 2004,” Snoek said.
“I felt like they just didn’t get the Games, the Olympics or Paralympics. As crazy as that might sound. I just don’t think there was a buy-in in that country for the modern Olympic Games.”
He expected South Korea to do a good job as hosts but it’s the competition he’s most intrigued by with pundits predicting a bestever performance for Canadian athletes.
“I’m really curious if Canada will do as well as predicted. Canada has bought into wanting their athletes to do well and from a government and corporate standpoint have put a lot of money into it. I think it’s worthwhile to do. Now it will be interesting to see if all that World Cup and World Championship success parlays into the kind of Games that really gets Canada excited.
“From an international standpoint, the whole Korea conundrum is interesting. Is there a real move from North Korea towards South Korea and towards some sort of unification,” he said.
“Or is this just something someone on the streets in Seoul told a reporter the other day, that they want to talk but North Korea is full of lies so we don’t know? I like the idea the Olympic Games could have such a positive impact on something that is bigger.”