Winter Olympics 2014- Valentine's day and Full Moon

Friday, February 14th-

Every four years I actually like Valentine's Day because I get to spend it at the Olympics.  In 2006 I am pretty sure that is the day that I saw Ted Ligety win his gold medal in Super Combined.  Since this is an Olympic year I expected to enjoy the day a little more than usual.  I even planned ahead and brought a box of children's Truth or Dare Valentine's card to give out to those I work with.  I kept hoping someone would pick dare and I would get to hear some cowboy yells or see someone acting like a gorilla.  But if they did I missed seeing it.  I also got to start out my morning with visits from Ryan St. Onge and Don Cook as they prepared for the day and heading up to the mountains to watch women's aerials.  Ryan was on our team and retired after the 2010 Olympics.  It was a lovely way to start my day seeing him.  When Don came by for a park pass we talked about how hard it is to watch someone you love compete and not be able to do anything to help them.  I have never had his experience and I cannot imagine that my nerves for my soccer team in college come close, but it gives me an inkling about how he feels.

Valentine's Day cards

It turned out to be a pretty quiet day overall.  By the time I finished the morning hours I not heard from anyone who would need to meet me at the Park.  I decided to take advantage of the slow day and take a walk along the boardwalk by our hotel.  So far I had not even had time to walk over there during daylight hours.  I am so glad that I took the time.  It is a beautiful view of the Black Sea and the walkways stretches forever with benches here and there along the way.  I had been told that if you walked toward Olympic Park you would eventually hit a point not too far down where you could not go any further.  So I decided to go the other direction.  Since the Radisson was in that direction I was hoping I would get lucky and run into Bonnie Blair out for a run.  From what I had heard, it could happen.  The beach over here is all stone.  I have always enjoyed the sound of water hitting a stone beach ever since my first trip to Nice in 2004.  Since it was not high tide during my walk the sound was not as pronounced but it was still soothing.

View from the walk.

 On the way back I decided to walk on the beach.  I am not sure which is harder, walking on sand or stones.  Neither is easy.  But I enjoyed the walk on the stones much more than all the pavement walking I have been doing.  When I was almost back to the hotel I ran into someone from figure skating who was being brave enough to dip her toes in the water.  I helped her out by taking her picture to prove she did it.  She said that the stones felt good on the bottom of your feet.  I might have to give that a try.

Sparkles on the water.

I found someone's heart on the beach.

 Since I still did not have any requests from families I decided to take my laptop upstairs and watch the slalom run of the combined and the men's cross country race.  I was hoping I could find one on the TV and watch the other on my laptop.  The mistake I made was sitting on my bed.  I ended up crashing and woke up to realize that I had missed most of the USA slalom runs except Bode Miller's.  Result wise I did not miss much, but I would have liked to see the other guys and cheer them along.  My timing was better for the cross country race.  Unfortunately, they do not show much of the Americans in the coverage over here whether I am online or watching TV.  I was laughing to see some of the guys going out in tank tops or knee length instead of full length race suits.  It looked more like one of their spring series races than what you would expect to see in February at the Winter Olympics.

When it was time for Aerials I made myself go sit at the desk so I would not risk falling asleep by accident.  Apparently I was more tired than I realized.  As I was sitting at the desk I noticed that it was almost time for the sunset.  I really wanted to go out to the boardwalk for photos, but I really did not want to miss any of the finals jumps for Ashley and Emily.  I finally decided that I was just going to have to watch from my room so that I could cheer for the girls.  I had already turned down the opportunity to go to men's ski jumping so that I could watch aerials and jumping without missing either one.  This will be Emily's last Olympics, and while I might not be able to attend the event, I did not want to miss seeing her compete.  I was excited to see that Ashley had qualified with the highest score going into the finals.  Finals starts with a round of 12, goes down to 8 and then the last run is the top 4.  Each round is a clean slate, so your previous scores do not help you.  Despite Ashley's placement going into her first jump of finals she had a less than perfect landing.  I watched as she waited for her score with a look of disbelief on her face.  When it came in it was clear that there would not be a next round for Ashley.  I felt so bad for her.  Over the past couple of years she has come back from two ACL surgeries and still fought to have some of the most difficult tricks and make the Olympic team.  A few athletes later and it was time to cheer for Emily.  She had a good first finals jump and made it through to the round of 8.  On the next round Emily had a great jump but her landing was not clean.  Her score kept her from the final 4.  I always say that while I cheer for anyone in USA colors, there are just certain people you want the medal for.  Emily is one of those people.  For 8 years I have watched her work hard, rehab, train continually, volunteer, support her teammates and others and just be the most amazing person you could know.  I wanted to see her finish her Olympic career with a podium.  But she definitely finished with a great jump and a fabulous outlook on life.  I look forward to seeing where things take her next.
 

Sunset from my balcony.

Love that I can see the Sea and Sunset from my room.

 I believe I have mentioned it before, but I get two meals a day with my hotel room.  Breakfast and dinner are prepared for us by USOC chefs.  So I have only sampled some Russian food at event concessions.  But the meals we have received at the hotel have been amazing.  For Valentine's day we had prime rib, shrimp scampi, eggplant, roasted asparagus, lots of hors d'oeuvres, fresh fruit, chocolate mousse cake and chocolate covered strawberries.  It was divine.  I came in late since I had been watching the aerials and many of the tables were full, so I sat at one end of an empty table next to one that had people.  Sarah Konrad came over and sat with me while she had dessert and some wine.  I had chatted with her briefly on other days when our paths crossed, but this was the first time I had a long conversation with her.  I really enjoyed getting to know more about her background and what she is doing now with the USOC and the Athlete Advisory Council.  Sarah actually raced for the US Cross Country team and was on the 2006 Olympic team for Cross Country and Biathlon.  We talked about my experience attending the IOC Women in Sport conference in LA two years ago and how I came back to work ready to instigate getting some women on our board.  This spring we have at least two female athletes running to represent their sports on the board.  It is a small start to getting some more female voices heard.

Before the night ended it got a little bit more chaotic.  I received a message from Nick Goepper's uncle that he had lost his ipad on the bus after the medal celebration.  He had started his travels home and needed help in finding it.  Everyone I asked about lost and found seemed to think he was going to be out of luck.  But Kevin insisted that he has good karma with these things.  We shall see what happens.

Saturday, February 15th-

On my way to bed last night I noticed the moon coming up and wondered if I would be able to see it setting in the morning.  Of course I forgot all about it until I opened the curtains in my room and saw it out the window.  I grabbed my camera and tried a couple shots from the balcony.  But it just was not the photo I was hoping for so I headed for the walkway by the Sea.  The view was much better down there.  It is a toss up, but I think the camera on the phone was doing a better job than my Nikon.  I loved watching the moon slowly sink into the clouds at the horizon.

Morning Moon Set over the Black Sea.

Moon reflection on the Black Sea.

I have finally learned that if there is an alpine race I stand a pretty good chance that the BBC will be covering it.  So at least for those events I can get English commentating so that I do not miss anyone.  This morning was the Women's Super G.  I had the race on my computer so our security guy and I were watching.  Leanne Smith came down second and finished in 1st.  I always wonder if it will hold when they come down so early in the line up.  But one after the other the next racers skied out of the course or fell or slowed before the end.  Eventually Leanne was pushed off the podium, but it took awhile and I was holding out hope that her early run would be a winning one.  In the end the course took out 18 athletes which is just ridiculous.  We also watched the Women's Cross Country relay.  It is a good thing that I am not superstitious about watching or saying that people should watch an event.  If I was I would never be able to watch another Cross Country race.  This was an event that the USA thought they could do well in.  Unfortunately, it was just not their day.  Due to the feed we were watching we did not know if there had been a crash or some technical issue.  We just knew that as Kikkan came in to tag off to her teammate she was in 12th position.  Somewhere during the 2nd or 3rd leg the hotel lost power and internet for a few minutes.  By the time it came back I had no idea where we were.  In the end I got to see Jessie racing in for 9th position.  I love that no matter what, our girls do not give up.  I just wish that it had been a better day for them.

While I was watching the parents of Trevor Jacob arrived.  It was nice to meet them.  I had Trevor as a rookie when he was on the halfpipe team.  Now he is on the SBX team.  They were telling me that they had gotten notice 2 weeks ago that their hotel had been double booked.  Since they went through one of the travel companies it had been dealt with and they ended up in a gorgeous 5 star hotel resort.  Lynn was showing me photos on her phone and they were just beautiful.  Best place to be for a Russian vacation by the sea.

Today was my day for SBX families.  In the afternoon before I left the hotel, Nate Holland's cousin came by to pick up items for their group.  Then at the park I met up with Nick Baumgartner's mom and her niece.  Toward the end of the evening I was able to connect with Alex Deibold's mom and dad.  I think I have now met just about everyone connected to the men's team.  I also met Mac Bohonnon's family (he is an aerialist).  It was a busy afternoon of meeting families at the park, getting them in and giving them a run through of things to see and expect.  While I was connecting with everyone Pamela decided to come back down and meet me.  Since I was already inside the park I had her find me at the P&G House.  While we were chatting outside Ashley Caldwell came by.  I had seen her earlier with Ryan St. Onge when I was helping get park tickets to her parents.  I had given her a big hug and told her how proud I was of her.  But you could tell the results from the night before were still a little raw.  Pamela gave her a huge hug and we stood around chatting.  Since I was waiting on Nate's cousin to come pick up a couple more tickets Pamela and Ashley decided to go walk around a bit.  Neither one of them had been inside the Park before.  By the time they came back I was ready to go walk around with Pamela.  She needed some souvenirs but the line at the Olympic store was too long.  We decided to walk back and check out the USA House shop.  When we got there they had the USA v Russia hockey game on.  When we went up to check out there was only 30 seconds left in the overtime.  All the cashiers were glued to the TV and said they would help us in a moment.  That was fine since we wanted to see the end of the game too.  We ended up checking out between the overtime and the penalty shots.  Then we stuck around longer to see how it turned out.  You could not ask for a more dramatic ending to a hockey game.  I kept laughing though.  My soccer mentality cannot imagine taking that many penalty shots and missing so many.  Usually in soccer we make more than we miss.  It seems in hockey the goalie saves more than the players make.  Before we left we ran into Ron Randall, Kikkan's dad.  I was talking to him about the race and whether something had happened.  He said it just was not Kikkan's day.  No known reason for it.  I am just glad she is okay.  He gave me one of the Kikkan pins that her brother designed and he had made.  I am excited about that one.

 

Some dancers on our walk to USA House

View along our walk.

 Pamela had to head back to the mountains since she was leaving in the morning.  I needed to locate the information area to check on lost and found for Kevin's missing ipad.  We headed for the front.  I really wanted some food and we saw a guy with a hotdog.  We probably scared him when we almost grabbed him to find out where he got it.  Turned out that each section of concession trailer had different foods.  The one toward the end had different kinds of hot dog.  The line was long though so I decided to go search for the ipad.  But first, I had to enjoy the moon rising over the mountains.  It was just too beautiful to be missed.  This was a day made in heaven for someone like me who loves the moon so much.

Moon rising over the mountains.

Gorgeous night in Sochi.

After taking a few photos I resumed the search for the ipad.  I was told in the information tent that they only did lost and found for inside the park.  The ipad had been lost on a bus.  So then I walked out to the bus area to see if one of the volunteers knew about a lost and found for them.  They directed me to the train station information.  I went through security and headed upstairs to the information booth.  The woman at the window sent her colleague out to talk to me.  She told me they did not cover the buses and to go to the ticket office outside.  There was a line so I walked up to some volunteers and asked them about lost and found.  They were great.  Two of them took me around to the far side to a door that had lost and found written on it, but no one was there.  They made some calls and then walked me back to the front side.  One ran in to talk to someone who came out and told me they did not deal with the buses.  I asked if he could find a name and # for the company.  He went in to try but came back unsuccessfully and suggested I go to the bus pick up area, which is where I started.  At this point I was tired and hungry, but I headed back in hopes I could find a volunteer who spoke English.  I ended up with four crowded around me trying to help, but only one who spoke enough English and seemed to know what was going on.  He walked me over to their office trailer and made a call.  No one wherever he called had seen a white ipad.  I left my information and they promised to call if they found it.  I decided that as late as it was my best bet for food would be the hot dog so I went back into the park to get one.  It had an interesting taste but I was starving so it hit the spot.  Maybe tomorrow I will get further in the search for the ipad.

On the walk back Ron Randall caught up with me.  Our hotels are only a few buildings apart from each other.  So we had fun chatting on our way home for the evening.  Sounds like he has a really great situation at their hotel too.  I am glad it is working out for so many of our families.

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.

Winter Olympics 2014- Historic Day

Tuesday, February 11th-

Today was the day that I had repeatedly said, if there is only one event I can see in Sochi, I want to see Women's Ski Jumping.  Somehow I had to find a way to make sure that I made it to the event.  When I was a kid, soccer was my sport.  I remember saying that someday I wanted to play in the Olympics.  My dad told me that I could not do that since it was not in the Olympics.  In 1996 we were at the stadium when the USA won the first Olympic gold medal in women's soccer.  Maybe I will not play soccer in the Olympics, but I was there to witness the first time a team of women were given the chance to realize their dream of winning the gold.  When I moved to Park City I learned that Women's Ski Jumping was not an Olympic sport.  Over time I started volunteering with Women's Ski Jumping USA.  A lot of my friends and family have been pulled into supporting the cause as I requested their time, money or donations for auctions.  I appreciate all the times they said yes.  Sochi was finally the Olympics that was going to include Women's Ski Jumping.  After watching the efforts by our USA women and their counterparts around the world, I could not miss this event.  I just had to figure out how to do my job and be a fan.  I had been telling my boss for a year that I would do whatever he needed me to do, but I really wanted to be at this event.

Every parent that I heard from leading up to today received the same message, I will stay at the hotel until mid afternoon.  I will then go to the Olympic Park Train station and hang out there from 3:30-5pm near the Texas Chicken.  At that point I will deal with any medal ceremony tickets and if all goes well I can be on the train to ski jumping soon after.  I also posted this information on our facebook page.  Going from 7:30am-3pm was actually a long time sitting in the lobby.  Fortunately, we had slopestyle skiing that day for the women.  The funniest thing a couple days before was that the hotel owner put downhill on the TV so I put slopestyle snowboard on my laptop.  Just as Steven Nyman was going to take his first run the owner changed the channel to slopestyle.  We all let out a yell.  By the time I could switch my online viewing I had missed his run.  So now I try to have a window with each event open just in case I need to switch faster.  I was having some issues with the live streaming freezing up on me all morning.  It was made even more frustrating because I could hear the USOC staff 2 floors above me shouting, cheering or groaning and I was not always sure why.  There were a lot of crashes and yard sales in slopestyle.  The warm conditions were making things soft and causing all kinds of carnage.  In the end, Devin Logan was able to put together a run good enough to earn silver.  This was Freeski's first medal but Kate rose to the challenge and had the list of people for medal and Ikkos ceremony invites quickly enough for me to move things along and still have hope I would make it to jumping.  The USOC transportation crew said they would provide me with a ride over to the train station.  As we were leaving I was getting text messages from Nick Goepper's uncle about spectator pass issues and tickets.  The driver speaks Russian and I speak English.  But apparently groaning is universal and he understood the finger signal questioning whether we could turn around.  He ran me back to the hotel so I could grab their tickets.  I ended up getting dropped off across from the spectator entrances and was able to hand the tickets off to Nick's dad Chris.  He did not want to come all the way out and I did not want to go all the way in.  Somehow we convinced security to let him come close enough so I could hand over the envelope.

From there I headed over to the Train station to hang out near Texas Chicken.  While I was there a couple members of Julia Mancuso's family came by for NET's to get into the Park.  It turns out that even the group that got their tickets from me at 8:45pm made it to the ceremony on time the previous night.  I was so happy to hear that.  During my time at the station I was working with Amanda to figure out medal ceremony tickets.  We finally figured out a way to meet up to make the hand off around the schedule I had posted for the parents.  The best news was that I could give the whole bunch to Justine who is working with Devin and she would take care of everything.  I met up with her and Nancy Logan outside the gates a little after 5pm and gave them what they needed.  It was nice to meet Nancy since we had traded emails but Lauren had her event tickets so I missed her on the front end of the trip.  From there it was time to run for the train.  I actually made the 5:38pm train and found a seat despite the crowds heading for snowboard halfpipe.

I listened with half an ear to the family across the aisle from me while trying to doze.  I think it was a family and a couple of friends.  I was wondering if they were Americans living abroad but never really figured it out.  The two boys were very excited about going to McDonald's on the way to the event.  When we reached my stop which was the first one going up the mountain the group across from me prepared to get off the train.  I leaned over and asked if they were going to jumping or snowboarding.  They confirmed they were headed to halfpipe so I told them to stay put until the next stop.  This might be my first trip up, but I have learned a few things working with our parents.

Ski jumping venue

When I got off the train the station was really busy.  Before I left the station I stopped to pull my fleece lined pants on over the leggings I had been wearing throughout the afternoon.  I am not really made for that look, but did not want to be too hot on the train ride up.  From the station you wind your way around to the "line" for the gondola.  You learn quickly that there are no lines in Russia, there are mobs.  If you want to get anywhere you better be ready to push your way along or you will be left behind.  Everything moved along and I found myself at the top of the gondola in no time.  When I was walking in and figuring out where my ticket might place me I ran into some of the parents and aunts.  It turns out if we stood where our tickets said we would not be able to see the jump very well.  So they said to follow them and we went to a different section with a better view.  No one even checked our tickets.  Eventually we had a large group of American fans surrounding us.  It was entertaining to see the fans from other countries come over to have pictures taken with anyone that was decked out in USA gear or had an American flag.  It was great having some of our athletes from the men's jumping team, moguls, bobsled, skeleton and nordic combined with us.  

Hanging out with Heather McPhie from Moguls.

Bobsled and Skeleton represented by Lolo Jones and Blair Tomten.

Nancy and Nancye

Nick representing Nordic combined and oh yeah, his little sister Sarah is jumping.

And then it was time for the event.  One of the coolest things was that the first jumper to come down for the first official jump of the first event held in the Olympics for women was Sarah Hendrickson of the USA.  The fact that Sarah was there to jump was amazing.  She won World Championships in 2013 at the age of 18.  This past August she jumped so far that she out jumped the hill and landed flat which destroyed her knee.  She had surgery at the beginning of September and was able to rehab in 5.5 months so that she could be on the Olympic team.  The next one up for the Americans was Lindsey Van.  There are so many things to say about Lindsey.  She probably spent more of her career fighting to get her sport into the Olympics than actually doing the part she loved, jumping.  I am so impressed that she never gave up, kept fighting and won the battle.  And now I was watching her do what she loves best at the Olympics.  Our last jumper for the USA was Jessica Jerome.  Like Lindsey, she has spent most of her career fighting for the sport.  Her dad is the one who went out and figured out how to start Women's Ski Jumping USA to help support the girls and fight for Olympic inclusion.  It would have been great to have their teammates Alissa and Abby here too, but these three were a great representation of our team.  I must admit, I went into the event knowing that it would be a battle to get a medal, but hoping for that happy ending for one of our girls.  It turned out that none of our girls got a medal, but all of them can say they are Olympians.  And looking forward, they can focus on their jumping and not the fight for inclusion.  That is a pretty big deal.  I hope they are proud of their accomplishment.  I am so proud of them for never giving up.

Sarah Hendrickson

Lindsey Van

Jessica Jerome

Emotional gold medalist

Flower ceremony

The first medalists in Women's Ski Jumping

It was hard to leave at the end of the event.  I honestly wanted it to keep going despite the fact that it was after 11pm when it ended.  I knew the direct train to Olympic park left at 11:44pm or else I would have to wait until 12:44am.  I got into the mob heading to the gondola and pushed my way along.  About part way through the maze I got caught up in a group of people and just let them carry me along.  I managed during the event to avoid having my photo taken with international fans, but in the line a couple decided to take a photo with me.  All I had was the USA hat from Women's Ski Jumping and one of their stickers on my cheek.  Definitely not their best option but the only one who was close by.  There was a point when I was being carried along that I could not tell how far or close I was to the gondola.  I did not know if we were going to have to go around another curve or if we were almost there.  And then suddenly things opened up and I was pushing my way into a gondola.  Sadly, I watched the train I needed depart as I came down the mountain.  I swear it left early so I did not realize right off that was my train.  When I got up to the platform I pointed at the train sitting there and just said, "Olympic Park?"  The woman started rattling off a whole string of things in Russian.  I think I must look like a deer caught in the headlights when that happens to me.  I was so frustrated with my inability to learn languages and the fact that I was starting to realize I missed my train.  The woman was nice enough to find another worker who spoke English.  It turns out he could speak enough to give me directions on taking the next train to Adler and switching to one that would go to the Park.  But he did not actually understand English if I asked him a question.  It was interesting.  Fortunately, his directions got me on a train headed in the right direction.  I was able to get down to Adler, switch to another for Olympic Park and reach that point about 10 minutes after I would have left the mountains if I had waited on the direct train.  Considering it was 1am, I am glad I was already almost back to my hotel.  Just had to walk the 20 minutes.  I doubt my mother is going to be thrilled to know that I walked back by myself at 1am.  But in my defense, there is a policeman almost every 50 feet, even at that hour of the night.  Anyway, I made it safely and was happy that I was there for the first Olympic Women's Ski Jumping event.

PS- Over the weekend one of the parents was looking for tickets to Men's Ski jumping.  I was told that there were none available unless they wanted to go to the box office and check.  I was running around all afternoon and had a medal ceremony to coordinate tickets for.  By the time I got back to the hotel to check what had come down from the mountains for me it was 8:30pm.  Inside the envelope was 1 ticket to men's ski jumping for the people I had told we did not have any tickets.  I was trying to figure out what to do since the event was going to start soon.  Shortly after I made the discovery I got a text from Brian who was wondering if I knew of any options that were less than $200.  He had gone up to the event and was trying to get in.  I admitted that I had a ticket in my possession but was not sure how to get it to him.  If we did not figure out something soon I would miss the next train to get it up to him.  He told me to send a photo but I had real doubts that anyone would accept a photo.  I did send it to him though.  Then I went down the hall to see if the USOC transportation crew could get me to the train station in time to make the next direct train up.  The driver got me close and I begged him to let me out so I could run for it.  I somehow managed to get through security and on the right train in time.  Brian was giving me updates as I went.  Just before we got to Olympic Village he told me he was in.  I asked him to confirm that he was all set so I could hop off.  Turns out the photo actually worked and he got into the event.  I got off at the Village and took the next train back to the Park station so I could walk home.  Craziest thing I have heard.

Winter Olympics 2014- Nonstop

Sunday, February 9th-

I am starting to settle into my routine of helping parents in the morning from the hotel.  Then in the afternoon I can run over to the park to help anyone who needs a Non Event Ticket (NETs) to get in, or handle medal ceremony details.  Today was a busy day of events.  While I waited for parents to visit me for their tickets I tried to watch as many things as I could online or TV.  We had Cross Country Men's Skiathlon, Men's Downhill and Women's Snowboard Slopestyle all going on throughout the morning and afternoon.  In the end it was only Slopestyle that had a medalist when Jamie Anderson won the gold.  I was lucky that I had been at the park and was joined by Bridget.  She was able to walk me through the park and over to the village area to meet up with Julie to pick up medal ceremony tickets.  We decided to take the train from the village stop to the park station so that I could meet the family out front.  It turns out that the area that we departed to get to the train station involved having a credential that I do not have.  I pointed at Bridget and said I was following her since she does have a credential.  They let me go out a different gate that did not require scanning a credential.  I have no idea how I managed to get into an area that requires a credential to get out.  No one had stopped us as we walked over from the Park.  

Bridget showed me how to get the train from the village over to the park and we headed that direction.  On our way she also pointed out the Welcome Center which is another pick up option for medal ceremony tickets.  Of course, once I was sitting outside the spectator entrance I found out that the family was already in the Park at P&G.  I used one of our NETs to get back in and headed over there.  Now that I am such good friends with the front desk staff at the P&G Home they were happy to help me.  I needed to get some tickets to P&G and some to USA House.  Everyone must scan in and scan out when they are at P&G.  The desk staff looked and were able to tell me that the Andersons were there.  They even knew it was the right Andersons since their names have to be tied to an athlete.  I left the tickets for the family with them and Bridget went to show me the way to USA House.  I really wish I had downloaded an app for all the walking I was doing.  USA House is way in the back of the park, which I had already walked through once to go over for the ceremony tickets.  I'm pretty sure I wracked up around 10 miles during this day of walking.  We made it over to USA House and I was able to leave the rest of the tickets.  I also got to meet Lexy and chat with her while I was there.  

Once we had delivered all the tickets Bridget and I decided to walk back to our hotel so we would not miss dinner.  Since we were at the back of the park we decided to try walking out the back exit, which is funny considering our earlier experience with the gate at the village.  We walked past the Japan House and the fancy hotel.  This led us to the road that leads right to where we need to be to get back to our hotel without walking around the whole park.  But between us and that road was another exit gate.  Once again, my spectator pass does not meet the criteria.  This time they scanned it on a separate scanner and pointed me out.  I am guessing I cannot get away with that again.  And it definitely will not work if I am not with someone who has a credential like Bridget.  On the bright side, they let us out this time and we were able to walk back to the hotel without the extra lap through and around the park.  We made it in plenty of time for dinner.

Monday, February 10th-

While I was hanging out helping parents this morning I received an email from Brant Feldman who is an agent for one of our athletes.  He had stopped by the hotel to pick up tickets a couple days before when I was not around.  Bridget had helped me out by getting into my room to grab the tickets for him.  Apparently we were missing a couple for another event.  Lauren sent them down and I let him know that I now had the tickets.  He decided to come over on Sunday during the pick up hours to get them but ended up running behind.  I waited for him but was ready to run out the door to meet other parents the minute he arrived.  We ended up walking over to the park together.  He also works with the women's hockey team and some other athletes.  He suggested that I should see some other events but I was not sure if it would work out or not.  In the email sent over this morning he told me he had a ticket to the USA v Switzerland Women's Hockey game.  It was that afternoon at 2pm.  It was completely unexpected and I was not sure if I could make it happen.  I knew I had to meet some parents around 1pm at the park.  I have learned that meeting times are suggestions when we are all trying to figure out the layout around here.  Brant told me that it was a really good seat so I decided to see what I could do to make it happen.  I finally did have to ask him to leave it at P&G for me since I was not sure I could get everything done fast enough to meet him.  Somehow it worked out that I finished meeting up with families, picked up my ticket from P&G and sprinted through the park and was only 15 minutes late to the game.  I went down to my seat and discovered that I was in the front row near a goal and one seat away from Kristi Yamaguchi.  Talk about great seats!  Even better, no one had scored as of yet when I sat down.  And then the USA went and started scoring, a lot.

USA v Switzerland

Early score

Very close seats.

Anyone who knows me will not be surprised that I ended up making friends while I was at the game.  On one side of me was a USOC doctor and her husband.  She usually works with USA Hockey but is actually the doctor for USA House on this trip.  Definitely a great location to be working during the games.  I also spent a good portion of the game working.  So if anyone saw me on the coverage they might have seen me on my phone trying to send emails.  When I left the hotel at lunch time Julia Mancuso was leading the downhill portion of the Super Combined.  I was trying to find results and email with Chelsea about medal ceremony details. I did manage to see the USA goals scored though.  All 9 of them.

Final score

Proving I was at the game.

View of the Park as you leave the arena.

When the game ended I decided to see if Tammie would let me sneak into a corner of USA House to use the internet so I could provide her with information for Julia Mancuso.  She let me stand next to the bar which might be the furthest into USA House that I get unless an athlete invites me to their Order of Ikkos celebration.  I managed to get the information together and then found out that due to a private event that night we would have to put off the Ikkos ceremony for Julia.  I made plans to meet Amanda for the medal ceremony tickets and had a moment of panic figuring out how I was going to reach her without Bridget.  The suggestion I got from Bridget was to act confident and they would probably let me through.  I did manage to walk over to the village area to get the tickets but then was not sure how to get back.  So I hopped on a bus and rode around the park and got off by the ice cube.  From there I was able to walk back through the park and out to the front to meet members of the Mancuso family.  I started at P&G thinking I might meet them there.  It was good timing since they were just doing a toast for Jamie Anderson.  They introduced her family.  I had no idea she has 5 sisters.  I think her mom earned her gold medal with 6 daughters.  It was a really nice toast and Jamie made a great speech thanking her mom.  Then it was time to find the Mancuso family.  That turned out to be fun.  We had a group of them driving down with our VP of Marketing.  Another group of them were coming down on the train with her agent and the coaches/team leader arrived through the village.  Chelsea wanted to pick up tickets to the ceremony for the coaching staff from me and I kept trying to explain that their credentials got them into the same area.  By the time she would have walked out from where they were in the back, gotten the tickets, gone through security and walked back she would have missed it.  I finally told her I would send them with Lowell's group.  At this point in the day (after 8pm) my phone was dying and I didn't have the cord to charge it.  I told the family that I met at the gate to tell the group on the train to meet me by the Texas Chicken in the train station.  I stood there forever waiting and hoping they were going to make it in time to see Julia receive her medal.  One policeman even came over to make sure everything was okay.  Then he brought me a map of the train lines.  I guess I looked lost.  Finally at 8:45 someone came up the steps and asked me where to find Texas Chicken and it was one of the family members.  I handed off the tickets and told him to run for it.  I was not sure if they would make it but was hoping for the best.

Completely drained I headed for the hotel but got there after they had cleaned up dinner.  I was able to grab some cereal and a huge piece of chocolate cake though.  That helped a lot.  Hoping this all gets easier the more we do it.

Jamie Anderson and Family at P&G House