Italian-born Lucia Montanarella has become an important figure in handling the media at Olympic Games. After graduating from university, she covered the Albertville, Barcelona and Atlanta Olympics as a radio and newspaper reporter. She has a long and successful experience within the Olympic Movement having been involved in media and editorial projects for the last three decades. She ran the Olympic News Service at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin. After 2006 she became chief of press operations for the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games, overseeing a staff of 600 and marking the first time the Olympic Games had a female Press Chief. In 2012, she was appointed Press Chief for the Rio de Janeiro Olympic and Paralympic Games, making her the first person ever to be appointed in this role for two separate Olympic Games. Since 2017, Lucia has been the editor-in-chief of the Olympic Information Service, a role she retained after joining in early 2020 the International Olympic Committee where she looks after all media matters as Associate Director of Olympic Games Media Operations.