Drones are the star of NBC’s Winter Olympics coverage so far

If the star of the 2024 Paris Olympics was NBC’s debut of Gold Zone, 2026 in Milan-Cortina might be the year of the drones.

Throughout the first few days of the Winter Games, drone shots have become all the rage. Sports like alpine skiing, luge, snowboarding, speed skating, and ski jumping are all benefiting from incredible first-person visuals as athletes perform at speeds that are incomprehensible to normal humans.

Just take a look at the perspective these new angles are giving to viewers at home.

Drone shots have become a common part of sports broadcasting in recent years, but this is the first time we’ve seen a full implementation of the technology at a Winter Olympics. And is there a more perfect application?

Ski jumpers are flying the length of a football field through the air, a feat that’s impossible to truly capture on a mounted stationary camera. But with a drone? The camera can fly through the air with the ski jumper and capture the sport in a way that’s never been seen before.

The sliding sports like luge, bobsled, and skeleton are perhaps even more difficult to gain proper perspective on with traditional camera setups. But with a drone? You can really see that these athletes are risking life and limb shooting down an ice chute at 90 miles per hour.

According to a report by the Washington Post, the Olympic Broadcasting Services, which produces the Games on behalf of the IOC and distributes the feeds to broadcasters like NBC, has deployed 10 “traditional drones” and more than two dozen “first-person-view drones” for this year’s event. In total, OBS utilizes over 800 cameras to capture each and every Olympic competition.

“When a camera is chasing the athlete down the hill — right behind them — you truly get the sense of how fast they’re going,” NBC’s coordinating director for Olympic coverage Michael Sheehan told the Post. “That’s virtually impossible to capture with a wide shot shooting from the side. The drone coverage takes us to a place we’ve traditionally never been.”

A three-person team is assigned to each drone OBS deploys: A pilot, director, and technician. And honestly when watching some of these shots, you’d think drone operation should be an Olympic sport as well. Watch one drone operator explain how the job works alongside some incredible footage:

“The drone can go up to 120 kilometers per hour,” the operator says, noting that his drone has the ability to tweak the camera from a remote truck in case the lens needs adjusting. Then, he describes some of the challenges specific to slalom skiing, like adjusting the drone’s path if an athlete misses a pole and takes a different route, or making sure the drone stays far enough behind the athlete so that a pole doesn’t rebound and knock the camera out of the air.

While most have received the drone innovation positively, some have noted that the noise these drones emit can ruin a bit of the immersion and serenity viewers are used to during the Winter Olympics. That’s a fair point, but I’d argue that the quality of visuals that are being delivered far outweigh the slightly annoying buzzing sound that comes with it.

Drone shots have given viewers a new appreciation for just what these Olympic athletes are achieving on the snow or ice. For the majority of people back home, these sports are not relatable. Most have never been in a bobsled, or snowboarded on a halfpipe, or skied through slaloms. And even if they have, they almost certainly haven’t done it at the level or speed of an Olympian. The implementation of these flying cameras help give viewers a taste of what’s really happening out there.

The Winter Olympics have long been a bit of an afterthought compared to its summer counterpart. But it’s technology like this that can even the playing field. Obviously, sports like track and field or swimming will always be more relatable than ski jumping. The Summer Games have a built-in advantage for that reason. But maybe more people will come along for the winter as the abject insanity of these sports become more clear.

Whatever the case, the drones have announced themselves on the Winter Olympic stage. And hopefully, they’re here to stay.