The Autumn Olympics In Vancouver
Greetings friends!
I touched down in Vancouver yesterday. My flight from SFO might as well been the Olympic shuttle as it transported of a bunch of U.S. media, Visa employees (an official sponsor), a Mens French Olympic team (sport unknown to me), a couple of French nations traveling to the Games as spectators - and sitting in my row, a woman who recently appeared in Sports Illustrated while wearing a bikini. I guess air travel isn't THAT bad.
Once off the plane, the full Tower-of-Babel/Global Village Mojo of the Olympic Games slapped me right in the face. In line to my left in Immigration was an Australian woman who explained to the officer that she was a sports psychologist for one of the Aussie Teams. On the right was group of young men in brand new, glossy track suits with "Ukraine" written in sky blue and yellow. This took me back to my first Olympic memory of stepping off of the plane in Beijing in 2008 and somehow getting stuck in the middle of the Indonesian badminton team as we all snaked through the velvet-rope maze of Immigration. I was excited to be back at the Olympics.
The official start of the Olympics (logistically speaking) has not been auspicious. Usually media with credentials have them validated soon after passing through Immigration. For some reason an important piece of paperwork that we media all sent in to the Olympic Committee months ago didn't show up in the computer system and we were all forced to validate our credentials manually at the Main Press Center in downtown Vancouver. The bus service to media accommodations was woefully managed as we waited an hour in a tent before boarding our bus. We sat in the parked bus another 15 minutes and during this second wait, I noticed our driver flipping through a map of Vancouver. A quick glace out of the window at the side of another bus revealed that these buses - all painted up in blue and green and reading "Vancouver 2010" - were leased from a company based out of Green Bay, WI. That would explain the bus driver studying the map. Lots of media people were fuming because of the delay. Several hopped in cabs. I was thinking about puppies, puffy clouds and ice cream cones to keep from blowing my stack as well. Rule number one of the Olympics: Don't cross the media. The media will paint a picture (good or bad) of the host city for the rest of the world. Two hours from airport to downtown in what is typically a 45 minute commute is a bad first impression.
The weather in Vancouver is identical to the weather I left in San Francisco. It's in the mid/high 40's and drizzling now and then. This weather seems more appropriate for carving pumpkins than skiing down mountains. However the mild weather shouldn't matter at Whistler (downhill, slalom, etc), but Cypress Mountain, which will host moguls, snowboarding, etc. is in bad shape. Before the news of Lindsey Vonn's injury this morning, the weather has been the #1 story.
I'm off to Whistler tomorrow to reconnoiter the alpine skiing and bobsled/luge photo spots for our team. That's it for now.
I touched down in Vancouver yesterday. My flight from SFO might as well been the Olympic shuttle as it transported of a bunch of U.S. media, Visa employees (an official sponsor), a Mens French Olympic team (sport unknown to me), a couple of French nations traveling to the Games as spectators - and sitting in my row, a woman who recently appeared in Sports Illustrated while wearing a bikini. I guess air travel isn't THAT bad.
Once off the plane, the full Tower-of-Babel/Global Village Mojo of the Olympic Games slapped me right in the face. In line to my left in Immigration was an Australian woman who explained to the officer that she was a sports psychologist for one of the Aussie Teams. On the right was group of young men in brand new, glossy track suits with "Ukraine" written in sky blue and yellow. This took me back to my first Olympic memory of stepping off of the plane in Beijing in 2008 and somehow getting stuck in the middle of the Indonesian badminton team as we all snaked through the velvet-rope maze of Immigration. I was excited to be back at the Olympics.
The official start of the Olympics (logistically speaking) has not been auspicious. Usually media with credentials have them validated soon after passing through Immigration. For some reason an important piece of paperwork that we media all sent in to the Olympic Committee months ago didn't show up in the computer system and we were all forced to validate our credentials manually at the Main Press Center in downtown Vancouver. The bus service to media accommodations was woefully managed as we waited an hour in a tent before boarding our bus. We sat in the parked bus another 15 minutes and during this second wait, I noticed our driver flipping through a map of Vancouver. A quick glace out of the window at the side of another bus revealed that these buses - all painted up in blue and green and reading "Vancouver 2010" - were leased from a company based out of Green Bay, WI. That would explain the bus driver studying the map. Lots of media people were fuming because of the delay. Several hopped in cabs. I was thinking about puppies, puffy clouds and ice cream cones to keep from blowing my stack as well. Rule number one of the Olympics: Don't cross the media. The media will paint a picture (good or bad) of the host city for the rest of the world. Two hours from airport to downtown in what is typically a 45 minute commute is a bad first impression.
The weather in Vancouver is identical to the weather I left in San Francisco. It's in the mid/high 40's and drizzling now and then. This weather seems more appropriate for carving pumpkins than skiing down mountains. However the mild weather shouldn't matter at Whistler (downhill, slalom, etc), but Cypress Mountain, which will host moguls, snowboarding, etc. is in bad shape. Before the news of Lindsey Vonn's injury this morning, the weather has been the #1 story.
I'm off to Whistler tomorrow to reconnoiter the alpine skiing and bobsled/luge photo spots for our team. That's it for now.
posted by huja at 3:22 AM
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