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 n.