Park City's Chris Waddell commentates the Beijing Paralympic Opening Ceremony

The Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympics played a major role in five Park City athletes getting honored at this year's Utah State of Sport Awards. Photo: TownLift // Michele Roepke

BEIJING — Winning 13 Paralympic Summer and Winter medals makes 30-year Park City resident Chris Waddell NBC’s natural choice to commentate the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing 2022 Paralympics.

Broadcasting from Connecticut, just as he did six months ago for the Tokyo Paralympic Summer Games, he’s no stranger to New England as he was paralyzed in a ski race crash while a student-athlete at Middlebury College in Vermont.

He can often be seen skiing at Park City Mountain and at Deer Valley Resort. That’s when he’s not in meetings of his own foundation, or the multiple nonprofit boards he’s on, or for accessibility advisory committees for the State of Utah and in communities around the world. All that is scheduled around his continuous adventuring like climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro.

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When in Park City, Waddell is at his home in the same neighborhood as another Park City Paralympic star in the Opening Ceremony, Danelle Umstead. They both reside in the area around Trailside Elementary School. Umstead was bestowed the honor of flag bearer for Team USA and NBC did a cutaway live shot of her son Brocton and her parents up at 4:30 a.m. to spectate from their living room.

Spectating inside the Beijing National Stadium, the only venue to hold Summer and Winter Ceremonies, were 15,000 invited guests juxtaposed against the 50,000 it could hold were it not for a global pandemic. The stadium floor showcased performers with disabilities, ceremonial flag raising, and Andrew Parsons, the president of the International Paralympic Committee’s speech mentioning the United Nation’s Olympic Truce-ideal saying, “Change starts with sport.” Those words were also written in Braile on the 8K LED floor. He ended by loudly exclaiming one word, “PEACE!”

With the athletes all masked and socially distanced, the Games were declared open after the Parade of Nations including the athletes representing Ukraine who received a standing ovation accompanied by the biggest round of applause.

Six-time Paralympic medalist Alana Nichols skis at Park City’s National Ability Center which is where I caught up with her before the Beijing Paralympics began. We discussed her enjoyment working for NBC behind the microphone at the Tokyo Paralympics and that she’ll be doing similar duties for Beijing. She said,

“I’ll be in the Stamford studios alongside Chris Waddell commentating on Alpine Skiing.” I asked her who she’s looking forward to reporting on, to which she replied, “Danelle Umstead and her husband Rob who is her visual impairment guide, they’re from right here in Park City and they have a really good shot at medalling.”

The Opening Ceremony culminated with the lighting of the cauldron with the Flame, a tall task with which the visually impaired, four-time gold medalist struggled momentarily. Waddell, who was a cauldron-lighter in the Salt Lake 2002 Paralympic Opening Ceremony, poignantly pointed out how that Chinese athlete personified persistence and, “Never gave up.”