February 13, 2006


At the Oval Lingotto with friends Greg and Steve.

Over two hundred national delegations participated in Athens in 2004.  Eighty national delegations are here in Torino.  And as I look around the Research Room, I realize that I have a pretty outstanding global network of my own, each with specific contributions that they make to getting us through the Olympic fortnight.  There’s the one I consider to be my Aussie sidekick, whom I first worked with in Sydney in 2000: his head is an Olympic encyclopedia and his comedic timing is most definitely of the Southern Hemisphere.  In Sydney, he was our “local” but we liked him so much he’s still with us (and you can check out his own Olympic thoughts on http://blogs.smh.com.au/pistetake/).  Then there’s the globetrotter – she speaks five languages, knows everyone, and throws me a postcard in the off-Olympic season from an exotic location just so I know she’s still living la dolce vita.  We’ve done five Olympics together – a very special bond to have.  There’s the Austrian skiing expert, who is so funny in English I cannot imagine how funny he is in his native tongue.  There’s the one I like to shop with in whatever city we’re living in at the time, and who I send much of my academic writing to before I submit it for publication – I trust her judgment implicitly (and she has the greatest laugh).  The list goes on and on:  the professional researcher; the freelance writer; the one who knows something about everything; and the one who knows only her sport, but knows it so well that she is invaluable.  The proper English gentleman.  The one who knows how to speak Swedish and Russian and Norwegian, and understands the most complicated and obscure sports.  Some of these people I have never seen outside of the International Broadcast Center.  Others I have explored cities with, sampled a range of foods, and laughed with an awful lot.  And a few, who also live in New York, have become close, close friends.  But right now, with the Olympics swirling around us, we work together with a range of strengths, and after the cauldron’s flame goes out and the Olympics rest for a while, some of us stay in touch, and others of us don’t.  But we know we’ll be seeing each other again.