Going for Olympic Gold, Behind the Camera

The current world record for most Olympics competed in by an individual athlete is 10, an achievement claimed by only two athletes in the games’ history. Those honors go to Ian Millar, an equestrian from Canada, and Nino Salukvadze, a sport shooter who represented the Soviet Union and Georgia.

The Vineyard’s Timothy Persinko is also notching his 10th Olympics this year at Milan Cortina, which celebrated its opening ceremony on Friday night. All of Mr. Persinko’s feats, however, have taken place behind the camera.

Mr. Persinko moved with his family to the Vineyard five years ago and on the Island works as a video producer at Circuit Arts. But this week, he traveled to Italy to help broadcast the Winter Olympics, a job he has been doing at NBC for almost two decades.

Speaking by phone on Friday from Milan, Mr. Persinko talked about his role as a camera operator, capturing the sights, sounds and stories of this year’s crop of Olympic and Paralympic athletes as they compete for medals.

“Shooting sports is a little like playing sports,” he said. “You are jockeying for position, you need to work as a team to do it well, and you’re always trying to get better.”

Mr. Persinko’s first Olympics with NBC was the Beijing summer games in 2008, and he’s covered every Olympics since. His team won Emmy awards for its coverage of the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022 and the Paris Summer Olympics in 2024.

When Mr. Persinko spoke with the Gazette from his hotel room, the opening ceremonies were underway. The live television feed and excited hallway chatter could be heard through the phone.

That night, his team would be on call for any breaking news, meaning if anything went seriously wrong, Mr. Persinko and his colleagues would be needed for backup.

“Hopefully, it’s going be my night [to] watch ceremonies, but we’re technically on the clock right now,” he said.

Every day is a new adventure for Mr. Persinko and his crew, who shift between many different types of coverage and often don’t know what each day will bring. So far, the team has filmed Thursday’s torch-bearing ceremony, a U.S. women’s hockey game and a cultural feature on creating the perfect cup of Italian espresso.

What the days have in common is that each is a test of endurance and flexibility.

“They are all long days, and the schedule is always very fluid, because there’s so much competition to cover,” he said.

Covering the Olympics for the past 20 years has given him a front-row seat to not just the action but also to how the games have transformed. The biggest change, he noted, is the International Olympic Committee’s departure from building each year’s arena from scratch, choosing instead to rely on existing infrastructure. The committee opted to only erect one new building, the Milano Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena, for this year’s games.

One thing that hasn’t waned over the years, he said, is the Olympians’ passion and skill. Mr. Persinko is an avid fan of the U.S. women’s ice hockey team, which he said “embodies the best” of amateur sports.

“As far as the athletes, there’s still that same awesome excitement,” he said

It’s also a huge rush for those behind the scenes, many of whom are achieving their dreams too.

But is it easy? Not remotely, said Mr. Persinko — especially this year, when the games’ two locations, Milan and Cortina, are more than 250 miles apart.

“It’s this huge human undertaking that gets thrown together,” he said. “There’s all these intricate processes [for] transportation and security and then, of course, actually staging competition…. There’s definitely some friction when things don’t work right.”

His community of colleagues, though, makes it worthwhile.

“You get a chance to meet reporters, on-air people, and then camera and sound people from all over the world,” he said. “It’s really awesome.”

For Mr. Persinko, the experience is made possible by his wife, Corey, and their two children, 12 and 10. He said they will be following his Olympic coverage from their home on the Vineyard.

“I couldn’t do this gig without the support of my family,” he said. “They’re going to be keeping track.”

This article appears in February 13, 2026.