If NBC is looking for another skeleton analyst to join its team in 2030, it need look no further than Noelle Pikus Pace.
Sitting in her Saratoga Springs, Utah, home Saturday morning with her husband, Janson Pace, and four children — Lacee, 18, Traycen, 14, Maki, 10, and Payton, 10 — the 2014 Olympic silver medalist watched the final heat of the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics women’s skeleton competition, 12 years to the day after she won her Olympic silver medal.
It was almost as if NBC had mic’d the Pace home and was feeding Pace’s race commentary to its crew, which included Pace’s former teammate and roommate Bree Schaaf.
From telling American Mystique Roe to “soak it up” to pointing out previous medalists to saying Germany’s Susanne Kreher was guaranteed at least a silver medal, Pace would predict what the analysts would say nearly word for word, seconds before they would say it.
“Do you like how I keep saying everything he says?” she said with a smile.
Each occasion drew laughs from the Pace family, and Janson emphasized that the race was live and his wife had no prior knowledge of what the analysts were going to say.
Twelve years after winning her silver medal, Pace invited a Deseret News reporter and photographer into her home to watch some of her former competitors in the skeleton, including this year’s gold medalist from Austria, Janine Flock, live.
“It’s energizing to see that there’s still athletes that are competing when I was competing. But this is most likely the final Olympics where I will have athletes that I competed with or against,” she said. “Then after this, I’ll probably not know who those athletes are.”
She added, “This is a fun Games to watch because I still do know a handful of the athletes as competitors, and it’s exciting to see them and their longevity in the sport and that they’re still going for it, they’re still going for that podium.”
The Paces: A family of skeleton analysts
It was clear the Pace family knows their skeleton as they commented on the athletes’ runs. And it wasn’t just Noelle and Janson. Both Lacee and Traycen, who were on hand for their mom’s final Olympics, added their own commentary.
Lacee Pace was only 6 years old when her mom won her silver medal — she still remembers cheering in the stands in Russia — but you wouldn’t know that from her skeleton IQ.
“I like hearing Lacee comment on skeleton. I’m like, ‘Oh, she knows.’ She’s always like, ‘Ooh, ah, ah.’” But before Pace could finish her thought, Lacee Pace chimed in, “Her head’s too high.”
Pace agreed with her daughter’s observation. “I’m proud of you. You see that stuff. That’s awesome,” she said.
Lacee Pace, a high school track and field athlete, will soon serve a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on the other side of the mountains that make up the background of Milan’s Olympic venues in the Swiss Alps.
While none of the Pace children have taken up her sport, Saturday morning’s skeleton viewing inspired the family to come up with a plan to get each of the four Pace kids on Team USA when the Winter Games return to Utah in 2034.
Lacee Pace will take up speedskating and also curling mixed doubles with Traycen, who will put his golf career on hold to form a brother-sister team like this year’s gold medalists, Isabella and Rasmus Wranå from Sweden.
Maki will follow in his mother’s footsteps and be the next Pace family skeleton star. His answer earned him a high-five from his mom. Payton will compete in luge, which slightly disappointed his mother, but still earned him a high-five since it’s a sliding sport.
“Luge is actually a really good one,” she said, later adding that she’ll sign up the twins, who are in the class of 2034, for speedskating lessons.
Watching a friend become a gold medalist
Going into the fourth heat, Austria’s Flock led the competition. And aside from Roe and fellow American Kelly Curtis, who Pace previously said she was excited to root for, she was pulling for Flock.
The Austrian made her Olympic debut at the same Olympics where Pace won her silver medal. Pace described her as “one of the sweetest athletes on the circuit.”
“Oh, I really hope she gets this,” Pace said as Flock began her run. The two-time Olympian beamed and stared intently at the TV, almost willing Flock to gold from her couch. “She’s so good. You can see the wisdom. Oh my gosh.”
Pace couldn’t keep her hands still, alternating between clasped to clenched fists to clapping to resting them under her knees and back again.
“She did it. She’s in the lead,” Janson said of Flock.
“She still has to come up,” Pace corrected him, motioning with her hand. “Right here, right here, right here.”
Pace raised her arms in celebration and leaned back on the couch once Flock crossed the finish line. Her friend and former competitor had finally won her first Olympic medal.
“I’m so happy for her. Oh my gosh, I’m so excited for her. Oh, she’s going to start crying. She’s gonna just start crying,” a beaming Pace said. “All those years, and she finished fourth before. Oh my gosh, so good. I have goose bumps.”
The 36-year-old Flock became the oldest woman to medal in skeleton at the Olympics.
Remembering her 2014 silver medal moment
Watching Saturday’s heats brought back memories for Pace and her family. As she watched Flock celebrate her gold, Pace recalled her own emotions when she learned she was an Olympic silver medalist.
“It’s so much emotion that you can’t process it. You just can’t take it all in in that moment,” she said. “This dream that you’ve been wanting your whole life all of a sudden happens, and it’s not like a flip of a switch, even though that’s actually what happens. All of a sudden you go from being not a medalist to a medalist.”
It takes time for it to fully sink in and to process the moment, according to Pace
“You’re kind of just shaking. The emotions, everything comes out in the tears and the hugs and the joy. It’s just a lot to process. But it was incredible,” she said.
Pace celebrated her medal by jumping into the stands to embrace her family.
“That to me is like the highlight of my whole career, was being able to share that moment with them,” she said.
Janson remembers everyone in the stands, regardless of their home country, shedding happy tears for his wife.
“I think a lot of the other countries knew what I had been through, obviously with getting hit by a bobsled, missing out on the Olympics, traveling with two kids. Even at a competitive level, they respected us for doing what we did as a family and for coming back and taking it back to the level of competition that we came back to,” Pace said.
After athletes receive their medals, they’re whisked away for countless media engagements. The Paces didn’t get back to their rental house until 5 or 6 a.m.
But they didn’t crawl in bed.
Instead, the family got back in the car to drive an hour and a half to attend church with the local congregation of the Church of Jesus Christ.
“This is why we’ve been given our gifts, because of our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. This is why we’re doing it as a family, is to show what we can do together and what we believe in,” Pace said.
As Pace competed in the World Cup circuit that season, Janson, Lacee and Traycen tagged along, and they made it a priority to attend church when possible, Janson said. Exhausted or not, the Olympics were no exception.
“It was just such a blessing to meet the people and to be able to come to a place where it’s like the same wherever you go,” Pace said. “It’s the same whether you’re in Utah, whether you’re in Austria, whether you’re in Russia. The church is true wherever you go.”
That decision to attend church in Russia provided a grounding moment for Pace and a moment she hasn’t forgotten 12 years later.
“Having that feeling of just comfort and ‘OK, this is what life is really all about,’ to get out of the chaos and the noise, it was just a really great thing to be able to kind of plant my feet back on the ground. It felt like I was like, ‘OK, take a breath. I get to sit. I get to partake of the sacrament and renew my covenants and now continue with life in a way that we want to continue it in.’ It was really special.”