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Staten Island native Samantha Cardona-Norberg has been on the ground covering the 2026 Winter Olympic Games for USA Today.Samantha Cardona-Norberg<\/p>\nStaten Islander Samantha Cardona-Norberg is a rising force in sports media, carving her own path far beyond borough limits.<\/p>\n
A producer for USA Today\u2019s premier sports video franchises, Cardona-Norberg recently took on the biggest assignment of her career: covering the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy. Her journey adds a powerful new chapter to Staten Island\u2019s legacy of standout sports journalists, a lineage that includes names like Rich Eisen and Tony Reali.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been an incredible atmosphere, and people are just here to have fun, ready to see anything they can,\u201d said Cardona-Norberg, a graduate of Notre Dame Academy who later studied at SUNY Albany. \u201cThe Olympics really are a worldwide event.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have had the best time going to the events. Seeing all the different countries there to support their athletes has just been so much fun,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
Despite all the prestige and glitz that come with covering the world\u2019s most renowned athletic event, the packed schedule and the time difference between Italy and the U.S. have made Cardona-Norberg\u2019s experience a real grind. Her coverage assignments have included figure skating, one sport she was relatively unfamiliar with prior to working the Games.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that many people probably won\u2019t realize how much work actually goes into it, not only during the events, but before and after the events. We\u2019ve had nights where we\u2019ve been up till 4 or 5 in the morning and waking up bright and early to start the day over again. So it\u2019s definitely long days,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut, especially with my team at USA Today, it\u2019s been so great and everyone\u2019s very supportive of one another. As long as you have a good team around you, you can push through those long nights; it\u2019s still definitely not for the faint of heart. I would say it\u2019s definitely a grind out here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Staten Island native Samantha Cardona-Norberg has been on the ground covering the 2026 Winter Olympic Games for USA Today.Samantha Cardona-Norberg<\/p>\n
Cardona-Norberg believes her career path is a testament to achieving dreams through hard work.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve had so many different jobs where I was let go or only kept for part of the season; there were definitely times I wondered if I even wanted to work in sports or journalism \u2014 it was tough. But when I finally landed at USA Today, something clicked. I pushed and pushed.<\/p>\n
\u201c…Even here, I\u2019m grinding and doing a lot, and I know that in another five or 10 years, I\u2019ll be at another level.\u201d<\/p>\n
Credit to her hometown<\/p>\n
Cardona-Norberg\u2019s readiness to cover an event like the Olympics on the ground was also bolstered by her previous experiences with organizations such as NBC; she produced content for NBC Sports during the 2016 Rio and 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics while working in the network\u2019s wardrobe department. <\/p>\n
Cardona-Norberg also credited her years of formative education on Staten Island with laying the groundwork to handle an assignment of this magnitude.<\/p>\n
\u201cI went to Notre Dame my whole life, and started sports right away. I played soccer and softball in elementary, middle, and high school, and I was always interested in sports. Notre Dame really helped with empowerment \u2014 it didn\u2019t matter what field I wanted to go into. Sports is a very male-dominated field, so the coaches and teachers there helped prepare me,” she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey taught me that even if you think you can\u2019t achieve something, you can push yourself and do it. That was the mindset I took into college. I knew I wanted to work in sports, and journalism kind of developed while I was there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lastly, Cardona-Norberg has also been reminded of Staten Island through the Italian cuisine she\u2019s enjoyed during her time abroad \u2014 a connection that has only strengthened her appreciation for her hometown.<\/p>\n
![\"From](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/CGWVHUGTHVDGHHMQLVVYYZQNRU.jpg\")
Staten Island native Samantha Cardona-Norberg has been on the ground covering the 2026 Winter Olympic Games for USA Today.Samantha Cardona-Norberg<\/p>\n
\u201cI will say, I\u2019m actually preferring the pizza back home,\u201d she said with a laugh.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of the food is pretty top tier, especially the pastries; but I\u2019ve still found myself comparing them to places like Alphonso\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Staten Islander Samantha Cardona-Norberg is a rising force in sports media, carving her own path far beyond borough…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":137170,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":["post-137169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137169\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}