Winter Olympics 2014- USA Sweep

Wednesday, February 12th-

Today was another gorgeous day in Sochi.  In the afternoon I walked over to the Park to meet up with some parents and to enjoy the sunshine.  I have opted to hang out on a bench near gate 18 whenever I am meeting anyone at the entrance.  It is in the middle and easy to find me no matter which direction the parents are coming from.  I spent the past year telling my boss that if I was going to be down at the coast by myself then I would be working on my tan.  Too bad I did not listen to myself and pack some short sleeves.  They would have been handy quite a few days so far.  Since no one was around I decided to lay down on the bench while I waited for everyone to meet up with me.  While I was laying there an older Russian man came by and started talking loudly at me.  I did not understand if he wanted to sit down or if I had done something wrong.  I looked around and there were plenty of spaces to sit.  After he walked away one of the volunteers on the bench next to me kind of gestured not to worry and pointed to my feet.  I did not think they were on the seat, but that appears to be what upset the man.  After that I decided it was safer to sit up while working on my tan.  Although, I did have to ask Pamela to take the photo below when she stopped to visit with me.  I posted it with a comment about how it was sunny and 60 degrees and yes, I am at the Winter Olympics.  Guessing it is colder at home because it did not make everyone happy.

Waiting on parents, enjoying the sunshine.

Pamela is one of our sport psychologists.  She decided to take a break from the mountains and come down to the coast.  I told her where to find me and she came to sit with me for a bit.  We caught up on what was going on with the teams and staff while she shared her bag of raisins and nuts.  I was still waiting on families so she decided to go in and walk around the park.  She is credentialed staff so she should not need a park pass.  They turned her away.  I suggested that she go to another gate and try again.  By that point she was just frustrated and not feeling that great, so she decided to head back up to the mountains.  I hope I can get her back down here to explore the park before she leaves.  It was nice to see a friendly face even for a little bit.

Medal ceremonies are every night at 8:15pm.  Sometimes an event in the mountains will have their ceremony the same day as the event.  Other times it is the next evening.  I have not figured out what the cut off is for deciding that.  Days we expect it to happen all in one they split it up.  Other times you think it ends late enough to be next day but it is the same day.  I would love to know if there is a formula behind it.  We had not won a medal in any of the events from the previous evening or the morning events.  So I did not have a ceremony to coordinate details.  After spending the afternoon on the bench outside the park handing off NETs I went back to the hotel for a quiet evening.  Before I headed back I had to snap a few photos of the moon rising over the palm trees and mountains.  That contrast of view gets me every time.

Moon rising over the Palm Trees and Mountains.

Gorgeous!

A quiet evening was perfect because it allowed me to watch the Women's Halfpipe finals.  I missed the men's event because I was at women's ski jumping.  Someone behind me last night was getting text updates from a friend.  So we all knew that the USA did not medal.  Things were looking positive for the women.  I ended up watching the finals in my room.  It was a mix of online and TV.  One kept freezing and one kept fading in and out.  I was lucky that I got to see the USA runs without too much trouble.  I have only met Kelly Clark one time, but I think she is an amazing young woman.  I have never met Hannah Teter but I did enjoy helping her family work things out to be there for her.  On the other hand, I am a huge Kaitlyn Farrington fan.  She was in the very first rookie camp when we started them.  She was our lone snowboarder that year.  Ever since then I have followed Kaitlyn's career.  Her dad was the one that had me outside my hotel in the dark taking photos to text so he could find us.  I had also seen her parents when we pulled together the opening ceremony tickets at the last minute.  I am now in love with the whole family.  So you can imagine how excited I was to see Kaitlyn in first.  Four years ago she was not on the Olympic team but went to Euro XGames and beat the medalists from Vancouver.  Tonight she was showing everyone who missed that how great of an athlete she can be.  I was thrilled to see the final results with USA 1, 3, 4.  I felt bad that Hannah was 4th but I hope all the women know they gave it everything they had in some tough conditions.  Hopefully everyone else in the USA will learn what I have known for awhile, Kaitlyn is the sweetest person and the toughest athlete you could find.  I cannot wait for the medal ceremony tomorrow night.  I definitely want to see two great women from our team awarded their medals.

 Thursday, February 13-

I thought today was going to be cloudy but it turned out to be another beautiful day.  I received an email from the Caldwells that let me know they had arrived but their luggage did not.  They were going to stop by to pick up their tickets but also needed to find someplace to shop in case their bags did not reach them in time.  I knew the USOC staff had found a store similar to a Walmart so I was working on getting that information when they arrived.  We gave them an address and maps, so I hope they are able to find something.  Surprisingly, we have not had too many stories about luggage not making it to Sochi.  I have had stories about rooms being double booked or not having a reservation on one of the ships that they had prepaid for.  Some of the outcomes turned out better than the original plan.  I am happy to report that even with challenges, I think overall things have worked out for our families and friends who came to cheer on their athletes.

I had made a plan with Amanda to meet her later in the afternoon to pick up medal ceremony tickets.  Then the Farringtons called to say they were on their way down and could they meet me to pick those up.  The medal ceremony tickets will also get you into the park and they wanted to go see Kaitlyn on the Today Show.  I was still waiting on slopestyle results so I would know what our ticket allotment was going to be.  But I knew I could get the first few and give two for Kaitlyn's parents since family is the priority.  I called Amanda and asked if I could head her direction.  I threw my stuff together and ran for the USOC shuttle that would take me over to the Welcome Center.  Amanda ran for the location to pick up the tickets for me in the village.  I only reached our meeting point ahead of her by a couple of minutes.  She had 16 tickets for me because we were still waiting to see what happened with speedskating and slopestyle.  I ran for the train station at the village and headed back to the park to meet the Farringtons.  I loved their description that they were waiting for me by the fake palm tree.  They were so excited for Kaitlyn and I was so excited for all of them.  They already knew she had appearances on the Today Show and then would be flying back to New York to be on the Late Show with David Letterman.  You could just see how happy they were for her.  All of that hard work paid off.

Fake palm tree on the right.

View as you head to the Train station.

I hung around near the fake palm tree for a few minutes after the Farringtons headed in to the Park to make sure they did not have any issues.  When they did not return to ask for another way in, I headed over to my favorite bench by gate 18.  This time I just sat there instead of laying down on it.  I did have to keep adjusting position to deal with the smokers.  I try not to make assumptions.  But it is very hard not to think that most of Russia smokes based on what I have experienced while I have been here.  My favorite thing about it is that you hear announcements on the trains and in the Park that they are smoke free zones.  I think the only place I have not seen someone smoke is on a train.  Everywhere else seems to be fair game.  Despite the many smokers that keep sitting near me, my location is fabulous and I enjoy the sun.  While I am sitting there Don Cook found me.  I have never met him before but I have seen Emily post photos of her and her dad a few times so I recognize him immediately.  We had a lovely chat while I gave him his hat and parent lanyard with map and other information attached.  I can see why Emily is so wonderful, she had a great dad raising her.  I am having great luck with families that have the last name of Cook (and really all the families).  The other day Stacey Cook's family stopped by the hotel to pick up tickets and other items that I had for them.  The whole group came in and sat down with me in the lobby.  For every question they could come up with I had an answer.  They were also thrilled to help themselves to the drinks in the lobby after their adventures in finding me.  The more I helped them the happier they got.  I forget who said it, but one of them said, "The longer we sit here the easier things get.  You are our hero."  Made my whole day.  I think hero status hit when I found out that the USOC transportation crew would give them a ride over to the Park so they did not have to walk back.

After Don wandered off to explore the Park the Golds texted me about Park passes.  I told them where to find me on my bench and a few minutes later they were there.  I had only just read about Arielle's shoulder injury that morning.  Which explained why she was not in the halfpipe final the night before.  Since I had missed the qualification rounds I had not been sure if the conditions just knocked her out of contention or what had happened.  I was very sorry to hear it was an injury.  They said that she was doing okay but sore.  While we were chatting the Teter family came over.  I had spent a lot of time on email with them, but had never had the opportunity to meet them.  Jeff and I were talking about how it was a bittersweet night for them.  Hannah finished fourth but Elijah is Kaitlyn's coach.  So they were disappointed for one of their kids and happy for the other one.  It was interesting to listen to the Teters and the Golds exchange information and advice on injuries.  It is like listening to our veteran athletes share their experience with the rookies.

While I had been sitting on the bench I had been following updates on the runs at men's ski slopestyle.  Kate texted to let me know they were looking at a potential sweep of the medals.  I sat there watching the results update until I realized that we had a sweep on our hands.  Now I was looking at 5 medalists for tonight's ceremony and only 16 tickets.  I put in a call to Amanda to see if she could help us get more.  Then I headed to P&G to grab a seat and work on Order of Ikkos lists.  Amanda was a real rock star and in total I ended up with 40 or more tickets for that night's medal ceremony.  She even biked them over to me at the P&G Home.  David Gulini (Faye Gulini's dad, she is on SBX team) came in while I was working and sat down at my table to have dinner.  It turns out that he was at halfpipe when the girls won and at slopestyle this morning when the guys won.  I think we need to send him to a few other events to help the Americans.  I was lucky that the Goepper family was at the P&G Home so I was able to deliver the tickets they needed directly to Linda.  Some of Kelly Clark's people were also there and came to pick up for their group.  The rest of them were not as easy.  At least the snowboard and freeski staff have done this a few times now so they know their credentials get staff into the front area for medals.  That means they can leave the tickets for others without credentials.  I was trying to figure out how to be at the front gate and get tickets to USA house for others.  Tony Swegle from P&G came to my rescue.  He was nice enough to agree to take a bunch with him when he walked the Goeppers back to the medal ceremony.  I was sending text messages to people letting them know they were coming.  After he left I got a message from one of the athlete agents that Joss' mom was at gate 1 with her luggage since she had an early flight home and could I go get her.  Just seeing that had my mind reeling.  I get hassled when I bring my computer, ipad and camera in.  How was I going to help the poor mom get luggage in?  Not only did she have her luggage, but somehow she ended up with luggage for 2 other people traveling with her who ended up in a different vehicle coming down.  It was the strangest situation.  There was a friend of one of the other athletes and a another guy with her trying to help.  But they did not know anymore than I did how we were going to do this.  I have no vehicle so I could not help that way.  We reached a point where she was crying, which sad to say might have helped us.  Eventually the volunteers and security agreed to let her through security, but the luggage would need to stay in the entrance area in a corner.  The guys had found out that Justine was on the way with a car and they would pick it up and put it in there.  After we got them through I hung out in the area until the last group came in.  After all that they would not let Justine have the luggage even though some of it was hers because Deb was not with her to have them release it.  While frustrating for them, that made me feel like they stood a good chance of having luggage when they came back out.  This group also had Mike with them, so one of the guys ran the ticket back into him so he could get through.  The athletes who had been there started to head back for the medal plaza.  Nancy Logan stopped and gave me a big hug as she and Justine passed me.  I should have gone with them.  Mike and Ashley were walking too fast for me even at the speed I usually walk.  Since I needed to swing by USA House to give Andrea some park passes for another day I gave up trying to keep pace.  I rushed over to hand those off and then ran for the medal plaza.  Amanda had gotten us so many tickets that I was even able to get one.

Nick Goepper gets Bronze.

Gus Kenworthy gets silver.

Joss Christensen wins Gold.

Beautiful site.

Thankfully every ceremony I attend seems to start with Cross Country medals.  So I had time to work my way down to the front and through the maze to get to the family section to watch the ceremony.  I stayed toward the back of the pack so that I could see over everyone.  I ended up next to one of the team staff and one of our strength coaches came over to give me a high five.  Other than that I pretty much stayed back and just watched.  I am so glad that I was there to a) see Nick Goepper from Lawrenceburg, IN get his bronze medal and b) see only the third USA sweep of the medals ever.  I would like to point out that the first sweep was in figure skating in the 1950's but the other sweep was by US Snowboarding in 2002.  It was an amazing sight to see all three guys up there in USA jackets and then the three flags being raised.  I am so glad that I got the opportunity to be a part of that moment.

I met Nick last summer when he attended Rookie Camp.  I was pretty excited to have an athlete from Southern Indiana.  A few years ago we had an aerial athlete from Fort Wayne, but never someone from so far south before.  I had heard my boss talking about how polite, professional and nice Nick was when he met him at World Championships.  I pointed out that he was from Indiana/Midwest, so of course he was all of those things.  My boss and I were both raised in the Midwest so I told him he should know that.  It was fun to meet Nick's parents in Park City in January.  I told them that another athlete in rookie camp had been really excited to meet Nick because he was a fan.  They looked at me and said, "But he's just a teenager."  I hope that attitude from his parents helps him through all the hype now that he is a bronze medalist.

After the guys was the medal ceremony for the women's halfpipe event from the night before.  While another sweep would have been lovely, I cannot be too upset that Torah Bright was the silver medalist.  If I was upset, I think my Aussie Mum Adele would kick my butt.  So for her I will celebrate their silver medal.  I was very happy to see Kelly and Kaitlyn up there.  Even though Kaitlyn has been on the scene for a few years, I feel like the podium showed the depth of our team with the veteran and the comparatively newer athlete.

Kelly Clark gets the bronze.

Kaitlyn Farrington with the Gold.

Another beautiful sight.

Kelly, Kaitlyn, Torah

 This was a Victory ceremony that I am so glad that I did not miss.  I am even happier that I had a front row seat to celebrate my athletes, particularly my rookies.

A few days ago a friend from my club soccer days in Indiana commented on one of my posts and asked if WTHR-13 knew that I was here.  They are the local NBC affiliate for Indianapolis.  My response was that I sure hope not!  While I was standing at the ceremony I was right in front of the camera guys for all the news coverage.  Right next to me was the cameraman from WTHR-13.  I had to get a photo to show Jen.  It makes sense that he would be there since Nick was getting a medal.  From what I have heard, Indiana is very proud of their Winter Olympic medalist.  I might not have kept track very well over the years, especially since I moved away, but I cannot remember another Indiana Winter Olympian since Jill Watson in figure skating when I was a kid.  She won a bronze in pairs at the 1988 Olympics.  If there were other Winter Olympians from Indiana I do not think they had a medal.