Let It Go, Let It Go, Let It Go!
By Michael Weadock, August 2025
It’s a year now since I arrived back from Paris having spent nearly three weeks in the French capital working for talkSPORT covering the Olympic Games as an official rights-holding broadcaster.
I was the first of the team to arrive in France and the last to leave. It’s been interesting how different John and I have reacted to our return from the Games. After catching up on some sleep and re-introducing ourselves to our families, John’s focus immediately turned to what to do next. Ultimately, Anything but Footy is a business and we needed new projects to bring in money. This was always going to be a struggle in a post-Olympic year for a company which specialises in making content about the Olympics and Paralympics.
He started talking about the next Winter Games in Italy and even how we might approach coverage of Los Angeles in 2028. There was also confirmation of the next Commonwealth Games and we’ve been working closely with the organisers of Glasgow 2026.
I struggled much more with moving on so quickly. Paris 2024 had been like an all-consuming love affair and now it was over. I ‘grieved’ for it in many ways – even if that does sound a little dramatic. There were opportunities following the Games too which kept taking me back. Immediately, I was invited to speak to students at Darlington College about my experiences. I delivered a presentation at Leeds Trinity University as part of their Media and Journalism Week and I was invited by The Radio Academy to join a panel to talk about Olympic broadcasting. We also recorded a retrospective podcast series called Encore Une Fois looking back at each day of Paris 2024 in turn.
Meanwhile, I had started to archive some of the audio that I had broadcast during the Games and also had hundreds of photographs that I wanted to curate. This was a process that I began on the Eurostar home and during my two-hour delay at Kings Cross on the final leg of my journey. It’s literally taken me a year to complete and here’s my Olympics in audio and vision.
It’s very long and will be of interest to nobody but me. But, it was something I needed to do and may be useful for insomniacs…
Now, exactly one year on, I am ready to move on. There’s lots to do. Team GB has announced their first athletes for Milano-Cortina, so I’m beginning to put together the handbook that we use during the event. This includes biographies of the athletes, key facts and figures and information about the different sports and disciplines. As further athletes are confirmed, we’ll also start filling in the daily planners to track the medal opportunities and start planning the logistics of where we need to be.
There’s also the same job to do for the Commonwealth Games where we now know the schedule of sports and sessions. Plus, Los Angeles has also revealed what sports will be taking place on what day, so there’s some information there to look at too. So, time to let it go. Time to move on.
I do have one more Paris 2024 audio montage to complete, but I’m saving that for when I next know John has a long car journey and can listen!
