DOB Day 3: Step To It
We’re still one day from Friday night’s Opening Ceremonies at Maracana stadium and yet the soccer tournament is two days deep (the U.S. women won their opening group play match against New Zealand 1-0) and I’ve already logged approximately 30,000 steps on my bracelet that counts your steps. This seemed like a necessary addition to my wardrobe because how…
Read MoreDOB Day 2: Hit the Ground Sprinting
THURSDAY, AUG. 4, 2:30 a.m. I won’t lie. Today (yesterday?) was nuts. (And essentially only Day 1!) It started out so calmly, with the potential to be one of those “transition” days where you ease your way into covering a big event. I was penned in to write off the IOC meetings this evening after the…
Read MoreRio Or Bust!
As I type this, I am two hours into a 10-hour flight from Houston to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, a flight I’ve taken four times before, but for many reasons feels different this time. (Still no WiFi, though.) On those previous trips, I hadn’t yet heard of the Zika virus, Brazil showed promise of economic…
Read MoreThe DOB Returns for Rio!
For the past eight years and five Olympics, I’ve written a Daily Olympics Blog — a once-a-day personal journal about what it’s like to cover the Olympics. Like this blog itself, it’s been a way for me to share the stories behind the stories I write while I’m on the clock at ESPN. I started…
Read MoreRemembering Aug. 5, 1984
Thirty years ago, Joanie Benoit Samuelson won the first Olympic women’s marathon. She did so in a time–2:24:52–that would have won 13 of the previous 20 men’s marathons at the Olympics. Tuesday was the anniversary of her gold-medal performance, and I had the opportunity to emcee an event hosted by Nike honoring Joanie at the LA…
Read MoreSurprise, Surprise!
On the flight home from Russia, caught midway between my much-too-long-awaiting bed and the world I’d lived in for the past three weeks, I started to think about what I would miss most about covering the Olympics. I know. Miss? About covering the Olympics? It would have been easier to think of 10 things I…
Read MoreD21: Closing Time
The Closing Ceremony! It’s hard to believe the final day of the Olympics is here. I won’t say the past three weeks flew by, because they very much did not. And I am so glad to be flying home tomorrow — See you Tuesday, Storybookland! — but February has gone by as quickly as any…
Read MoreD20: Birthday Bobsled
When I woke up this morning, the first thing I did was open a card Brittany gave me on my way to the airport. “Do not open it until February 22,” she said. Oh, I wish I hadn’t listened to her! Because inside was a card with a cardboard unicorn – who talks, by the…
Read MoreD19: The Countdown Begins
It. Is. Friday. Not Flashback Friday. Not Follow Friday. It’s going home in three days Friday! In many ways, it’s been an incredible Olympics and easier than I expected. In many ways, it’s been an exhausting Olympics that has been about as much work packed into three weeks as I can remember in this gig.…
Read MoreD18: Celebrate Sarah
It seemed fitting that women’s ski halfpipe was the final freeski contest in the sport’s Olympic debut. It was the event in which Sarah Burke competed and a wonderful way to draw close to the action sports events in Sochi. It was an emotional night. I watched the contest with Sarah’s parents, Gord and Jan,…
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