Voice of skiing, Tim Ryan, retires

Long-time television ski commentator  Tim Ryan,  has announced his retirement from ski-racing coverage for NBC Sports.

Canadian-born Ryan, now an American citizen, began his  U.S. network sportscasting career  with NBC in 1972. The 73-year-old graduate of Notre Dame, moved to CBS in 1977 and covered a variety of sports there including World Cup  ski racing beginning in 1978.

At CBS Ryan anchored the Alpine coverage at three Olympic Games, beginning with Albertville in 1992, followed by Lillehammer and Nagano. NBC boss Dick Ebersol hired Ryan away from CBS in 1998, and he has covered every Olympic Games since then–the Salt Lake,Torino and Vancouver Games and four Summer Games, for a remarkable total of 11 Olympic telecasts.

 His TV ski resume includes  coverage of eight World Championships and numerous World Cup races, working with ski legends Billy Kidd, Christin Cooper, Andy Mill, Cindy Nelson and Todd Brooker.

 In 2011, Ryan was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Ski History Association, and was also the recipient of the International Ski Federation Annual Journalism Award.

Ryan is not quite closing the door on his 52-year-career in television, which has included announcing NFL football, NBA and college basketball, 22 years of big-time boxing coverage with the late Gil Clancy at CBS, 20 years of the U.S. Open Tennis Championships also at CBS, several years of other tennis Grand Slams for NBC and ESPN,  World Championship Figure Skating and many additional sports. 

 “I hope to do a few more sports events before I call it a day,” said Ryan,” I especially love ski racing and the people in it, and look forward to my ongoing support of the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation, and particularly as the TV host of the American Ski Classic for the Vail Valley Foundation as it prepares for the 2015 World Alpine Championships.

“I would like to thank all of my colleagues and friends in ski racing for sharing their world with me all these years.”