The Olympics... and beyond

What a day. I am writing this on the train from Verona back to Milan after the Closing Ceremony of the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics, my sixth Olympics, my fourth Winter Olympics and my fourth Closing Ceremony. It was no doubt an exciting day, as I am sure it was for many people in America, waking up to watch some hockey over the morning coffee. Even my brother, who doesn't watch TV, got a free trial of DirecTV so that he could watch the game out in Wyoming. I think this was something that captivated the entire country, much like the women did earlier in the week.  And that turned out to be one heck of a battle, as you should have when you're battling for the gold medal at the Winter Olympics. Team USA pulling out the overtime win to earn their first men's hockey gold medal since the Miracle on Ice team of the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics was a fitting ending. But man, I did not need that overtime. Earlier in the day I stopped at the Milano-Centrale train station to make sure ...

My times in the mountains of Italy is officially over. As I write this I am sitting high above the ice of the Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena in Milan, just a few minutes from my hotel. It was a bit of a chore to get here today, but it went much smoother than the trip to the mountains less than two weeks ago, The trip back was easier because I had an idea of what it entailed. I knew which bus I needed to get on, when I needed to get on it, where the games connection desk was in the Venice train station so I could leave my luggage while I got something to eat before the train came, where the train let off in Milano Centrale Station and how to get to the train to my hotel. All those things are things I did not know when I went the other way, so today went much smoother on my end. I caught the local bus from Santa Maddalena at 7:45 a.m. and then caught the bus to Venice in the Monguelfo, the village at the bottom of the valley where my hotel was, at about 8:40 a.m. We made it to the Venice t...

Today marked my final day in the mountains of Italy. Tomorrow morning I get on the bus, then another bus, then a train to get back to Milan for the final few days of my Olympic journey. The mountains have been both amazing and amazingly frustrating. First and foremost, this area has to be the most beautiful place I have ever been. With the previous three Winter Olympics that I have been a part of, I never really felt like it was winter, even though the mountains outside Sochi, PyeongChang and Beijing provided snow. There is no question that there is snow here, particularly at the venues, which are some of the most historic places in World Cup action, as biathlon in Antholz and alpine in Cortina are regular occurrences.  But as for the amazingly frustrating, I am obviously referring to the transportation and the long distances between venues. Riding five hours on a bus for a cross-country race is a bit much, but so is riding two hours to cover an alpine race or a curling match. But ...

I have been to four Winter Olympics and today may have been the most winter weather I have seen in all that time. And that made the already unreliable mountain transportation even more difficult to predict and deal with and made for one heck of a weird (and wet) day. It was snowing when I woke up this morning and I debated about whether I wanted to head to Cortina or not. We got a notice on the transportation app that some buses may be running late in the Cortina area due to the snow. It wasn't snowing too badly, so I boarded the local bus and headed into the village at the end of the valley, where I got on the TC (for credentialed folks) bus to Cortina. The ride was fine, albeit a little slower than usual, as the snow continued to come down harder and harder.  By the time I got to Cortina it was snowing really hard and I walked from the bus stop to the venue media center between the curling center and the sliding center where I wanted to do a little writing and then catch a little...

I've lamented a few times here and in interviews I've done on the radio about the transportation issues I've had here in Italy. Whether it's late buses (understandable given Olympic traffic) or no-show buses or packed buses, it's pretty much always something. But today's incident may take the cake. I should start by saying that all eight buses that I rode today were either on time or within five minutes of their scheduled time, so there is no complaining there. However, riding eight buses was a lot, but the only way I was going to get to the Tesero Cross Country Stadium to see the men's and women's sprint relays today.  I had planned it out that today would be the day I went in that direction, crossing clusters from the Cortina cluster to the Val di Fieme cluster. I got up pretty early and caught the 5:15 a.m. local bus near my hotel. There was not a ton of people on the bus as I rode down out of the valley and all the way to Dobbiaco, where I transferre...

Those who follow along on my Olympic journey online or listen to me on the radio when I get the chance to talk Olympics, may notice that I spend a lot of time at biathlon. This is by design, despite the fact that biathlon is one of the lesser-known and lesser-appreciated sports in the United States.  The reason for my consistent appearance at biathlon is Sean Doherty. He may not be a household name in the United States like Mikaela Shiffrin, Lindsey Vonn, Chloe Kim or Hillary Knight, but to many of the people who read the papers I write for, particularly those papers where I started my journalism journey, they are well aware of Sean. Sean went to Kennett High School where he was a standout cross-country skier during the heyday of Kennett Nordic. During that time he started working at biathlon and it wasn't long after he graduated from high school that he was named to the Olympic team for the Sochi 2014 Games. As many know, Sochi was my first Olympics. I originally applied for crede...