>Hannah Storm
ON-AIR EXPECTATIONS
WHETHER GOING ONE-ON-ONE WITH NBA behemoths during heat-of-the-game interviews or fending off Cleveland Indian Albert Belle, who hurled obscenities at her during last year's World Series (he later apologized), NBC's Hannah Storm, 34, has proved herself to be calm, fluent and savvy under pressure. Last week those attributes were on display again when Storm, coanchor of NBC's late-night Olympics coverage, returned from a commercial break at 1:40 a.m. on Saturday, July 27, to report an explosion in Atlanta's Centennial Park. "Absolutely it was the most dramatic thing I've been through on the air," says the Oak Park, Ill., native, who reminded herself as the news broke that "there are a lot of people who are very scared, so I have to be very levelheaded."
Storm was under pressure even before that evening. The anchor—whose husband, fellow NBC sportscaster Dan Hicks, 34, handles swimming coverage at the Games—happens to be over four months pregnant with their first child. Though she's not plagued by morning sickness as she was during the NBA finals in June, Storm coped with hunger and fatigue last week by scarfing down bananas during commercial breaks and catnapping whenever she could. "It's not the traditional 'stay at home, get lots of rest' thing," admits Storm of her 15-hour days. She says she was "too excited" to miss covering the Olympics. And for the immediate future, at least, she has no plans to slow down. "For me," she says, "it's better to stay busy."
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