VWO (Day 9) – A Running Start

Today was the most beautiful spring day yet. To celebrate, Lindsay and I went running. Seven miles around the waterfront. That’s a new personal record since I started running again recently. I guess hanging around all these Olympic athletes is inspiring me! And I think an Olympic athlete also inspired the city planner. If Pittsburgh…

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VWO (Day 8) – New Beginnings

I feel like a new person today. It is amazing what a good night’s sleep and a shower will do for a person. This morning, women’ snowboardcross finals were delayed because of rainy conditions and heavy fog at Cypress Mountain. It seems Mother Nature may never cooperate with the Olympic event schedule, which is unfortunate.…

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VWO (Day 7) – Cross-Eyed Cross Coverage

Happy President’s Day! Today’s wakeup call was an early one. Is this really only day four of competition? I think I’m going to have to switch to the dark roast at Tim Horton’s. Looking back on this morning, I don’t remember much. I was so blind tired that I can only vaguely recall getting ready…

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VWO (Day 6) – Happy Valentine’s Day!

[Editor’s note: Due to Early Onset Exhaustion, today’s entry is going to be brief.] It’s only Day six and already the Olympics is taking its toll. As I write this Sunday night, I am exhausted. And today wasn’t even a tough day! This morning, I slept in until 8:30 and then stole some morning me-time.…

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VWO (Day 5) – A Day is A Day is A Day

In the rest of the world, today is apparently Saturday. Which is the first day of a two-day time period called a “weekend.” Here in Olympic world, a day is a day is a day. Weeks are not divided into starts and ends, and hours are not divided–as they typically are–into classifications like “too late…

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VWO (Day 4) – Let The Games Begin!

Today started with so much excitement and promise. The official start of the 2010 Winter Olympics. But it was marred by tragedy. This morning, Georgian luge athlete Nodar Kumaritashvili died after crashing violently in a training run. It was heartbreaking news, and the saddest part of the crash was that it feels like it could…

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VWO (Day 3) – A Long and Rainy Day

Happy Olympics Eve, everyone! Today was a long one, as I am writing this at 2 a.m. I spent the morning cooped up in my hotel room doing phone interviews, and the afternoon cooped up in the media center at press conferences. But today was a good day to spend indoors. Because it rained all…

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VWO (Day 1) – ESPN The Mag: Winter Olympic Preview

Check out my new cover story on snowboarder Shaun White, who I interviewed many times over the past nine months for this piece. Our first interview took place at his secret halfpipe in Silverton, Colorado, in February 2009. Then I sat down with him last fall at a swanky SoHo hotel in New York City…

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VANCOUVER WINTER OLYMPICS: T-Minus Two!

Before leaving for the Beijing Olympics in 2008, I wrote a blog expressing how I felt about the opportunity to cover the summer Games. Growing up, I was a gymnast, a catcher/short stop and a sprinter. And like most kids who compete in Olympic sports, I had visions of competing in red, white and blue.…

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