Utah man offers familiar voice for athletes in Beijing

BEIJING — Friends and family aren’t allowed at the Beijing Olympics, but Herriman bobsledder Kaysha Love heard a familiar voice before and after her races.

Carl Roepke lives in Park City. He’s in Beijing for the Olympics, but he’s not an athlete, coach, team staff member, volunteer, or even media. Instead, he was invited to these Games because of his voice.

“I just go in big — ladies and gentlemen, please — and I just go big, I just go big, and I ride this Olympic wave,” he said.

Roepke is the English announcer for the Yanqing Sliding Center in Beijing. That’s the venue for bobsled, skeleton, and luge races.

Roepke is a former luge athlete himself, and Beijing is the ninth Olympics where he has been invited to be the English voice at a venue.

All announcements are done in French, English, and the home country’s language — in this case, Mandarin Chinese.

He says he keeps going to the Olympics because he keeps being asked to go. 

“It’s not only fun; it makes me proud to be asked by the federations, and to have the Olympic Committee in Beijing write me a nice letter saying we’d be honored if you could join us. And that, to me, is as special as it gets.”

Roepke got his start in the Salt Lake City Olympics and turned that experience into a career at Utah Olympic Park, where you’ll often see him working on the sliding track.

Just another example of Utah’s involvement with the Olympics, beyond just athletes.