Reeves Family Travels from San Francisco to Milan for 2026 Olympics

While covering the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics, NBC Bay Area reporter Garvin Thomas met the Reeves family from San Francisco, a pair whose Olympic history frames why Bay Area fans make long trips to Italy: this is dad Jabari’s 10th Olympics - five summer and five winter - and mom Jessica has joined him for most of them. The Reeves family traveled from San Francisco to Milan to attend events at the 2026 Games.

NBC Bay Area characterized the Reeves as more than casual spectators: “Members of the Reeves family aren't just ordinary Olympic fans. They're super Olympic fans.” Garvin Thomas’ on-site reporting captured the family among attendees from around the world, highlighting local roots in the crowd at Milan venues.

The Reeves family’s long record of attendance fits into a broader pattern of Bay Area ties at these Games. KQED podcast host Sarah Wright noted a roster of Northern California connections on snow and ice: “Yes, so Nina O’Brien, she’s a San Francisco native, an alpine ski racer coming back from breaking her leg twice, the first time was racing at the last Olympics. We also have biathlete Joanne Reed. She was born in Palo Alto and she’s also coming back, this after a sexual harassment case that took years to be taken seriously by US biathlon officials. She comes from a family of Olympians. Her mom is a bronze medalist in speed skating. And her uncle is a five-time gold medalist in the sport.” Wright also named Anthony Ponomarenko from San Jose and San Francisco-born Eileen Gu, a current Stanford student now competing for Team China, whose 2022 run produced three medals including two golds.

Not every family at Milan could make the trip without financial help. Sports/Yahoo reported that U.S. hockey defender Laila Edwards, 22, who became the first Black American to win a medal in Olympic ice hockey in the United States’ gold-clinching win over Canada, had 14 family and friends in the stands at the Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena in Milan after a U.S. fundraiser. Her father Robert Edwards set a GoFundMe goal of $50,000 to avoid having to “choose between a ticket to one of her games and paying the electric bill back in Cleveland Heights, Ohio,” and the fundraiser allowed 10 family members and four friends to travel from the U.S. The brothers Travis Kelce and Jason Kelce provided a $10,000 donation that the story reported was made anonymously and routed through the GoFundMe. As her mother Charone Gray-Edwards said, according to the Associated Press, “We had to start talking about how to get money,” and her father Robert Edwards added, “There’s a lot of ups and downs in playing hockey at this high level and so she’s going to need somebody there,” and “So I was like, ’Well, pride be damned: we’re going to do a fundraiser.’”

The contrast between the Reeves’ decade-long Olympic travel and the Edwards family fundraiser underscores inequities in who can afford to attend the Games. National Today summarized the Reeves’ profile this way: “The Reeves family has attended 10 Olympics between them, including the 2026 Milan Cortina Games,” and noted that “They are described as 'super Olympic fans' who make attending the games a priority.” At the same time, the Edwards example shows how some families rely on public appeals and outside donations to be present for an athlete’s debut.

Garvin Thomas’ reporting and KQED’s athlete profiles together map a distinct San Francisco footprint in Milan: hometown athletes such as Nina O’Brien and Eileen Gu, legacy competitors like Joanne Reed and Anthony Ponomarenko, and families like the Reeves who travel repeatedly. Their presence in Milan highlights both the community pride Bay Area residents bring to the Olympics and the uneven financial burdens families shoulder to cheer local athletes on the world stage.