I am writing this in the middle of working the mixed zone here at the Ladies’ Giant Slalom today. I have really enjoyed working the mixed zone, and I hope that I will also be doing so tomorrow afternoon which will be during our final day of competition. Wednesday saw a few funny moments. For one, I was almost “that guy.”

Wednesday’s Ladies’ Slalom was our first competition here that had a medal ceremony immediately following. The mother of the bronze medalist came up to me and asked me if she could pass into the area where the athletes walk. She didn’t have any accreditation, which is a problem. I almost didn’t let her pass, but my superior motioned for me to let her and her husband through. I would have felt horrible if she hadn’t been able to go through.

Another funny moment was when we were following Anja Paerson, the gold medalist from Sweden, as she left the venue. They rushed her into a truck right outside our office here by the grandstand. A bunch of the Swedish team was outside the truck cheering her on, and then they saw that Anja’s truck was getting a police escort, and they all went crazy, shouting, “OH, POLICE ESCORT! POLICE ESCORT!”

They royal family of Spain is here this morning to cheer on a few of their skiers. I don’t think we’ll have to deal with them in the mixed zone since the Spanish skiers aren’t doing so well as of now. We’ll see about the second run. I have gotten to exchange a few words here and there with skiers, including Hermann Maier (spelling?) and the Swedish skier that was with Anja on the medals stand the other night (I don’t remember her name, but she’s supposed to be one of the best lady skiers of all time).

This may be my last post from Italy, but when I return I plan to put up a link to some pictures that I’ll throw online, and I’ll probably post at least one more time for some summary comments.

My time here in Sauze d’Oulx, Italy has come to an end.  The trip has gone by so fast, but it has been a great experience.  I’ve learned so much about life in Europe.  This past week was probably one of the best I had here in Italy.  Crew call has been 3pm or later everyday, which left the mornings free to do as we wished.  I usually used this free time either sleep in or take a trip to Torino.  Wednesday I spend my morning and early afternoon skiing for the first time.  I was able to slowly make it down the mountain twice as countless numbers of advanced skiers flew past.  It was quite challenging to say the least, but the view was well worth it.

Yesterday was the last day of medals competitions here at the freestyle venue.  We didn’t have to be at the venue till 3:45pm, so I got up around 7am and took the train into Torino.  My first objective for the morning was to take the elevator ride up through the Museum of Cinema to the lookout deck at it’s peak.  (This building has served as the city’s icon throughout the games.)  Unfortunatly the view wasn’t too great due to the haze but it was still worth it.  I then walked several blocks to the Piazza San Carlo where NBC’s Today show set is located.  I ended up waiting around for an hour until the show went live at 1pm.  I stood in the front row and was able to get on TV for my family to watch back home.  At 1:20pm I had to make my way back to the Porta Nova train station to catch a train back to Sauze d’Oulx.

The Men’s Aerials competition last night was electrifying.  The majority of the athletes were landing their jumps which made the competition even harder.  Up were I was standing, under the kickers, the coaches were hanging on to every jump.  It was great to be that close to the action.  Interestingly enough China’s coach made a comment before the start of the finals that he was just glad that they had made it to the finals, and weren’t going to be worried about getting a medal.  And what do you know they take home the gold.  The fireworks display after the flowers ceremony was a great close to the end of a fun day.

After the event was over, those of us on the TOBO crew spent several hours breaking all the cameras down and hauling the equipment back the the trucks at the compound.  We were able to get so much done last night that we were told we didn’t have to come in to work today.  It was kind of hard to leave the venue which I had been coming to for the last 19 days, yet at the same time I’m ready to get out of here.  This morning I slept in till 11am and then began packing all the free memorabilia I’ve picked up over the last few weeks to bring home.  Tomorrow I will begin my long journey back to little ole Wilmore, Kentucky.  My internet cafe time is about to expire so with that I must say.. farewell from Italy!

Ciao,
Josh Taber

My plan was to ski a few green runs and then maybe a blue run or two. There were no green runs, but I was doing ok on the blue course. So we head up even higher. Now I am on a red course. There is only one problem. I can only go straight down. I can’t really go from side to side. I flew down that course like a bullet. Had I hit a tree I would have gone right through it.

Mike told me I would probably be dead by the end of the day if I kept skiing like the maniac I was. So he brought me on as his padwon and trained me in the ways of the ski force. I was getting better. My Jedi Master taught me well.

Unfortunately, my Jedi Master Mike turned out to be evil. We found a place where I would ski a red and he would ski a black diamond. But Jedi Mike used his powers and somehow t-ball Jeremy ended up skiing down the black diamond of death. I have never seen a steeper hill in all my life. I crashed about every 10 feet. My body still aches 2 days later.

Mike later claimed I took a wrong turn, but I know the truth. Oh yeah, I still kept on skiing. But then the fog rolled in and I couldn’t see more than 30 feet ahead of me. I will never ski again… maybe.

 Anakin White

My apologies that it has been a while since I have written on here. I haven’t had a whole lot of time to sit at a computer the last three days. Saturday, I had the privilege of working at the downhill venue, Sestriere Borgata, where I again assisted commentators. They were mostly the same people from last Tuesday, except this time I had the pleasure of meeting some new folks from the BBC and Polish television (with whom I had a firm but pleasant exchange about why they could not commentate a race in San Secario from Borgata). It was a bit more hectic because we had to keep distributing reports about weather delays (there was a blizzard that delayed the race) and such, but all in all it was not that bad. LauraJo and I mostly sat in one of the commentary booths and watched the Men’s Super-G.

Sunday, I went skiing in the Alps. It would have been a lot more fun, except that it was again blizzard-like conditions, and this time it did not really let up. I will say that the runs are much longer here than where I grew up skiing (shameless shout-out to Perfect North Slopes in Lawrenceburg, IN). I skied for about two hours up in Claviere and then had some authentic Piedmont hot chocolate (meaning that it is literally chocolate in a tea cup) before returning to Cesana. Since it was my one-week anniversary of coming to Cesana, I decided it would only be fitting to return to the restaurant that greeted me with open arms and pizza, La Cabasa: the curious little family-owned-and-operated Italian-Norwegian ristorante. While I was waiting for my pizza al prosciutto, I couldn’t help but start laughing at a talk show that was on the TV in the dining room. Let me take a moment to talk to all my fellow Americans out there about TV in a place like Italy. It is so different. Not only can I of course not understand a word there saying, but their style of production and editing and all those things are often quite, well, comically confusing, if you’re not used to it. So, I just burst out laughing in this dining room, and the family that owns the place, who had themselves just finished eating at an adjacent table next to me, saw me and started laughing themselves. The mother came to my table and started asking me in Italian why I was laughing and what I had been doing that day, and so I carried on in broken Italian and had some help with translation from some of the other workers. So anyway, they love me there now, and I have to say the feeling’s mutual.

Yesterday, wow. Yesterday was the hardest but most rewarding day I’ve had here. Yesterday also includes the story to which the title of this entry is tied. Our call time was six-thirty in the morning, which meant be at the bus by six, which meant wake up around five. It was my day to finally be close to the action: I was going to be in the mixed zone during the running of the Men’s Giant Slalom here at Sestriere Colle. The mixed zone is a large, designated, fenced-off area with so many corridors that it truly is a sort of maze. It lies at the end of a course, and it is where both broadcasters and journalists (two very separate occupations at any Olympics, they have very different rights and resources) can get important footage/photos and interview athletes. My job was to keep the press out of the area where only rights-holding broadcasters could go and directing people to where they were supposed to get interviews with the athletes. This meant getting shouted at by a few Australian journalists and fielding mean looks from others in the press area. The upsides? I got to use my French quite a bit help some people. I exchanged small talk with the reporters from NBC and CBC, both of whom were very kind and professional. I got to help direct athletes to where they were supposed to go as they walked behind me and toward the press. I got to talk with the skier from the Czech Republic. I met an official from the IOC and I’m pretty sure that the second-in-charge, the man under Jacques Rogge, walked right through my gate. And, of course, I had a “front-row seat” (even though I was standing the whole time) to a great race.

And now the story for which you have been waiting so patiently. LauraJo, three other co-workers, and I boarded the bus to go “home” at about 4:00 in the afternoon. I was absolutely exhausted, and I almost immediately fell asleep as I sat down. As the bus pulled out to leave, however, they realized that it was going the opposite direction, to Pragelato, the home of ski-jumping and cross-country. They quickly yelled at the driver and asked him to stop, causing quite a ruckus as they hurried off the bus. As they watched the bus pull away, Fulvio suddenly looked around and asked, “Hey, where is Taylor?”

Oh yeah. Sleepy Taylor was dozing away on the bus. The gentlement seated next to me woke me up when the bus came to a stop. I looked around and said, “Is this Cesana?” I saw that it wasn’t, and I whipped my head around to look for my friends, and they were all gone. I looked at the clock and realized that I had slept for a solid half hour and that they must have realized that this was the wrong bus and gotten off quickly without waking me. Appreciating the time to sleep and realizing that it was probably just an accident that my friends had left me, I waited for the bus to head back to Cesana and pulled in there at about six. They were glad to see me back at the housing complex and laughed when I told them my story.

I got a good ten hours of sleep last night, and I am here early at work which is why I have had all this time to write this huge post. My last day of work is Saturday, and I will begin my journey home Sunday, arriving at my house Monday night. I miss everyone, and I can’t wait to see everybody. Ciao!