Well folks, we are now about one month from the start of the Winter Olympics in Milan and there are a lot of challenges ahead, both for me personally and on a much larger scale. In this blog post I am going to share with you all, some of those challenges and how I plan to overcome them (or not).
First, lets start with the biggest challenge of all, the locations which are spread out all over the place, more than any other Olympics ever. This will be the first Olympics that I have covered where I will not be able to cover a wide variety of sports. In the city of Milan, there will be ice hockey, figure skating, short track speed skating, and long track speed skating. Everything else is in Cortina, Valtellina, Val di Fiemme or Anterselva which is between a 4 hour to 12 hour drive each way. This means that there is no way for me to cover any other sports other than what is in Milan. The Opening Ceremony is in Milan but even the Closing Ceremony is hours away in Verona. I will likely miss that as well.
Then there are the ice hockey arenas. As I have done since 2010, I will be the official photographer for all ice hockey games for the men and women of Team USA. This means that I will be staying at a press hotel in the city center, as close as I can be to the main arena. But there are two hockey arenas in Milan which are on opposite sides of the city. This means that any games played in the second arena will be tougher to get to, and if there are men's and women's games that are at similar times, it will be virtually impossible for me to cover both. In Russian, I could walk from one arena to the other in 5 minutes or less. That won't be happening this time around. I will have to work in both venues and can only rely on public transportation to get around. Just like Paris, there are no press buses available for us in Milan.
The even bigger is that the Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena, which is the primary venue for hockey is still NOT completed yet. This is really hard to believe, knowing that the planning committee in Milan has had ten years to build everything out.
Under normal circumstances, the arena would be completed at least 6 months in advance and we would have test events take place to make sure everything is working just right, but that has not happened yet! I have heard that there will be test events in the next week or so, but that is cutting it WAY too close for most peoples comfort. Remember, this is the first time in more than a decade that the NHL players are allowed to represent their home countries. That is a really big deal. They will also be playing on ice that is irregular in size (not NHL size and not International size either). This is so strange, but a real fact. And lets not forget the women, who are outstanding hockey players, who ultimately will be the guinea pigs, since their competition starts before the men. The first women's game for USA Hockey actually happens the day BEFORE the Opening Ceremony. That would be Feb 5th, which is not too long from now.
Assuming they get the ice in place and all the seating done, I then wonder what will be skipped. This brings back memories of the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, which were played in the "not so finished" Bolshoy Ice Dome. It looked great on television, but I remember staircases that were unusable (missing many of the stairs) and a hole in the ceiling of the press bathroom where I could see the feet of the spectators in their seats. So this leads me to wonder not just whether the ice surface and spectator areas will be completed, but what about the press rooms, underground bathrooms, internet wiring and everything else that we rely on?
This venue is supposed to be running every day and all day with men's and women's hockey games.
Another interesting challenge for me will be resetting my body clock. Sure, it is common to handle this when traveling to work in another country, but these games are going to be played at really crazy hours. Since NBC wants to air the USA Hockey games live in the US, many of the games will start at either 9pm or as late as 11pm and run until 2am. This means that for some games I will be working on images in the press room until 4am or 5am, and then have to make my way back to the hotel using the trains. I sure hope they have black-out blinds at the hotel, but I am guessing that this will not be the case. Time to order a sleep mask on Amazon.
All press hotels are required to feed us breakfast, and this is the one meal where I usually fuel up for the day, but I don't think I will be awake during the breakfast hours. Maybe I can arrange a breakfast box each day but I have no idea if that will be possible. Most likely not. I know...these are small problems, but during the Olympics, time is precious and knowing that I have "known place and time" to get food is a bigger deal than you might think.
The good news is that I will be there and doing what I love, and the bad news is the unknown for which I am about to encounter. I guess this is going to be interesting for all of you as I blog daily and share my experiences (good and bad) once again.
Upcoming blog posts will be covering the equipment I am bringing, my pre-Olympic preparations and more.
Stay tuned my friends!
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