Asbury College at the Olympics

Today is my 18th day in Italy and it’s been a great experience.  I met up with Andy Fowler at the Yellow Hostel in Rome on January 29, and spent the next six days traveling Rome, Venice, and Torino. It was amazing to stand on historic locations that are thousands of years old. After five days of traveling Italy we decided to head to Torino and experience the city before we started work.

It’s now February 15 and I have been at my venue for over a week.  Fellow Asburian Ben Wyman and I are rooming together at the Rose Village Hotel located right outside the Freestyle Skiing venue.  It’s not as plush as it sounds.  The room is tiny, we’re sleeping on bunk beds, the phones don’t work, someone took out the TV, there’s no internet, and the cleaning ladies kick us out every morning.  Our Italian suite mate’s name is Alesandro, and his English is excellent.

Work has been interesting for me. I came to the Olympics with the job title of crane assistant.  The first day of setup I worked with three other Australians patching all triax camera cables to the production truck.  The second day I assisted the crane operators at the top of the ski slope.  By the third day all the cameras were in position and I was told I wasn’t needed at the top crane position anymore.  So, they sent me down to assist the camera operator at the bottom crane position.  The job there is less than taxing (Ben complains that it’s “completely pointless,” mostly because I spend each shift taking pictures of him getting tangled in his camera’s cable)…  Most of the time the crew is doing rehearsals and I don’t have much to do so I try to take in the sport as much as possible.  The days haven’t been near as stressful as I was expecting.

Tonight was the last night of the moguls competition.  Competition days are always the best because the atmosphere is exhilarating and the fans go nuts for their countries.  The aerials competition starts in three days, which means that these next few days will be the busiest because we have to move all the hard cams and jibs over to the aerials slope.  So far I haven’t learned too much on the technical side, because much of it is the same as we do it in the States.  But it’s been amazing just to be apart of the whole Olympic experience.  I work with one of the best sports broadcasting crews in the world.  Just tonight we learned that TOBO president, Manolo Romero, was very pleased with our coverage of the Freestyle venue thus far.  That’s all have for now.  If anyone is interested, I have posted a number of photos on Facebook.

Ciao from the Freestyle venue in Sauze D’Oulx,
Josh