As the echoes of jubilant cheers filled the air in the Italian Alps, Mikaela Shiffrin’s gold-medal triumph in the women’s slalom at the Milan Cortina Games marked not only a peak moment for the athlete but also the commencement of a bustling sequence of events for the NBC Sports team.
Amid the excitement, University of Virginia alumna Tina Iordanou, now serving as a senior marketing manager at NBC Sports, sprang into action. Reflecting on the moment, Iordanou stated, “Today is obviously huge. Mikaela wins the gold right off and I basically am in ‘go mode.’”
Operating from Cortina, where she has gained recognition on social media as “Tina from Cortina”, Iordanou is instrumental in organizing the myriad interviews and media activities that Team USA athletes engage in post-victory.
“It’s a gauntlet, but it’s the most fun gauntlet you’ll be in,” she described. “It’s a situation where media never ends here. It’s like, if we’re not talking about it locally live, it’s being talked about in the late hours of the East Coast or West Coast in the U.S.”
Despite the intense nature of her role, Iordanou mentions that the high-pressure environment is something she is accustomed to. “I think when you’re a former athlete, you kind of live in these environments,” she noted. “Because so much of what you do when you compete is high pressure.”
A Foundation at UVA
Before her current role, Iordanou was a student-athlete at the University of Virginia, where she juggled a media studies degree alongside playing soccer for the Cavaliers.
Iordanou credits UVA with providing her a vision for significant career opportunities, thanks in part to mentors like Siva Vaidhyanathan, the Robertson Professor of Media Studies and director of the Center for Media and Citizenship. “He was instrumental,” she said. “He was a professor I always felt was very invested in his students.”
While at UVA, Iordanou participated in a January term program led by Vaidhyanathan, which took students to New York to explore professional media careers. This unique experience offered valuable insights into the industry through visits with journalists and media leaders.
After graduating in 2017 and briefly pursuing professional soccer, Iordanou transitioned to the insurance sector before returning to her passion for sports. This led her to earn a graduate degree at Northwestern University, focusing on journalism and marketing.
Her career path brought her back to women’s soccer, working with Gotham FC in the NWSL as a partnership manager. She later advanced to the league itself before joining NBC three years ago.
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