Asheboro native shares her ongoing Olympics experiences

COLORADO SPRINGS, CO — It’s not Megan Ritch’s first Olympics but it’s her first time as an Olympics torch bearer.

The Asheboro native attended Southwestern Randolph High School and played on the golf team. She continued playing on the links team at Queens University of Charlotte.

After graduating from Queens, Ritch earned an internship in 2012 with USA Triathlon. When her internship ended, she was hired to stay on before transitioning to the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee in Colorado Springs, Colorado, two years ago for a total of 12 years with the Olympic movement.

Ritch was chosen to work for Team USA during the Summer Games in Paris in 2024.

“I was working with Team USA with the Welcome Experience,” she said recently by phone from Colorado. Ritch helped welcome most of the 592 athletes, including the women’s gymnasts that included Simone Biles, considered by many to be one of the greatest gymnasts of all time.

“It’s so exciting to see them come through,” Ritch said of the athletes. “The Welcome Experience is really cool. It helps set the tone for their whole experience. It’s quite a production.”

Ritch’s duties include managing volunteers who have come to help but also to enjoy the experience of the Games. “It’s quite a process and takes about a month,” she said.

In preparation for the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympic Winter Games in Italy, Ritch said, “We’ll start at the end of January and be there through mid-February.” The Games themselves will run from Feb. 6 to 22, which will include some 225 USA athletes.

“They leave with duffel bags full of uniforms” and other merchandise, Ritch said. “The tailors help them through the night to fit their uniforms. It’s a different type of pressure.”

Seeing first-time Olympians is especially rewarding. “The first-time athletes have worked their whole life for the Olympics and to have a small hand in that moment they experience it for the first time.”

After welcoming the athletes and seeing that they have everything they need, Ritch said, then she can “enjoy the Games. I try to watch as many as possible. Then we leave early to prepare for the Paralympics so we usually come back before the closing ceremonies.”

Once back in Colorado, she said, she can watch TV as the athletes march in for the activities the last night. “It’s cool to see the athletes you helped to get set up.”

Working at the Olympics, for Ritch, is about more than rubbing shoulders with the athletes. “We meet people from other countries,” she said.

Even during off years, Ritch has “worked with the International Olympic Academy in Olympia, Greece, the site of the original Olympics.”

She first attended the Academy in 2016 and has been “pretty involved the last decade. We connect with professionals from other Olympic Committees. It brings people together, to work together to tackle challenges.

“A goal of the Olympics is to win medals but it’s also about unity, to bring people together,” Ritch said. “It’s to create the best opportunities for the athletes. We collaborate and learn from people with the same goals.”

Working with the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee makes Ritch a Coloradan. “I like it out here,” she said. “There’s great golf. I try to come home a couple of times a year. I like to go to the (NC) Zoo with my nieces and hanging out with my mom and dad. Asheboro’s changed a lot. Sometimes I miss the North Carolina weather.”

Ritch left Nov. 21 for Greece and took part as an Olympic torch bearer on Nov. 26, when the journey to Milan, Italy, started from Olympia, Greece. Her portion was about 200 meters, she said, and then she passed it off to another runner. The entire journey will take several weeks.

For the opening ceremonies in Paris for the Summer Games, Ritch watched from the Team USA House that provides hospitality for the team. “It was cool to see it on TV with an American broadcast. It was my birthday and we were watching as a group, which made it really fun.

“I’m 39 but I feel like 27, a fun time of life,” Ritch said. “I have so much energy. I’m so lucky doing something I’m so passionate about. It keeps me feeling very young. I love it.”

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Ritch returned home from Greece on Nov. 28, tired but exhilarated at the same time. Being an Olympic torch bearer, she said, “was awesome. The sun was out and it was so beautiful,” she said. “The torch bearer ahead of me was someone I knew. It felt really special.”

As she began her torch carry of about 200 meters, she was focused on not tripping but then became aware of the significance of the flame: “A part of bringing people together. (It represents) unity, cooperation of people from different backgrounds coming together.”

In retrospect and after returning home, Ritch said, “I can’t believe it actually happened. It’s so cool to think about how the fire is something that keeps going. The flame continues from the same fire.

“It will feel surreal when it lights the cauldron in Milan.”