Out with 2022, in with 2023

Eight short months ago, I was on a mountain top two hours outside of downtown Beijing, China, watching as the woman regarded as one of the world's best alpine skiers, had what can only be described as the worst few days of her competition career.

It was tough watching Mikaela Shiffrin go through what she went through following disappointing non-finishes in the Beijing Winter Olympics and it led to my most read blog post by far and stoked many discussions both in Beijing and back at home in the United States.

What made me think of this was the week that Mikaela just had, which can only be described as possibly one of the best weeks of her competition career, with three wins in a row, which pushes her closer to Lindsey Vonn's record for World Cup wins for a woman and closer to Ingemar Stenmark's record for World Cup wins for anyone and made her only the third person in history to record 80 World Cup wins.

It was truly remarkable to follow the races while I was covering the numerous high school holiday tournaments in Conway, Gilford, Farmington and Laconia. To see how different things can be in less than a year is amazing. Of course, most everyone who follows alpine skiing had to know that Mikaela would be just fine, even after the unusual performances in Beijing. After all, she's insanely talented and a true leader in the sport. People like that don't stay down for long.

Looking back, it has been a long year since those three weeks in China covering the world's elite athletes as they took to the ice and snow. There's been a few championships won along the way (and while I was in China), there's been spring and fall sports seasons and now we're back to the winter again. There's been a summer full of all sorts of sporting events, from the return of the Granite Man and Granite Kid Triathlons in Wolfeboro to Cal Ripken tournaments around the Lakes Region. I got the chance to drive a NASCAR car prior to the series returning to New Hampshire Motor Speedway and I made a ton of donuts, pies and gingerbread men in my side gig at the Yum Yum Shop (which pays for those trips to the Olympics every few years).

As we turn to a new year, I have moved from the apartment I have lived in for more than 20 years to a new place in Wolfeboro, a process that has not been fun and involved moving most of my big furniture in the rain, thanks to the help from my brother, Jared, and the use of the truck from Bob Tuttle. I am still trying to get settled in the new place, but five days in a row of holiday tournament action has left me little time, so for now, I wander between boxes and furniture to get from the bed to the bathroom and back.

And 2022 also brought another Olympic credential application process getting under way, as the road to Paris 2024 is officially under way, with expected announcements of credential approvals coming in the new year. While there are no Olympics in 2023, if I decide I'm going to Paris, the process will all unfold this coming year.

It should be interesting, one way or the other.

Climbing high into the mountains to see the women's slalom at the Beijing Olympics involved riding a few gondolas.

A flashback to a different time

Those Facebook memories struck again.

This time, it was Sunday when I happened to be on the laptop and took a quick break from work and the memory popped up. It was four years ago that day (December 18) that I received the e-mail from the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee that I had been granted credentials for the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics.

What a ride that turned out to be.

That e-mail came a scant 10 months after I had returned from PyeongChang, South Korea and the 2018 Winter Olympics. On a whim, wanting to see how a Summer Olympics experience would differ from the two Winter Olympics that I had been to, I had applied for credentials for the 2020 Summer Games in Tokyo. I was excited to get the chance to see something different, to see the Olympics without having to don a winter coat at any point.

The next year proved to be much the same type of processes that I had gone leading up to the 2014 Sochi Winter Games and the aforementioned PyeongChang Games four years later. There was the necessary paperwork getting filled out, lodging being secured with a deposit put down on a hotel room in Tokyo and general preparedness. Things were looking good as 2019 turned in to 2020 and the year of my first Summer Olympics dawned.

Of course, we all know how 2020 turned out.

Like millions of others, my life came to a grinding halt thanks to the pandemic. At first there was optimism that the Olympics would go on as planned, but as it got to the end of March, organizers realized that there was no way that the pandemic would be cleared up by August and the decision was made to postpone the Olympics by one year, the first time that had ever happened. A few weeks later, I was laid off from the newspaper as the business struggled to get through COVID. With no sports going on, it was a logical decision and one that I completely understood.

While I anticipated that I would get my job back, my concerns about the Olympics were many. I had no idea whether it would be possible to move such a massive event. Would all the money that I had paid for hotels and other related amenities carry over? We were assured by Tokyo 2020 organizers that we would have the lodging that we booked and any money and reservations that we made would be honored.

Of course, I also saw trips to Florida with local baseball teams and New York City and Atlanta for Survivor events go by the wayside, as did a trip to Ireland with the UNH Marching Band to perform on St. Patrick's Day. But the Olympics were the big one.

As it turned out, you are able to move a massive event like the Olympics. Kudos to the Tokyo 2020 people and the International Olympic Committee for doing the seemingly impossible in moving the Summer Olympics ahead one year. However, even that one year wasn't enough to get ahead of the pandemic, as the amount of paperwork and medical testing that had to be done prior to leaving for Tokyo added a lot more fun to the experience.

That being said, I got to experience a pretty unique event, an Olympics with almost no spectators in a pandemic world. I traveled halfway around the world to be part of an historic event. And seven months later, I got on a plane and did it all again, this time in China for the Winter Olympics in Beijing. Covering two Olympics all while dealing with a pandemic was an interesting and unique situation and one that I won't soon forget.

As I sit here now, we are anticipating hearing from the USOPC about our credential requests for Paris 2024 at some point in the next month. I'm excited to hear how that process went, though I am still on the fence as to whether Paris is in the offing.

It's amazing how one small memory on Facebook can take you back in time to a world that really doesn't exist anymore. A time when nobody knew what COVID was and Corona was just a Mexican beer.

Tokyo Big Sight, which was the site of the media center for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics in the summer of 2021.