DENVER — The Olympic Games bring people together from around the world to celebrate astonishing athletic feats. The perseverance of the individual athletes speaks to the human experience of defeat, redemption, disappointment and triumph.
9NEWS Olympics reporter Matt Renoux has told the stories of the Coloradans representing the U.S. for nine summer and winter Olympic Games. This year, he's reporting from Paris with a new perspective after undergoing treatment for thyroid cancer.
Every two years, Renoux spends months getting to know Olympic hopefuls by watching them train in Colorado Springs. He’s seen them experience some of the highest and lowest moments in their journeys to win gold.
So when his wife Kelly Renoux was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2019, they faced one of the biggest battles of her life together.
“It was like 2019 when she started hers, so maybe life works in certain ways. She had just finished everything she needed to do for her breast cancer. She’s been in this process for five years,” Renoux said. "We thought, 'We're done! Cancer's behind us.'"
They thought their cancer story had ended, but then the family was hit with more cancer news. This time it was Renoux who faced the challenge of a lifetime, one he would have to persevere and defeat to survive.
During a routine checkup, Renoux’s doctor noticed a lump in his throat. Within days, he was diagnosed with thyroid cancer.
“It was big, four centimeters, and then it had spread to some lymph nodes. One of them was three centimeters, so it had some time to grow,” Renoux said. "I sat there a few minutes and I was pretty bummed because it's not necessarily a life sentence diagnosis, but you know, it's going to change your life."
He underwent surgery to remove his thyroid. Soon after, he went on a low-iodine diet to prepare for the radioactive iodine treatment that destroys any thyroid tissue not removed by surgery. His cancer treatment required isolation for a few days.
Renoux used that time to tell the stories of athletes determined to face all challenges – dozens of stories he's now reporting on from the 2024 Paris Olympic Games.
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While he's typically the happiest guy in the room, Renoux admitted his cancer diagnosis left him feeling a little low. During that dark time, he received some unexpected, uplifting and encouraging text messages from two-time Olympic gold medalist Mikaela Shiffrin and her brother Taylor Shiffrin.
He had become close to the Shiffrin siblings over the years reporting on U.S. Olympians, and he said the messages were deeply appreciated.
“It was one of those times when I was feeling a little down and I was just sitting on the couch and his words were good. They hit pretty strong. It was just, a kick it in the butt and it did, it kicked me in the butt,” he said. "Everyone's got bad stuff. We all have a thing we've got to overcome. There's going to be something in your life that knocks us down, and you're either going to get up or you're not."