The Olympics... and beyond

The countdowns seem to be pretty prevalent the last few years. There was the original one-year countdown to Tokyo 2020 that turned into a second one-year countdown when the Olympics were postponed. There were celebrations for six months out for Tokyo (twice) and another for the upcoming Beijing Games.  Today, the countdown clock toward Beijing turns to 100 days. That doesn't seem like a short period of time, but in the overall perspective, it is not a long period of time. The process for Beijing began well over a year ago and amped up before Tokyo even happened this summer, as I was sending money to China before I left for Japan. So 100 days is a relatively short period of time. Yesterday also saw the release of the first edition of the playbooks, which are the documents that detail the processes that the press (and other Olympic family members) have to go through before leaving for China, once they are there and as they prepare to leave. These playbooks were implemented for the To...

 In my last blog post, I speculated that the COVID-19 protocols put into place for the Beijing Olympics in February were going to be a pain. After a summer of protocols in Tokyo, this comes as no surprise to me and I am prepared for what comes down the pike. Much to my surprise, the first step in those protocols was released shortly after the last blog post, as the Beijing 2022 Organizing Committee presented its key COVID-19 countermeasures to the International Olympic Committee Executive Board Meeting. While these were not the detailed measures that we need to follow, they were an overall look at what we should be seeing when we as media arrive in China for the Olympics this coming winter. While vaccines are not mandatory, anyone who has not received one of the COVID vaccines will have to serve a 21-day quarantine upon their arrival in Beijing. This goes for athletes and other games participants. Those who are vaccinated will enter what Beijing is calling a "closed-loop managemen...