The Olympics... and beyond

I promised a look back at Tokyo and after a few days at home, two early mornings of baking, three late nights of rehearsals for Laughing Stock (opening tonight) and a great in-studio interview with the Morning Buzz, it is time to look back and reflect on what was certainly a unique experience. I am going to take the whole return trip out of the discussion here. That was a miserable experience (my suitcase arrived on Thursday) that had nothing to do with the Olympics. As highlighted in my previous post, that is all on Air Canada and can't reflect on the Tokyo experience. All in all, this was definitely a unique situation. It started with a three-day quarantine in a tiny hotel room and ended with my first ever Olympic ceremony. In between, there were countless long bus rides, plenty of great Olympic action and plenty of heat and humidity. In my previous Olympics, I had the chance to cover athletes that I covered while they were in high school or athletes that had other local connecti...

My last blog post said that my next blog post would be a decompression upon my return, a reflection of the Tokyo Olympics. However, the experiences of the last two days has led me to a different step, though there will still be a reflection on the Olympics in the next few days. If you had told me that the experience of hanging around the Tokyo airport for more than four hours upon arrival, filling out paperwork and taking COVID tests, would be the worst of my traveling adventures, I would have believed you. But, then Air Canada stepped in and made sure I had the most miserable travel days I have ever experienced. And as I write this on Tuesday afternoon on my couch, it’s still not over. I arrived at Narita Airport three and a half hours before my scheduled flight out of Tokyo, which was slated for 5:30 p.m. on Monday. We had been advised to get their early, since it was anticipated that the airport would be busy and it was. However, because I downloaded my boarding pass before leaving ...

My first Olympic ceremony experience was certainly interesting and was a fitting close to this long strange trip that has been the Tokyo Olympics. All the media transportation guides advised us to arrive early, since there is a lot of journalists moving in and out of the venue as the evening moves along and in order to keep the transportation moving, they wanted traffic spread out a little bit. I got to the Olympic Stadium about 4:30 p.m., well ahead of the 8 p.m. scheduled start time. I spent a little time in the venue media center in the bowels of the stadium and then moved up to the stands. I was glad that I made my way up to the stands early, as I was able to get a tabled tribune seat, which is a seat with a table, monitor and power outlets. Many of the people that showed up later did not have that option and sat in the regular stadium seats.  While sitting there, I got the chance to watch as the participants went through a practice run of many parts of the closing ceremonies, ...

The closing ceremony is just a few hours away and I am in the basement of the Olympic Stadium, having just arrived via the media transport. They advised leaving the media center early, so I took the advice and here I sit in the venue media center. As I prepare to leave Japan tomorrow, I thought I’d point out some of the things I’ve learned about Japan while I was here. First, there are a lot of bikes. Everywhere you look, there are people riding bikes. Men dressed in suits and ties with their briefcase in a basket. Women in skirts and their hair up with bags in the basket. Mothers and fathers with children in seats in the back (or in some cases, the front). There are bikes everywhere and it seems it is the way to get around. From what I have come to understand, it’s hard finding parking for cars in Tokyo, and if you do find it, it’s expensive, so bikes are the way to go. There are even dedicated bike parking spots in the entrances to buildings and around the city. The second thing may ...

It’s 8:30 p.m. on Saturday. Today has not been a very long day. In fact, I slept in the latest I have since I’ve been able to leave my hotel and I only covered two events today. But I am fried. My brain is just not functioning. You know that feeling you get when you’re almost on auto-pilot and things are just floating by you. That’s me. I have had longer days. I have had stretches of days where I’ve worked more hours and not felt this way. I think, more than anything, the tiredness is a mental fatigue more than a physical fatigue.  I am not tired of the Olympics. However, there are things about this particular experience that I am tired of. I am tired of having to remember which day it is so I can be sure to take the COVID tests on the right days. I am tired of having to fill out a health questionnaire every morning. I am tired of making sure I have enough time to catch one bus to another bus to get to a venue. I am tired of the security checks and the temperature screenings before...

Before we traveled to Tokyo, all journalists covering the Olympics were told we needed to download an app on our phones called OCHA. It is put out by the Japanese government and is meant to monitor our health while we are in the country. We register our temperature each day and answer a few questions about how we’re feeling. Thursday proved to be a big day in my OCHA life, as for the first time since I arrived, it read “cleared,” meaning I had successfully maneuvered my way through 14 days of being here without getting sick and therefore, was now clear to leave the Olympic bubble without fear of being tracked down and put in jail by the authorities. The freedom felt weird, to be honest. For two weeks, I’d been walking from my hotel to the bus, from the bus to another bus, from that bus to the venue and back, adding in the bus to the media center from time to time. Granted, it is so hot, there’s not really much desire to go anywhere beyond those locations, particularly those locations t...

The final weekend of my third Olympic journey is approaching, so I thought it would be a good time to tell you all how Tokyo has compared to Sochi and PyeongChang, not so much in how the US teams have done or how certain athletes are doing, but more in how it has been simply from a personal angle. I will put each experience in order, with the first being the best, the last being the worst in different categories.   Transportation PyeongChang, Sochi, Tokyo Tokyo ranks third on this list for one reason, and that is the simple distances we had to travel in order to get from one venue to another. In Russia and Korea, there were two places we could catch buses that would take us to other places. Here, there is just one place. If we are at a venue an hour from the Media Transport Mall, we have to ride back an hour, wait for the next bus and then ride to the next venue, however long that might take. Part of the original plan was for media to have public transportation cards (once we’ve be...

One of the joys of the Olympics, as I wrote in a previous blog post, is getting to see sports that I normally wouldn't get to cover.  One of the other cool things is seeing the sports I see on a regular basis, but executed at the absolute highest level. Nothing against any of the teams I cover, but they are not at an Olympic level and seeing them played at that level can give one much more respect almost instantly. Earlier this morning (Wednesday) I boarded another bus at the Media Transport Mall and made my way to Oi Field Hockey Stadium for a semifinal battle between Netherlands and Great Britain. Now, I have seen more than my share of field hockey games in my more than 20 years covering high school sports around New Hampshire. And I have covered some very good field hockey teams, teams that have won state championships and/or competed for state championships on the regular. However, the field hockey I saw this morning was certainly at another level, as it should be, given these ...

It's safe to say that there have been a number of surprises at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. Here's a look at a few of those surprises. The US women's soccer team, before the Opening Ceremonies even took place, was shut out in the first game of the tournament by Sweden. This happened as I was driving to Logan Airport to catch my flight to Tokyo. The US women have been a dominant force over the past decade-plus, so for them to lose that badly in the opening round came as a surprise. That probably made it a little less of a surprise when the team fell short of making the final, falling in the semifinals to Canada. I think, and this is just my opinion, that maybe some of the players hung around a bit too long in search of more Olympic glory and they couldn't keep up with some of the younger teams in the competition. Without a question, this team has been an impressive force for years, but it may be time for a little new blood. The US men's basketball team also lost in its f...

  Today was a day of firsts in my Olympic experiences and as the day comes to close, reflecting back it was nice to get a couple of those firsts out of the way. As mentioned in my last blog post, today marked the first time I had applied for and received a ticket to a high-demand event. The USOPC gave me a ticket for tonight’s gymnastics events at Ariake Gymnastics Center. I wasn’t too particular about what events I was seeing, it was more about which night fit best into my schedule. And tonight was it. I am writing this as the men compete in the rings finals and I must say, that is an insane discipline. Holding themselves up in those crazy positions absolutely still is incredible. The arm strength is amazing. The women’s floor exercise is up next, with the only US gymnast of the evening competing, Jade Carey. The night is closed out by the men’s vault. I am sure this. Would have gotten more play back home if Simone Biles had not backed out of competing in the floor exercise. The o...