A unique day... in many ways.


Today was a unique day in my Olympic experience in more ways than one.
First and foremost, though I am once again writing this on a bus, this time I am writing it while heading in the opposite direction. I am on my way back to the coastal area from the mountains.
It was also a unique day in my experience due to the fact that I only attended one event today. It was an event split into two parts, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, but it was indeed just one event. What can I say, I was slacking.
Today was different than yesterday in the fact that I didn’t oversleep and miss half the event I wanted to cover.
And today was unique in that it was the first day since I’ve been here that I went and used the gym in the Main Media Center.
But the most unique part of this day was the fact that I got to watch a girl that I once covered in high school ski at the Olympics. That was a true honor.
The one event I covered today was the super combined at the Rosa Khutor Alpine Center and the athlete I was there to cover was Leanne Smith. The Kennett graduate is competing in her second Winter Olympics and she opened this year’s competition with the super-combined, which combines slalom and downhill.
The day started with the downhill in the morning and I arrived in plenty of time, meeting up with Dan Egan again at the bus stop. It was amazing how much more relaxed the trip up into the mountain cluster was not worrying about how late I was. In fact, a day earlier, in my haste, I had left my iPad on the bus. The very nice security girl at first called for someone to track and down and then, once I mentioned that the bus was still there, she let me go back through security to get it off the bus. Nerve-wracking is the perfect way to describe that situation.
While Leanne didn’t have the best day (she was 20th after the morning downhill and skied out during the afternoon slalom), she was incredibly accommodating and stood and answered all my questions and questions from the other reporters standing next to me. I know after a tough race it can be a task to do interviews, but both she and Kris Freeman, who I spoke with the previous day after his first race, were kind enough to take the time and it is appreciated.
Tomorrow is looking like the possibility of another day with just one event, with women’s ski jumping on the docket for its Olympic debut. But who knows, maybe something else will come up between now and then.

Leanne Smith takes time to talk to reporters after her downhill run Monday.

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