What a day!

Though most of my blogs are really insightful, today's is nothing more than a simple account of the craziness that occurred all day long.

First of all, I did my very first live ONS interview with an athlete today. An Irish cyclist by the name of David O'Loughlin was the first target for Andrea and I. He will race the individual pursuit, competing against defending Olympic champion Bradley Wiggins from England and hotshot American Taylor Phinney. David was 6th in the latest world championships and hopes to improve his personal best time by three seconds here in Beijing.

Andrea and I made a pretty solid tag-team interview unit. Of course, it was my very first experience in a journalistic interview setting... ever. Andrea has quite a bit more experience than myself (she's the Editor-in-Chief of the Purdue Exponent!), so I latched on to her lead and jumped in. We strolled over to the Ireland bay/bench area and waited patiently for David to finish speaking with his coaches. After introducing ourselves, Andrea started pounding away at the questions. I just sat back and took notes, practicing my flash quoting skills. At one point there was a slight break in the interview while we made notes, so I piped up. Surprisingly enough, I found it brilliantly easy to maintain a steady conversation with the Irishman, and Andrea's reporting knacks really fed off the dialogue. After the whole thing was over, I was worried that I should have kept a more professional, down-to-business outlook instead of having a relaxed, dyadic conversation with him. To my surprise, Andrea was really happy with the way things went and said that the conversational tone made him feel more comfortable speaking with us. I was stoked. I just interviewed my first Olympic cyclist, and it was really, really fun!

David O'Loughlin is Ireland's only track cyclist competing in Beijing

Throughout the day we saw the teams from Deustchland, Great Britain, China, Nederland, the Czech Republic, Ireland, Uruguay, Belgium, and the Ukraine. The Germans are defending Olympic champions in several events and are always a force. This year, however, the British are favorite to win nearly everything, as 7 of the 10 most recent world championships in the Olympic disciplines belong to the GBR team.

A few hours later, the American team finally came in! Though I knew none of the cyclists before this experience, I was SO excited to see the superstars from my own country. To hear them speaking clean American English was a treat for my senses. I think they were surprised to hear us speaking it, too, because one of the coaches approached me in a thicket of Chinese volunteers in the same uniform as I to ask me a question. Apparently when you hang out on the velodrome floor with a BOCOG pass and a blue Games polo people tend to think you have answers. Nonetheless, he wanted to know if there would be water supplied at the venue for the athletes or if the teams were responsible for bringing their own. I told him I didn't know, but that I would find out and report back.

So... Li and I set out on a quest to figure it out. It didn't take too long, but I was glad we had the translation services of Li. Else I would have been in a real pickle. We hustled over to the USA bench to relay the message. I explained to the coach (and bay full of other coaches/cyclists/managers) about the water supply situation they had asked about. He told me I did a fantastic job getting the information and that my boss should give me a raise. Sensing his orneriness, I played right along. I pointed to my blue volunteer uniform and said, "Haha, this blue shirt means no money. I'm a volunteer." The group laughed and one guy running errands in the background said as he pointed to his shirt, "Yeah, that's what this gray one means, too!" All were thoroughly entertained. Then my examiner grabbed my cheeks, squeezed them and said, "Really well done, thank you, I should kiss your cheeks right now."

Have I mentioned that he was European? Though he was working for the American team, he was definitely European, which helps to outline the cheeks situation a bit better. After a short conversation, Li and I headed back to our ONS post feeling pretty good about the connections we established with the American team. Maybe it will pay off sometime in the mixed zone?

All that was fine and dandy and probably enough to blog about for a day... but then the absolutely amazing happened. The Olympic Torch, fresh from it's relay through Beijing via Tian'anmen Square and the Forbidden City, ran past the Laoshan Velodrome this afternoon. One of the torch bearers came into the 'drome after her leg was finished, and she brought with her the torch. Each bearer gets to keep the torch they carry, so she was getting all kinds of photos inside the venue. Jason and I convinced Li to ask the Chinese if we could have a photo with the torch... and just like that, here I was:

I got to hold the Olympic Torch today, and you didn't! Note the Ukrainians in the background warming up.

I still can't even believe it. Today, I held to Olympic torch less than an hour after it was burning in the relay. The picture says it all. I hope you enjoy!

Two days til the Games!

XOXO