Flashes of Panic

Bluerabbit followed up my Olympic Trials post asking, more or less, you’ll be in Athens, right?

No, actually, I’ll be taking my Olympics tape-delayed, puréed, and advertising-saturated (which is to say, barely at all) like everyone else in the States. I won’t even be shifting my sleep-wake cycle to get the results from the web the way I did for Sydney.

The primary problem is my primary occupation. Since I’ll only be finishing my third year at my current job, I haven’t built up much (if any) vacation time, and much of that has been sifted away during the year at other events: a day for the NCAA cross-country meet, a day each for the Marathon Trials, a day for Boston, you get the idea. My big chunk of time off for this year will be five days in Austin next month for the NCAA track meet (three days off work.) (I have taken a “real” vacation, back in January, essentially making a three-day weekend into a four-day weekend.) With the number of vacation days I got after finishing two years at work, I would have had to skip every other event this year in order to take seven days (maybe eight) to go to a ten-day meet in Sacramento. Athens was just… not an option.

Beyond that, press credentials for Olympic Stadia in whatever year are very, very hard to come by for full-time, professional track writers, and doubly so for dilettante freelancers like myself. While I was at Runner’s World we never had more than two; only one in Sydney. We fudged things by trying to work our international editions together, feeding our website with copy written by reporters from our U.K. and Australian editions, but I was never high enough on the ladder to get even the second credential—maybe the fourth or fifth. I understand that my successor is going to Athens, but without a credential; he’ll be working in a hotel or some independent press room, not in the stadium.

As I understand it, the credential process is handled by the USOC, who has an allotment of credentials for all U.S. media. The USOC in its wisdom knows that it will reach many, many more people by making sure the New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, et al., have a full staff at the Games. Specialty sport publications and websites (one of those descriptions fits any outlet I’ve ever written for) are low on the mass-audience priority scale. From that perspective, it makes sense, but if you’re trying to cover the biggest event in four years for your sport, it’s maddening.

I had an offer of work in Sacramento, but I had to turn it down. For Athens, I didn’t even get in line; there are far too many people in front of me.

Honestly, though, I think I will miss Sacramento far more than Athens. I’ve only been to two big international meets (the 1999 and 2001 World Championships, in Seville and Edmonton respectively) and after the second I honestly felt I’d seen them all. The level of sleep deprivation and work backlog gets distressing pretty quickly, particularly since you’re inevitably connecting on a balky dialup network and the smallest network task becomes monumental; it’s reminiscent of working at very high altitude. If I’m going to do that, I’d prefer to do it in the U.S., talking to athletes I’ve seen race, even some I know and care about. And I’d rather not do it in a stuffy, heavily polluted place like Athens. I heard the stories after the 1997 World Championships; essentially, they said then, “The IOC was right, Atlanta was a better choice.” Nothing I’ve heard about Athens gives any indication that this is going to be a fun Olympics. (I’m not holding my breath for Beijing, either, in all honesty.) I think the heat and pollution are going to put a lid on top performances; in fact, I think you’ll see the marathoners who have good races in Athens won’t race well again. I think I will be happier in Puffer’s Pond.

Now playing: Top of The World from James by James