The never-ending adjustments

Sometimes things just work out OK.
Back in the New Hampshire, I usually have a plan when I wake up, things I need to do for the day, games I have to cover or interviews I have to conduct. Usually by the time I get to the office, half those plans have been changed. Games get postponed, the trip to the gym takes longer because someone can’t drive when it’s raining, or a myriad of other reasons.
It’s good to know that things in Korea are just as malleable.
I woke up on Sunday morning (Saturday afternoon for you folks in the Eastern Time Zone) with the plan to head to the mountain cluster and on to the Jeongseon Alpine Center for the men’s downhill, my first alpine event of the Olympics. As the bus was making its way up into the mountains, I was talking with a gentleman from California and he got a message on his phone noting that the downhill was in a holding pattern due to weather concerns. I got off the bus and went into the Main Press Center and my e-mail contained the same message and not long after, the new message came through that the downhill had been postponed.
So, my schedule was in a bit of flux. I looked at the master schedule and saw a couple of different events that I could take in on Sunday. One was the men’s snowboard slopestyle finals at 10 a.m., the other was the men’s cross-country skiing skiathlon at 3:15 p.m. Knowing I needed to be out at the biathlon center at 8 p.m. to see Conway’s Sean Doherty in action, I elected to do the earlier event, the snowboard slopestyle, figuring that would give me time to warm up before heading to biathlon.
So, I hopped the bus for what is one of the longest ride of the Olympics, the ride from the Main Press Center out to Phoenix SnowPark. I got a bit of a late start because of the change of plans and I missed the first run, which as it turns out, wasn’t too bad because evidently there were many issues on that first run.
I watched the next two runs, however, and got to witness a fantastic final run from a 17-year-old kid from Colorado, as Red Gerard topped the field after a tough first two runs and came home with America’s first medal of these Games, and a gold to boot.
Yes, sometimes things don’t go as planned, but sometimes, what comes around in place of those plans can be a nice substitution and I was glad to get the chance to see an American win gold.


The Phoenix SnowPark is home to the freestyle events in PyeongChang.

Comments

  1. LilFebruary 11, 2018 at 6:50 PM

    If you have a chance to cover the women's ski jumping, one of the athletes is Sarah Hendrickson who grew up in Plymouth and whose grandmother was our (NMHS) high school librarian from fall of 1978 through spring of 1985.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Joshua SpauldingFebruary 12, 2018 at 12:00 AM

    Yes, well aware of Sarah and her local connections. I've covered her during numerous visits to New Hampshire as well as in 2014's Olympics. However, she did not grow up in Plymouth. She grew up in Park City. Her parents grew up in Plymouth and skied for the high school. She is jumping in a few hours.

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