Developments in the road ahead

It's actually been a pretty newsworthy few weeks for the Olympics, despite the fact that we aren't in an Olympic year and the Paris Games are still more than seven months away.

The IOC announced in the last few weeks that it had entered into targeted dialogue with a pair of locations to host the Winter Olympics in 2030 and 2034.

It had long been rumored and reported that Salt Lake City, which hosted the Winter Olympics back in 2002, was interested in hosting again. The idea of a bid is seemingly popular with people in Utah and the locations used for those games are still in great shape and could be used again. In fact, many of them are used by the United States teams to do training throughout the year.

The big question was whether or not Salt Lake City would be in the mix for 2030 or for 2034. The preference of the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee was for the later date, as the 2030 Games would come less than two years after the US hosted the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles. While it was possible to make it happen, for the sake of sponsorships and other logistics, the 2034 date was preferable for most people involved on the US end.

And the IOC announced that indeed, Salt Lake City would be targeted for the 2034 Winter Olympics, with the 2030 Winter Olympics targeted dialogue going to the French Alps. This one surprised me a little bit, because of all the stuff I had read had pointed toward Sweden, Switzerland and Japan being possibilities for the Winter Olympics.

The French Alps bid is interesting to me in a few ways and I was interested to read the feasibility assessment provided by the IOC. First and foremost, it will be a little like Sochi in that there will be events taking place in the relatively warmer climate of Nice. I was in Nice in January of 2002 and it wasn't terribly cold (also wasn't as warm as Sochi), so it's interesting, but much like Sochi, the indoor venues for ice hockey, curling, figure skating and short track will all be located in the coastal area, along with the Main Press Center and the International Broadcast Center. There are plans to build the two hockey rinks in Nice, while the other venues are existing. A venue for speed skating is still to be determined.

There will be three other venue clusters, Meribel-Bozel, Montgenevre-Briancon-Serre Chevalier and Le Grand-Bornand. Montgenevre-Briancon-Serre Chevalier will be home to Big Air, Slopestyle, Aerials, Moguls and Halfpipe, with snowboard and ski cross in a location to be determined in the cluster. Meribel-Bozel will be the home to sliding sports, ski jumping and alpine skiing and Le Grand-Bornand will be hosting biathlon and cross country skiing.

In Salt Lake, like in 2002, the IBC and MPC will be located downtown, along with venues for hockey, figure skating, short track and speed skating. Curling will return to a venue in Ogden, while Snowbasin Resort will host alpine skiing. Utah Olympic Park has the venue for sliding sports, snowboard and ski cross and ski jumping, Park City will host halfpipe and Slopestyle, Deer Valley Resort will host aerials and moguls and Soldier Hollow will host cross country and biathlon. There's also plans to again use a hockey rink in Provo as well. Salt Lake's feasibility study was also an interesting read.

While I can't expect that I will still be covering the Olympics in 2030 and 2034, it is pretty neat to see the next steps being taken toward Olympic sites. And Switzerland's bid was a non-edition-specific project, which the IOC liked and has decided to grant it a special status, 'privileged dialogue,' with an eye toward the 2038 Games.

Lots of development as we move closer to next summer's Games in Paris.

The US Ski and Snowboard Team posted this on its website when it was announced that Salt Lake City was entering targeted dialogue for hosting the 2034 Winter Olympics. (USSA)

Money in the bank

As anyone who has read this blog for any period of time knows, the Olympic adventures I go on every few years come with a price tag. In the year leading up to my first Olympic experience in Sochi back in 2014, I had fundraisers and got great support from the community as I looked to have what I viewed as a once in a lifetime experience.

My company matched all the money I raised and because of that, the trip four years later to PyeongChang was essentially all paid for. Since then, I've been to Tokyo and Beijing and I have basically funded those trips on my own dime. The company pays me for the work I do while I am there, but because they are not forcing me to cover the Olympics (or even asking me to), it's not their responsibility to pay for my trip. And since these are no longer once in a lifetime opportunities, I also don't believe I can be going around asking people for money. The expenses associated with the Olympic trips prior to departure are mainly the accommodations and the flight, while food is the main expense once I am on the ground in an Olympic city. Our transportation, admission to events, wireless Internet and media center access is all free of charge.

So, what I've done, ever since I came back to the papers after the pandemic layoff, is work as much as I can at my second job at the Yum Yum Shop in Wolfeboro. During the summer I work at least 40 hours a week and during the school year, I work at least 30 hours a week. I pick up extra shifts when I can and much of the money I make at that job goes into my Olympic account to pay for these trips. And I make wire transfers from that account to the various Olympic committees around the world.

The wire transfer process for the Beijing Olympics in February of 2022 was by far the hardest and most complicated process I had been through regarding sending money for these trips. First, the bank where I have my account, didn't deal in the Chinese currency and Beijing wouldn't accept US dollars. So, I had to create another account at another bank and go from there. It took me and the very understanding and patient woman at Citizen's Bank in Wolfeboro three different tries to get the money through to Beijing. The first time we were missing a code (that was never provided to us), the second time the code was the wrong one and the third time it finally went through. It was a long and annoying process, much like the leadup to Beijing with flights and COVID tests was a few months after making those payments.

Within the last two weeks, I received my invoice for the first half of my accommodation payment for Paris next summer. The Paris Organizing Committee breaks our accommodation payments up into two invoices, with the chance to get some of our money back if we have to cancel at certain points. My bill this time was for close to 1,000 euros and the second one will be bigger (they add the city tax to the second invoice).

I visited Tammy at TD Bank in Wolfeboro and we set to work on getting a wire transfer going to Paris. The first roadblock that we ran into was there was no bank address on the invoice and the wire transfer needed one. I did a google search on the bank name and got an address that Tammy put on the invoice with the hope that it was correct. We got all the paperwork done and I left hoping that we had hit every nail on the head.

Early the next week, I checked in on the accommodation management web site and it read my invoice as "paid," so everything we had done had gone through and now, Paris 2024 officially has some of my money (I guess it's their money now).

If the worse case scenario comes along and the trip has to be cancelled for whatever reason, there are opportunities to get some of my money back, but I am now officially invested in this trip. The next step will be booking a flight and then I will have to make the second accommodation payment in the first few months of next year.

As of right now, there are 281 days until the Opening Ceremonies in Paris next summer. That means there's about 276-77 days until I likely will leave for Paris. In the meantime, there's plenty of baking to be done at the Yum Yum Shop because Milan-Cortina is only two and a half years away.

French residents celebrated one year to go earlier this summer in Paris. They also may have recently celebrated me sending them a bunch of money. Photo from Paris 2024.

On the road to Paris

Over the course of the last month, there has been one main development in the road to Paris for the 2024 Olympics and that was in the area of accommodations.

I received an e-mail from the accommodation team in Paris stating that they had assigned me a room at F1 Paris Saint-Ouen Marche aux Puces, which is located in the Seine-St. Denis area of Paris, where the only new venue for these games, the new Aquatics Center, is being built. It is within five kilometers of the stadium for the opening and closing ceremonies and less than 10 kilometers from the Eiffel Tower and Roland Garros Stadium. The Main Press Center is about 11.5 kilometers away.

This will be the third Olympics in a row that I have stayed in an existing hotel after staying in dedicated media villages in both Sochi and PyeongChang. The initiative to cut back on costs of hosting the Olympics has likely been a factor in not really having traditional media villages, but rather putting media members up in hotels. Also, the fact that Tokyo, Beijing and Paris are major cities with thousands upon thousands of hotel rooms also is probably a factor. In both Tokyo and Beijing, I chose the hotels basically based on price and that was pretty much my deciding factor in this choice as well. I don't anticipate spending much time in my room other than sleeping, so it doesn't have to be anything special. 

My hotel in Tokyo had a pretty small room and limited food options, which became a problem when I had to spend my first three days in the hotel for my COVID quarantine. The Beijing hotel had a bigger room and much more in the food options, particularly in the breakfast that comes as part of our media package. It appears this Paris hotel will have more on the limited side of the food options. One of the best parts of Beijing was being able to eat a pretty large breakfast, which usually carried me through lunch so that I didn't have to spend money on two full meals a day, rather just one. That being said, I doubt Paris will have any shortage of places to eat.

This morning when I got to work, I signed what is called the Accommodation Management Agreement, which basically locks me into the rooms that they have assigned me. The bill is more than $2,000, a bit more than I paid in Beijing and Tokyo for similar hotel accommodations, but that is not terribly surprising for 20 nights. I did book especially early before the Olympics to maybe get there a bit ahead of time. I feel like it would be a nice change of pace to settle in to the whole situation instead of jumping right in. But, who knows.

Next up will be paying the first half of the invoice for the hotel, which will be due this month. The time spent making donuts full-time over the summer and close to full-time throughout the winter allowed me to put some money into my Olympic account to make sure I can cover this bill. The other big expense will be the flight, which I still have to work out. The Arrival and Departure System, or ADS, is expected to be live by the end of the year, at which time I can input my flight information and set up a way to get from the airport to my hotel.

It's less than a year until the Olympics and things are starting to get more and more official. 

At the one year to go celebration, dignitaries and others road on boats to replicate the opening ceremony planned for Paris next summer. Photo courtesy of Paris 2024.

One year out: Looking ahead to Paris

 Two years ago right around this time I was embarking on my first Summer Olympic experience.

The Tokyo Games, postponed from 2020 to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, were a unique experience. We, as media members, were subject to regular COVID testing, there were no fans in the stands and masks were required everywhere we went. After two previous Winter Olympics, the heat of the summer was a new experience for me as well.

The next winter, the Beijing Winter Olympics experience was much the same, with even more COVID testing, limited fans in the stands and masks required everywhere. 

For those reasons, those Olympic experiences were definitely some of the most memorable things I have done in this job.

As this goes to press, we are one year out from the Paris Olympics, opening on July 26, 2024 in the French capital. In preparation for that, International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach spoke to the media in a Zoom call last Tuesday afternoon.

“My expectations for the Olympic and Paralympic Games Paris 2024 are the expectations of millions around the globe,” Bach said in welcoming media members to the call. “We want to get together again after the pandemic.

“Paris 2024 will serve as a blueprint that will help shape future editions of the Olympic and Paralympic Games and inspire other major events,” Bach continued. 

He went on to mention that the Paris Games will be the first Olympics and Paralympics to be planned and delivered in line with the reforms of the Olympic Agenda. This includes being the first ever Olympics with gender parity, with the IOC allocating the same number of quota to male and female athletes.

Paris 2024 organizers have also committed to 100 percent renewable energy in delivering the games and are using almost all existing venues. 

“These will be urban games in the heart of Paris,” Bach said, touting the use of the River Seine for the floating opening ceremonies welcoming athletes to the city. “I have goosebumps already thinking about that.” 

The Marathon Pour Tous, or Marathon For All, will give 40,000 runners the experience to run their race on the same day and same course that the Olympic runners will be running on. Champions Park will see athletes, medalists and fans celebrating the Olympic spirit together.

“The world will come together in Paris 2024 one year from now for a peaceful competition,” Bach stated. “We all will enjoy the rich culture of France and the warm hospitality of the sports-loving French people.

“At Paris 2024, we all will be inspired by the vision of our founder, Pierre de Coubertin, in his city, the city of light, Paris,” Bach added.

Most of the early portion of the question and answer session that followed focused on the inclusion of athletes from Russia and Belarus.

“We are determined to do everything to accomplish our mission, which is uniting athletes from around the world in peaceful competition,” Bach said. “We are focused on our mission right now, building bridges not erecting more walls.”

No official decision has been made on how athletes from those two countries will be handled in Paris. In previous Olympics, athletes were allowed to compete, just not under their country’s flag, with the Olympic Anthem played when athletes from those countries won a gold medal.

“Our position is to not punish athletes for acts of their government,” Bach said. “We can’t discriminate against anyone just because of their passport.”

Recent social unrest in the Paris suburb of Seine-Saint-Denis, which is slated to be a major hub for Olympic action, including the site of the only new venue, the Aquatics Center, was also brought up.

“These riots were not related to the Olympic Games in any respect,” Bach said. “We can feel great support of the French people for these Olympic Games and we’re confident that the Games can and will happen in a peaceful environment.

Paris and the rest of Europe is currently experiencing a heat wave and one question asked how the IOC was preparing in case of that happening again next summer.

“The Olympic Committee has plans and we’re contributing to this,” Bach said. “We have good experience with heat mitigation measures in Tokyo. The heat mitigation measures worked very well and they will be available in Paris next year.”

The Paris Olympics run from July 26 to Aug. 11, 2024. 

My first day out of quarantine at the Tokyo Olympics started with a trip to see the triathlon. One year from today is the Opening Ceremony for the Paris Olympics.

Back on the track, still not breaking any records

 By nature of the job, I spend a lot of time in my car, driving to and from the office or around the state to cover games, meets and events of all kinds. It’s safe to say, I drive a lot.

And I always kind of thought I was a pretty good driver. But, after a couple of experiences behind the wheel of a NASCAR stock car, I can say without a doubt that I was in no way meant to be a professional driver.

Last year I attended my first Media Racing Challenge, sponsored by the New Hampshire Motor Speedway. It is an annual event where members of the media get the chance to get behind the wheel of a stock car and take some laps on the Magic Mile. 

As I wrote at the time, I had been around the track on a couple of different occasions in the pace car, once in an SUV and the other time in a sedan, where I found myself sitting on the passenger seat riding incredibly close to the wall as the professional driver maneuvered the car around the track.

I was excited to get the chance last year and when the opportunity arose this year to do it again, I took up the NHMS media relations staff on their invitation and after making a bunch of donuts on Friday morning, June 23, I headed south to Loudon and signed all the appropriate paperwork in the media center. They had the fire suits we needed to wear right there and I stepped into the suit and sat down for the orientation video.

This year the event was run by a different company. Last year it was a company associated with Rusty Wallace, while this year it was a company associated with The King, Richard Petty. Last year’s presentation was mostly done in person by a member of the racing experience company, but this year it was all done on video.

After the video we made our way out to Victory Lane, where we got a couple of welcome speeches and then were introduced by NHMS staff member Scott Spradling. I was not alone in returning to the track, but there were also a good number of rookies getting behind the wheel.

After getting a helmet and the HANS safety device attached, every participant took a ride-along before getting behind the wheel and the driver showed us how to handle the car as we made our way around the track. Once we had the ride-along in the books, it was time for us to give it a try.

Last year, as a fan of Dale Earnhardt Jr., I was excited to drive the number eight Budweiser car. This year there were two options, including an 88 Dale Junior car and an 18 Kyle Busch car. We didn’t get a choice, but rather took the car that came in when it was our turn to climb behind the wheel.

The window entrance to the NASCAR vehicles is not meant for people with, shall we say, larger stomachs. However, I was able to squeeze in the passenger side of the ride-along vehicle and then into the 18 car for my turn. After staff members made sure all the safety devices were secured and the steering wheel was on, my spotter came into the radio and told me I was good to go.

I made my way down pit road, shifting up to fourth gear as I got to the apron in turn one. They had us stay in the apron around the first two turns before getting up to speed on the backstretch. There were cones on the side of the track that told us when we should be letting up on the gas and then hammering it to the floor again.

Like last year, I felt like I was going a lot faster than I actually did, which was incredibly frustrating. I did feel like I was moving faster this year than last year, but the way that they measured us was different this year. Last year it was our average speed, which saw me fall near the bottom with a rather disappointing time. This year, it was our top speed, which again saw me near the bottom of the pack. 

According to the official stats, my top speed was 127.88 miles per hour. The top recorded speed for the day was just a bit over 140 mph. I felt that I did better than my average speed last year, but there was no way to tell for sure. Most of the participants who were there this year agreed that the cars this year seemed to be a bit slower than the ones we raced in last year, but with a year under my belt, I felt a little more confident.

That being said, the results certainly don’t bear that out. It’s safe to say I will not be subbing in for Chase Elliott any time soon.

However, it was still a blast to get another chance to sit in the driver’s seat and I am looking forward to NASCAR returning to New Hampshire in July. 

New England’s only NASCAR weekend is July 14-16 at NHMS. On-track action kicks off Friday with practice and qualifying sessions for the NASCAR Xfinity Series (NXS) and Whelen Modified Tour (NWMT) plus Friday Night Dirt Duels at The Flat Track. The action continues with NCS qualifying, the Ambetter Health 200 NXS race and Mohegan Sun 100 NWMT race on Doubleheader Saturday and culminates with the NCS taking on “The Magic Mile” Sunday for the Crayon 301. Don’t miss all of the exciting off-track action including Race Day Live with Kenny Wallace and John Roberts, The Groove fan hangout, concerts from Dirty Deeds and Shot of Poison, family movie night featuring “Top Gun: Maverick,” driver appearances, a variety of live performances, fireworks and much more.

For a NASCAR weekend schedule, visit NHMS.com/Events/NASCAR-Cup-Series/Schedule/.

Log on to NHMS.com for tickets and more information on the weekend’s lineup of action-packed racing.

Thumbs up for the camera before the steering wheel is attached and I make my way out on to the track during the Media Racing Challenge last week at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. (RC Greenwood)

Getting in and out of the cars is not meant for people with larger stomachs, but I didn’t get stuck, so there’s that. (RC Greenwood)

Waving to the adoring crowd, or something like that, during pre-race introductions last Friday. (RC Greenwood)

Members of the media listen to the pre-race speeches before taking to the track in the Media Racing Challenge. (RC Greenwood)

Thumbs up means I survived my laps around New Hampshire Motor Speedway last Friday afternoon. (RC Greenwood)

Back in an Olympic frame of mind

I must admit, the Olympics have taken a bit of a back seat the last few months, as the busy spring season took over my work life, keeping me on the road every day covering games all over the state. 

With Saturday's baseball and softball championship games, the spring season officially came to an end and with it, my busy season drew to a close. I use the summer months to take a bit of a writing break, though I still cover things and write stories to keep the papers full of content. However, my output in the summer months pales in comparison to the school year. I feel like I earn a bit of a break.

Obviously next summer will be pretty busy, with the Paris Summer Olympics scheduled for the end of July and beginning of August, meaning I'll be spending June and early July gearing up for that trip.

Over the course of the last few months, I was able to make my accommodation requests to the Paris 2024 team. As has been my case in the previous Olympics, I went with the least expensive options I could find. One of the key things to look for in Paris, which is different than in previous iterations of the Olympics, is the access to the public transportation system. It appears that media will be advised to use the transport system in Paris as an easy option to get to and from their hotels, in particular. The hotels I chose and submitted were close to the public transport stations on the line that leads to the press center.

Beyond that, I hadn't really done much when it comes to planning out this trip over the course of the last few months. On Friday, I did go to TD Bank in Wolfeboro and got the proper information together so I could fill out a form that Paris 2024 needs in order to set up my account to make payments. As always, Donna at TD Bank in Wolfeboro was incredibly helpful and I filled out the form as requested and sent it on its way yesterday afternoon. I received a notice this morning that my form had been received.

I will say, on that regard, Paris has been far superior to many of my Olympic trips, as the press operations team seems to be right on top of things in regards to responding to e-mails and questions to the best of their knowledge. I was always skeptical as to whether my e-mails to Russia, South Korea, China or Japan were going through.

I've also spent a little time going through the Paris 2024 press information, looking at venues and schedules and thinking about things I want to see. That being said, it's far too early to set any plans in place. Right now, I think the next step will be securing the housing and then looking for flights.

I anticipate a summer full of making donuts in order to help pay for the trip, but I also anticipate a summer of making preparations for what is sure to be another exciting experience.

A map of the venue locations for the Paris 2024 Olympics, at least for the venues located in and around Paris.

Another cool location in the books

Over the last 20 years doing this job, I have been lucky enough to cover some events in some pretty cool places. The first place on that list was probably New Hampshire Motor Speedway, where I have had the chance to cover multiple NASCAR weekends and even got in a car and did some laps. 

As time has continued, I have made a few different trips to Florida to cover the Kingswood baseball team in its spring training trips to both Bradenton and Vero Beach, and this year added the Kennett baseball team to the Florida coverage. I traveled to Nashville, Tenn. a few years back to cover a couple of local anglers competing in the high school national championships on Kentucky Lake. I've also followed local Cal Ripken teams to regional tournaments around New England and covered high school championship contests in numerous cool collegiate locations. Another highlight was watching the Brewster Academy basketball team play on the historic parquet floor at the TD Garden

Of course, this blog is mostly focused on my Olympic travels, which have encompassed a 2014 trip to Sochi, Russia, a 2018 trip to PyeongChang, South Korea, a 2021 (delayed by a year) trip to Tokyo, Japan and a 2022 trip to Beijing, China. These have truly been some of the highlights of my journalism career and I count myself lucky to have had the opportunity and am looking forward to traveling to Paris next summer for the next version of the Olympics.

Over the April vacation week that just concluded, I had another chance to cover something pretty cool, as five of my local baseball teams were scheduled to play at Doubleday Field in downtown Cooperstown, N.Y., the home of baseball. 

Since most of the teams across the local area were off for vacation week, I thought I'd give it a go to try and cover the three games scheduled for the historic field. I made the plan to travel to upstate New York on Saturday night for a Sunday morning game between Gorham and Woodsville, then return home to work on Monday and Tuesday morning. I then planned to travel back to New York on Tuesday night for a Wednesday morning game between Littleton and Colebrook and then stay there through Friday morning's game between Gilford and Winnisquam.

My aunt, uncle and cousins and their families run a farm in upstate New York, so I made plans to stay there during my trips. I arrived on Saturday night and was pretty sure there was going to be no game on Sunday morning, as the rain poured down throughout the night. While the sun was shining on Sunday afternoon when the Gorham-Woodsville game was scheduled to be played, the field was not playable and the game was cancelled. So, back in the car I went and headed home for a few days of work.

I returned to Fultonville on Tuesday evening and set out for the hour drive to Cooperstown on Wednesday morning and got the chance to see Littleton pull out a 9-7 win over Colebrook on Doubleday Field. This marked Littleton's first trip, but Colebrook's fourth visit to Cooperstown. I spent Thursday relaxing a bit, watching Survivor, taking a seven-mile walk, writing the game story from the previous day and enjoying a bite to eat with my cousin, Justin and his girlfriend, Sandy. Friday morning I traveled back to Cooperstown and got to see an instant classic, as the Winnisquam baseball team scored four runs in the bottom of the seventh to walk off with a 4-3 win over Gilford. Then, it was back to New Hampshire for work the next day, with a quick stop to see my brother, Jared and his girlfriend, Andi, along the way in Marlboro, Vt.

All told, it was about 1,100 miles of travel between the two trips to New York. But, it was certainly cool to cover a couple of games in another great location. Here's hoping there is some more unique locations in store before Paris next summer.

Doubleday Field in Cooperstown, N.Y. played host to a few New Hampshire teams over the April vacation week.

Bonjour, Paris!

The countdown can officially begin.

After spending Wednesday in Raleigh for a live Rob Has a Podcast event, I headed back to the Raleigh airport to catch a plane south to Orlando, where Kennett and Kingswood teams were heading for a little spring training baseball action.

As I ate some breakfast, I turned on my computer to check my e-mail and one popped up that caught my attention. From "Accreditation," it was indeed the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee e-mailing a confirmation that I had received a credential for the upcoming Paris Olympics next summer.

The USOPC e-mail said that they had granted accreditation to 135 different media outlets for Paris, compared to 77 outlets in Tokyo, 111 in Rio in 2016 and 119 in London in 2012. So, I guess I have to count myself lucky that I was able to nab a credential given the incredible interest in the 2024 Summer Olympics. I would like to think that my willingness to cover the last two Olympics during the middle of a pandemic might have helped my cause.

As previous posts here had noted, I was getting a little concerned about the credential process not going my way, as we had passed the 500-day mark until Paris and I had heard nothing from the USOPC. The e-mail did say that they were a bit later than normal, but had to make a lot of choices. 

I wasn't 100 percent sold on going to Paris, but over the last few months I've decided I might as well go for it while I have the chance. I don't know how long I will be able to continue doing these trips, but while I have the access to the credentials and can still scrape together the money (the new car payment is not helping in this regard), I might as well try to make it happen. 

The next step for me will be getting my passport renewed. After all, there's only 484 days until the Paris Olympics. The countdown is on.

The Eiffel Tower will be host to beach volleyball next summer.

500 days to go... and still no word

Yesterday, March 14, marked 500 days to go until the Paris Olympics next summer. And as of this writing, there has still been no word from the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee as to whether or not I have been granted credentials for the Paris Games.

Back in mid-February I had reached out to the USOPC about when a decision might be made and was told at that time, that the decision would be made by the end of February. Obviously, the end of February has come and gone and there has still been no word, at least on my end.

For the most part, I am taking the lack of communication as an indication that I don't have credentials for Paris, which would not be a huge surprise to me, but would also be kind of disappointing given the fact that I covered two Olympics in the COVID pandemic while many larger outlets declined to send journalists to Tokyo and/or Beijing. I am well aware that weekly newspapers are pretty much at the bottom of the priority list for credentials, which was why it was such a huge surprise when I got credentials for Sochi, which came through more than 10 years ago.

After I attended Sochi, I was never contacted about my credential requests for PyeongChang and Beijing in the following years, those requests were just approved. I was told by a few people that once you go through the credential request process, you are basically in. I went through that process again for the Summer Olympics in Tokyo, so I wasn't expecting to have to go through that process for Paris, and in some ways, expected to get credentials for Paris.

I haven't completely given up on having my credential request approved. I know the USOPC can be a bit behind on things at times and may still be making up their minds on how to disseminate the credentials that the are granted by the Paris Organizing Committee.

I will continue to wait and hope that the opportunity arises to start thinking about Paris next summer in a positive way. I've been there before, but am certainly looking forward to the opportunity to see the city in a much different way.

However, if it doesn't happen, I will be sitting in front of my television for a few weeks watching all the action go down. Either way, I remain a fan of the Olympics and love to watch.

The Olympics in Paris are still a question mark on this end, though they are less than 500 days away now.

The realities of the playoffs

If you follow me on social media, specifically Twitter, I was pretty worked up on Monday night as I tried to get into the Division IV boys' basketball semifinals at Merrimack Valley High School.

I arrived approximately midway through the first of two semifinal games, hoping to see the end of the first game before the Littleton-Woodsville game as the nightcap. However, when I got there, there was a large crowd outside the locked doors and nobody was being allowed in, since the gym was at capacity.

It was a bit frustrating on my part. I understood the reasons, but there was a person standing next to me in the lobby at MVHS with a ticket for the first game who couldn't get in either. And my biggest issue was that there was nobody coming out to tell people what was going on inside. The first game went to double-overtime, meaning the folks with tickets to the second game were left standing around (many outside) for longer than expected, with no access to bathrooms after a two-hour drive from the North Country. To me, this was a problem.

However, I also understand the situation the NHIAA and the tournament hosts, Merrimack Valley, were in.  By rule, they couldn't let anyone else into the gym and the only way to control that was to keep the doors locked. Better communication would've helped, but I do understand that they had to wait until the first game crowd was cleared out to let the second game crowd in.

Of course, a lot of people wondered why the game was held at Merrimack Valley to begin with. It's not a huge gym and the crowds for these games tend to be pretty large. The answer to the question is not as simple as one would think.

First and foremost, Merrimack Valley, like Newfound, which hosted the girls' semifinals, is a fairly central location, easily accessed off of Interstate 93 for teams coming from both the north and the south. That part makes perfect sense. They stepped up when other venues said they wouldn't host. They should be commended for that.

The bigger problem lies in that the NHIAA has not been able to get gym space from one of the best spots in the state to host such games, Plymouth State University. PSU is located right in the middle of the state, right off of Interstate 93, with a big gym, plenty of parking and a great atmosphere for the kids to play in. Before COVID, Plymouth State and Southern New Hampshire University were great spots to host tournaments, but since the pandemic, neither school has been willing to welcome the high school athletes back to their gyms. The University of New Hampshire, the biggest gym in the state, has given the NHIAA a single date so that the Division I and II championships can take place there, but they have also been reluctant to let the high school kids use the space. This includes for the swimming championships, which would have no home in the state with space for spectators if not for UNH.

The only one of the three state schools that has been happy to have the high school championships is Keene State, which hosted the D3 boys and girls last weekend. While it is a bit out of the way for much of the state, it is a great gym, with plenty of seating and parking and a pretty good atmosphere. And Colby-Sawyer came through with a gym to host the D4 championships this coming weekend.

From speaking to numerous people associated with the NHIAA, I know they want to be in Plymouth and they want to stay at UNH. In fact, they need to stay at UNH, as it is the only gym in the state able to hold all spectators that are expected at the DI boys' basketball finals. But for whatever reason, these schools seem reluctant to host the big high school events.

I don't understand the reasons why. These events are a great chance to showcase your school to hundreds of high school athletes in a short period of time. They get to see what the school has to offer and when it comes time for them to choose a school to attend, they might remember their time in the playoffs at your school. There's also a good chance to raise money through running concession stands and also to give students a chance to help manage events as part of their education. I see a ton of benefits for the colleges to host these events. And it would be great for the high school kids as well.

There are some great high school facilities throughout the state. Laconia High School has a fantastic stadium for hosting soccer or field hockey or football or lacrosse. Same thing for Bedford High School. The New Hampshire Fisher Cats offer their fantastic venue for the high school baseball championships every year. Pinkerton has a great gym for gymnastics, cheer and volleyball championships. But gyms that can handle such large events are few and far between and colleges not opening up their gyms to the high school championships is hurting the tournaments. 

Sure, I was upset when I couldn't get into the gym on Monday night, but I also understood the situation the NHIAA was in. There was no perfect answer and everyone involved was doing the best that they could to manage the tough situation. Wouldn't it be great if PSU would allow the NHIAA tournament back to its gym so these problems can become a thing of the past? 

Here's hoping it can happen. For everyone's benefit.

The Merrimack Valley gym was packed for both semifinal games on Monday night.

A few updates on the road to Paris

I have to admit, I was getting a bit nervous.

I've had the honor of covering four of the last five Olympic Games, including winter stops in Sochi, Russia, PyeongChang, South Korea and Beijing, China and a summer stop in Tokyo, Japan. Ahead of each of those Olympics, I have traditionally heard early on whether I've been granted credentials.

I remember prior to my first Olympics, I actually got the confirmation e-mail during high school football season (I was in the parking lot of the Burger King in North Conway after a Kennett football game, checking my e-mail since coverage is not great at the high school). That would have been in the fall of 2012, a year and a half ahead of the Olympics, which took place in February of 2014 (I was there, nine years ago at this time). The PyeongChang and Beijing timelines were pretty close to the same. 

The only Summer Olympics I have been to was in Tokyo, originally scheduled for 2020. I received my confirmation of credentials for those Games in December of 2018, again, about a year and a half out from the Olympics. Obviously, those Olympics were postponed by a year, but that's neither here nor there.

So, as the calendar turned to January, I was expecting to hear from the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee regarding my application for credentials for Paris in the summer of 2024. When the calendar turned to February, I began to think that maybe my application wasn't accepted. Truthfully, I would be understanding of such a situation, but figured they would at least notify people who applied if they were accepted or not.

I dropped an e-mail to the accreditation team at the USOPC inquiring as such. For those that don't know, the Paris 2024 folks will allocate a certain number of credentials to each country that is attending the Olympics and the country's Olympic committee makes the decisions on who to give those credentials to. After I applied for credentials for Sochi, I was interviewed by a journalist on behalf of the USOPC as to what my plans were, etc. I did not have an interview prior to PyeongChang and Beijing, but I am now under the impression that those interviews are for first-time applicants. I did have an interview for Tokyo, which I assume was because it was my first Summer Games application, so I wasn't expecting one for Paris.

The e-mail came back from the USOPC yesterday noting that they were still going through the applications and would be letting everyone know their status by the end of February. That put my mind at ease a little.

From talking to other journalists over the years, I have come to understand that, unofficially, if you are approved for credentials once, you are usually in the pipeline and accepted on your next applications. With Tokyo in my back pocket, it would stand that I should be approved for Paris, but I also have an understanding as to where weekly newspapers rank on the list of priorities for credential approval and that is near the bottom. I was truly surprised when I received Sochi credentials and I believe my Tokyo credential application was helped along by the fact that the guy who did my interview was someone I spent a lot of time with in PyeongChang and he saw the work that I put in.

I am hopeful that the application process will turn out the way I am hoping. After all, I did cover two Olympics during a pandemic, when many larger outlets chose to not make in-person coverage a priority.

On a related note, Paris 2024 announced today the "look of the Games" along with the new pictograms, which depict each sport and are all over merchandise and signage art the Olympics. Read that article here if you would like.

Paris is still not a guarantee for me, but if the credential application is accepted, I am leaning closer and closer to going, if for no other reason than to see the incredible opening ceremony they have planned.

Hopefully I'll know for sure in a few weeks.

Nine years ago today I was spending my first day at the Sochi Olympics. This is a shot from the bus window as I made my way up to the freestyle park.

The loss of a legend

One thing that I will always remember about Tom Underwood is his handshake. 

Sure, he won more than 500 games as a baseball coach at Plymouth Regional High School, coached thousands of kids from their debuts in organized baseball up through their high school careers, built successful feeder programs for the dominating Plymouth football and wrestling programs, was one of the first people enshrined into the New Hampshire Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame, was a heck of a math teacher, raised three kids with his wonderful wife and had a hand in seemingly just about anything that went on in the Plymouth community over the last few decades.

But man, I can never forget that handshake. It felt like your hand was going to be crushed.

Coach Underwood passed away last week at the age of 72. Even though he had stepped down as the varsity baseball coach at Plymouth, he was still very active in the school and the community, keeping the books at basketball games, coaching junior high softball, helping with the local youth leagues. He wanted to do what he could to help the kids of the community and that he did. For more than four decades.

I look at the current crop of coaches at Plymouth and realize he had a hand in educating or coaching many of them, whether they played baseball for him like current baseball coach Mike Boyle or golf coach Gavin Brickley or football coach Chris Sanborn, or had him as a middle school math teacher or worked on the sidelines with him, like all three of the people mentioned above and then some. He left a legacy that continues to give and give to the community of Plymouth.

But still, that handshake, I can't stop thinking about it.

Coach Underwood also had a booming voice that you could hear any time he was near. He'd greet you with that firm handshake (there it is again) and ask a question about something you had in common. As Gavin told me last week when I talked to him about coach Underwood, "he knew not every kid was the same, he had to deal with kids differently and coach different to see them succeed in their role." It was the same when he had a conversation with you, he always seemed to have something that could apply to your life.

He was also the most knowledgeable baseball person I knew. He could give you stats and information from his teams from 30 years ago, but also could talk about how Mike Greenwell contributed to the 1986 Red Sox or the impact of a player like Shohei Ohtani on the sport he loved. Baseball is my favorite sport and I always enjoyed a conversation with coach Underwood because you came away learning something new.

Baseball was a passion for coach Underwood, but so was being there for the kids of the community, doing what he could to help make their lives better. 

Even though I knew he might crush my weakling hand, I always made it a point to shake coach's hand before or after I spoke to him following a game. I considered it an honor.

Coach Underwood was indeed a legend and he will be greatly missed by the Plymouth community, the New Hampshire baseball community and this simple sports reporter. 

The good news is, I can still feel that handshake.

Coach Tom Underwood stands with the captains from the 2015 season, his final season at the helm of the Plymouth baseball team.

Following the chase of history

As last year came to an end and 2023 kicked off, I made a move from the place that I have called home for the past 20+ years to a new apartment in Wolfeboro. There was really no reason for it other than it was time for a change.

I attempted to bring my DirecTV package with me to the new location, but after a discussion on the phone with a DirecTV representative, it became obvious that I couldn't do that, since the new apartment would not get satellite service because of the many, many trees that surround the house where I am living. As a devoted television addict, I had to look for another option to get my fix.

My only experience with streaming services before the move was my subscription to Paramount-Plus, which I did during Survivor season 40 in order to get the awesome behind the scenes videos that came out during that season, which aired during the height of COVID in the spring of 2020. Beyond watching those videos, I didn't really watch much else online, but I knew that I would have access to Survivor and The Amazing Race, two of my favorite shows, no matter what I chose.

On the recommendation of a friend, I went with YouTubeTV and so far, despite a few internet-related issues at the new apartment, I have been pleased with what they have offered. I am able to watch and/or record the network and non-network shows that I traditionally watch right on my television like I could with DirecTV, at a price that is basically a fraction of what I was paying. The one drawback is that NESN is currently not available on YouTubeTV, but my SiriusXM radio package for my car allows me to listen to all the Red Sox games no matter where I am, so I know I have access to those games.

One of the other things that I was working on trying to figure out was how to watch FIS World Cup alpine races and other snow sports. NBC Sports Network used to run tons of these races on weekends, but when that network went away a while back, they were spread out on a few different networks, but were less frequently on the air. With the DirecTV subscription off the bill, I decided to subscribe to Peacock, which is NBC's streaming service, but also has the rights to some of the alpine races (randomly enough, including all the ones in Austria). So, I was able to watch those races on my computer and on my television.

I also subscribed to skiandsnowboardlive.com, which basically airs all of the races for cross-country skiing, freestyle skiing and snowboarding and ski jumping in addition to the alpine races not on Peacock. Between the two services, I have been able to watch Mikaela Shiffrin chase down Lindsey Vonn's record for most World Cup wins by a female skier and as I sit here on Tuesday, Jan. 24, I am in my office in Meredith watching as she (spoiler alert) picks up her 83rd World Cup victory in Italy, breaking Lindsey's record and putting her one win closer to the all-time record.

I am really enjoying the broadcasts with different commentators so far and am glad I was able to see some history being made. And as I start thinking about the 2026 Winter Olympics, it was great to see the women race in Cortina D'Ampezzo, which will be the site of the alpine events in those Olympics. For the first time, it looks like I could be enjoying a Winter Olympics in a site that looks like winter (sorry, Sochi, PyeongChang and Beijing) and that in and of itself is exciting.

Congratulations to Mikaela Shiffrin on becoming the winningest female alpine skier of all time. It's been a pleasure watching you race in person and on my screens. Hopefully, I will see you in Italy in a few years.

Been enjoying watching Mikaela Shiffrin chase history on my computer in the office the last few weeks.