The year of rejection (sort of)

As documented here just a few short months ago, my initial request for credentials for the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics in February was rejected and I ended up on the waiting list before eventually being awarded a credential by the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee. 

I am grateful for the fact that a credential opened up and I will get the chance to cover my sixth Olympics. It is one I am greatly looking forward to and I can't wait to get my first up-close look at the mountains of Italy (I flew over them from Switzerland to Milan in late 2001).

However, that original rejection was not my only taste of credential rejection in 2025, in fact, there were a couple more events I was looking to cover that I did not receive credentials for. 

I applied for credentials to cover the NCAA Ice Hockey Regionals at the SNHU Arena in Manchester earlier this year and that application was rejected, as was the request I made last year to cover the women's Frozen Four at the Whittemore Center on the campus of UNH in Durham. In both cases, like when my original Milan-Cortina application was rejected, the reason given was due to high demand and given the fact that I don't traditionally cover NCAA events, I was not terribly surprised. I did, however, buy a ticket and watched the regionals in Manchester.

The more recent rejection of credentials was to cover the US Olympic and Paralympic Hall of Fame ceremony, which is taking place this weekend in Colorado Springs. My hope was to cover the event to see New Hampshire's own Bode Miller be inducted and I submitted the application but purposely did not book any flights or hotel rooms knowing it was possible I would not receive the credential. That proved to be a smart decision. Obviously, I would have had to take a day off from baking to get to Colorado and back and it would've been fun, but it wasn't meant to be.

So, rejection has been a pretty normal thing this year, but an e-mail yesterday from the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee accreditation office reminded me that the biggest rejection of them all was reversed and Italy is calling in just a few short months and there is some more paperwork to fill out. I have applied for credentials to the US Olympic Media Summit in late October in New York City, but the dates may not work in my personal schedule, but I am going to do my best to make them work at least a little bit.

As we move toward the next stages in the walk toward the Milan-Cortina Olympics, I will do my best to keep people updated.

One of the snowiest situations I encountered in three Winter Olympics was the day after a snowstorm in the mountains outside Beijing in 2022. I anticipate many more wintery moments in February.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A gut punch

Image
Eleven years, five Olympics. And that just may be the end of the road. Today I received an e-mail from the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee stating that my credential application for Milan-Cortina 2026 had been denied and that I was put on the wait list. They stated that demand was high. To say I am disappointed and completely bummed out would be an understatement. This has been a journey of more than a decade that has taken me to Russia, Korea, China, Japan and France. I've been lucky to have incredible community support along the way, including a huge fundraising effort in my first years leading up to the Sochi 2014 Olympics. What I thought would be a once in a lifetime experience became a decade of incredible experiences. While I am bummed about not heading to Italy next year, I do have tons of great memories from five awesome experiences and that is something I am grateful for. I was under the impression that once I was in the credential system for the Winter Olympics (or Su...
Read more

And so it begins...

The summer has traditionally been my "easy" time. Like school kids themselves, I often look forward to summer as a chance to take a break, to relax and maybe not work quite as much. While I don't go on vacation or anything, I do see it as a break in the action, a chance to catch my breath and maybe work 40 hours a week instead of 60 or 70 or 80. My schedule revolves mostly around the whims of high schools. Being as most of the coverage I do is high school sports, I will start full-tilt to the ground with games the final week of August and with the exception of a few weeks around Thanksgiving, a few days around Christmas and New Year's and a few weeks in March, I am constantly on the move until June rolls around. And that's all just fine. That's part of the job. I know there are much worse things I could be doing for a living. Watching sports and writing stories is pretty darn easy on the list of jobs that people can do. While I may complain a time or two abo...
Read more

Starting the day the wrong way...

Once again, as I write this (though I post it much later) I am on the bus from the coast to the mountains, but this time, I screwed up. My first full day in Sochi was busy, with a trip to the mountains for snowboard slopestyle and moguls. The women’s moguls ended at 11:30 p.m. and by the time I had covered all the ground between the mountains and my hotel room it was after 2 a.m. That marked the second night in a row that I was up past 2 a.m. But, like I do every day when I am at home and have to go to work, I set my alarm for 6 a.m. Day two was promising to be an exciting day but once again, also very busy. And that would all be well and good if I had just hit snooze instead of turning off the alarm. The next thing I know I roll over to look at the clock and it says 9 a.m. I had to do a double take. I had big plans for the first hour or so of the morning, hoping to get breakfast and then figure out how to get my phone working with some help at the Main Med...
Read more