Busy season, but Beijing on the horizon

I've been to three Olympics and they've all had their things that went well and things that didn't go as well. That is to be expected.

But, one thing they all had in common was that they kept me busy. There was always something going on, always some place to go to cover an event or interview an athlete. However, in most cases, the work that I had to do over in Sochi, PyeongChang and Tokyo was not really much more than I am used to doing back here in the United States.

Tokyo was a bit of a different story than my first two Olympic experiences. The simple fact of the matter is that summer is a slower time for me. I have fewer events to cover and fewer places to go than during the school year. So, in many ways, those few weeks this summer were my busiest summer weeks in a few years.

But now that I am gearing up for a trip to Beijing, I am in the middle of one of the two busiest seasons of my year. The fall and spring sports seasons have been absolutely impossible the last year. I have 15 schools and more than 60 teams in each of those seasons. While I still have 15 schools in the winter time, there are fewer teams in the winter, but it is still more than busy. However, I have been struggling to keep up with all the fall teams and as I enter this week, there are still about 10 teams that I have not seen yet, which is incredibly disappointing to me. I have plans to see five of them this week, but this still leaves me with too many teams still unseen.

However, that's a subject for another day. As I get into the winter season, there is basketball, hockey, skiing, indoor track and swimming on the docket and most of those sports will still be going on when I pack up to head to China in early February next year. In both Sochi and PyeongChang, I ran into the same problem, where I missed out on a number of games, though I was able to get people to cover things for me on a few occasions. While away, I also missed the state ski championship week, which is usually one of my favorite weeks of the year.

Unlike this past summer in Tokyo, during the Winter Olympics of 2014 and 2018, I still wrote stories from information that coaches sent to me and edited pictures and stories that freelancers and volunteers sent my way. So, in addition to covering the numerous events across the Olympics, I was also keeping up to date on what was going on with the teams back in New Hampshire. My plan for the Beijing Olympics is to do much the same. I will reach out to coaches and athletic directors ahead of time and make a schedule for freelancers to cover some games before I leave and am hopeful that the coaches will continue to send information along so the coverage can continue.

Of course, this all depends on just what happens come February. My credentials are approved, the first half of my accommodation payment has been made and flights have been booked. I'm sure the COVID protocols will be a pain, much like in Tokyo, but that's something to work through as they come along.

This is a rendering of the sliding center in the mountains outside Beijing. The facility is one of the new Winter Olympic venues being built for the 2022 Games.

The road to Beijing

It seems like Tokyo 2020 just ended, even though it was a month ago now. But, while I was in Tokyo, I got an e-mail from the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee asking me to confirm all my details for the Beijing Olympics. I wasn't quite ready to deal with that while dealing with all the Tokyo stuff, so I waited until I got home and had a little time to take care of business.

I did take care of that paperwork a week or so ago, but it just seems like it is so quick on the heels of Tokyo that I am not quite ready for it to be here. Obviously, the postponement of the 2020 Olympics for a year contributed to the short time between the two Olympics for me.

However, this is also a new experience for me in that even if the Olympics had gone off as planned in 2020, there was still a shorter time than between my previous Olympic experiences. After Sochi in 2014, which was my first Olympic experience, there was four years before I was back in the Olympics in PyeongChang. While the Olympics are four years apart, usually the paperwork and all that starts probably about a year and a half out, so even after Sochi, I had more than two years to save money and gear up for a new Olympic experience.

After PyeongChang in 2018, I made the decision to try and get credentials for a Summer Games, just for the experience of seeing the difference between the two Olympics. The Summer Games are much bigger, with many more athletes, many more venues, many more events and many more press members. I wasn't sure that I would get the summer credentials, but they came through and I thought it would be cool to see something new. And it was.

However, the short time period between PyeongChang and Tokyo compacted everything I needed to do, though the postponement pushed everything back. But, that postponement also put the time period between Tokyo and Beijing at about six months, which really means that I was dealing with paperwork, payments and the like for two different Olympics.

Now the Tokyo is officially in the rearview mirror, the focus is on Beijing. They have half of my accommodation money and today, I took the next big step and booked a flight from Boston to Beijing. The flight over is more than 20 hours, mainly due to a six-hour layover in Hong Kong, though the flight back is a few hours shorter.

I know that Beijing will likely have many of the same restrictions that we had in Tokyo. Those restrictions were tough to deal with, though I knew they were necessary all the way around. It will be interesting to see what exactly we have to go through to get to Beijing. But, the pieces are in place, the fourth Olympics experience is right around the corner.

And who knows, Paris 2024?

The information sheet for the hotel I have booked for the Beijing Winter Olympics in February.