Bienvenue à Paris - pour les Jeux Olympiques!

Arriving at Charles de Gaulle airport on 11 July marked my fifth touchdown at Paris since the early 2000s. 

Unlike previous visits, mostly for a few days of tourism, Olympic writing or the handover ceremony from Tokyo 2020, this time I'm setting up residence for several weeks.

The longer visit to the City of Lights is thanks, in part, to a certain national Olympic committee which initially (in early 2024) offered a long-term pre-Games volunteer assignment that was later reneged only after some nonrefundable accommodations were secured. 

But I'm not bitter -- in just two days I've gotten reacquainted with Paris, walked a couple dozen kilometers, seen three museums and stopped by Hotel de Ville (city hall) in relation to blogging credentials. Here's one happy writer easing into a summer of experiences on the heels of a week vacationing in the Mediterranean resort of Antalya, Turkey.  

All across central Paris there's a curious mix of activities in anticipation of the Games. Lots of construction, though most of the venues (except for the stadium seating along the Seine) appear to be in place and operational. 

Look of the Games banners and bunting are going up on a few more buildings each day. Not one person -- local nor tourist -- seems to know a thing about Olympic pin collecting traditions. 

But everyone knows the torch relay, and with today's national holiday hundreds of thousands will see Olympic torchbearers at iconic sites across the city, including the Arch de Triomphe, Petit Palace, Luxembourg/Senat and other destinations. After the morning parade my intent is to reconnect with the torch relay convoy at the Louvre, where the flame will visit Mona Lisa herself. Stay tuned for photos.

By the way, thank you for reading. If you made it this far, count yourself among the 851,375+ all-time visitors to this website. 

Will it reach 1 million by mid-August 2024? 

With appreciation to all readers, please share, comment and repost if you care to help achieve this ambitious goal in play since 2008. 

Photos by Nicholas Wolaver

Olympic Pin Fever Spreads Across PyeongChang

Olympic pin trading is an unofficial sport of the Games, and in PyeongChang this longtime five-ringed tradition has taken off like a full-speed ski jumper.

Whether collectors seek Korea's sponsor pins, 2018 media badges, national Olympic committee (NOC) treasures from athletes of competing nations or more generic local organizing committee and volunteer pins, there's something for everyone and everyone seems willing to exchange across all corners of the Olympic venues, Main Press Center and Olympic Parks in PyeongChang and Gangneung. 

There's even robust trading opportunities, I learned, in the main Gangneung Station and spectator park-and-ride lots. 

One of my best 2018 trades so far was at the team competition of figure skating, where Mirai Nagasu walked up to me in the press mixed zone after winning bronze. She reached out and pointed to my blog pin and asked for it!

Later in the week, TODAY Show host Hoda Kotb accepted a pin in exchange for a selfie. Sweet!

I started pin trading, sort of, during the national championships what is now named Odyssey of the Mind (formerly Olympics of the Mind), a creative competition for elementary and junior high school students. 

One of my favorites from that era of my youth was an Expo '86 pin promoting the World's Fair in Vancouver, then as far away from Oklahoma as I could imagine. 

Fast forward to Calgary '88 and the winter Olympic pin trading magazine feature that ran in Sports Illustrated. I got hooked big-time, and as a volunteer for U.S. Olympic Festival '89 in Oklahoma City, my Olympic pin collection got going with free Seoul pins from mail-order coupons in the Sunday newspaper. 

Thousands of trades and hundreds of Ebay sales later, my core collection now includes about 10 fabric pin books, five framed sets and badges spanning the 1930s to present. 

Photo via WABE.com

My specialty is Olympic bid pins followed by NOCs and media pins -- or pretty much any pin I think is high quality and easy on the eyes. 

My rarest find, by far, is a hand-made Rome 1960 pin carved on a shell from the beaches near the sailing venue and Mount Vesuvius "steaming" out five Olympic rings. Found it an an antique store in Mankato, Minn., during college and cannot wait to visit that part of Italy someday to see if some little family-owned gift shop as a trove of these beauties. 

Here in PyeongChang my favorite trades were exchanges with officials and athletes. For our third conversation in as many Olympiads, HRH Prince Albert of Monaco (IOC member) presented me a Team Monaco pin in exchange for a blog pin. 

Mister Tonga's team generously shared several pins (two designs as shown with this post) as did Nigeria, Lichtenstein, Jamaica, Finland, Luxembourg (a tiny pin) and several other NOC athletes in the Olympic Village. 

On the media pin front, Reuters created three large pins in green, red and yellow to represent 'Citius-Altius-Fortius' and faster-higher-stronger trading. 

Several Japan media pins are proving to be difficult acquisitions, as is the large Sports Illustrated pin featuring a colorful pagoda. 

The Associated Press, I am told, made pins but they remain in someone's stateside (a pin-headed blunder if there every was one).

Building upon its sponsorship tradition of London, Sochi and Rio, the Samsung pavilions in the Olympic parks and MPC feature a pin-earning opportunity. 

For each interactive activity visitors explore to learn about Samsung products, guests may earn one of 20 free pin designs featuring winter Olympic sports disciplines and icons of the host nation. As in previous Games, once collectors secure their first five badges, they earn a free display board. And for the few who fill a board, they have an opportunity to take home a rare Samsung Worldwide Partner Galaxy Note 8 featuring the Olympic rings. 

The last time I fell in love with a mobile phone was the Galaxy Note 3 in Sochi, and the Note 8 was also love at first touch (so light, so delicate, so powerful). 

Must ... get ... Note 8!

In the Samsung at Gangneung Olympic Park, the interactive options to secure points and pins, are very cool. 

Visitors should be sure to look at all of the museum display Olympic torches and pins from 1998 Nagano to 2016 Rio, then pose for a photo holding the classy white porcelain 2018 torch design. 

There's also an Infinity Room experience in which guests may project their Instagram photos and descriptions set to music, and another area to put a selfie into famous works of art or local sports venues. 

I have a couple of media questions in to Samsung: First, how many of the PyeongChang contest pins exist, and second, why not include the Olympic rings on more of the designs. Their New York-based public relations counsel is looking to the answers (stay tuned for updates here). 

Other sponsor pavilions seem to be generous with their pins at this Games, with designs from new TOP sponsor Alibaba Group, as well as PyeongChang suppliers The North Face, Toyota and Coca-Cola opting to give our pins for free.

A fancy-schmancy set of mascot pins comes in the form of a thick plastic mascot pin in which a VISA credit card chip is embedded. Load up your pin with W100,000 or more (about $100US) and scan it anywhere VISA is accepted (I bought mine at the MPC then used the funds at the Super Store in Olympic Park for the win, er, pin). 

Coming back to Coca-Cola pin trading, the longtime pin hobbyist partner opted to create only one small version of an Olympic pin trading centre at this Games.

Nestled along the south end of the Gangneung Live Site, about five to seven volunteer collectors man the trading area in one half of the centre, while visitors enjoy a peek at pin collecting history and etiquette chatted up by Coca-Cola employees in the adjacent room. Brisk business seems to be underway in the centre each time I stopped by (twice so far).

For those not in South Korea, there's a new option to showcase personal collections or keep up with the action and emerging pin designs spotted in PyeongChang.

Tucker, Ga.-based Pincentives created a new online "Collector Dash" platform -- "an organized encyclopedia of pins" -- and app the company is beta testing during PyeongChang 2018. 

Users sign up for a free account then have the option to upload a pin photo from their mobile phone "in the field" or via their laptop when the collecting day is complete. 

I put the new Pincentives.com features to the test last week and found the site generally easy and fun to navigate, and some 347 of the 2018 designs popped up on the site so far, indicative fellow collectors and Olympin members may be enjoying the test phase as did I. 

My mission by next Sunday is to unload all of the 500 or so remaining traders packed in my Olympic luggage, and to return to Atlanta with more PyeongChang pinventory than any recent Olympiad. Also on a hunt to earn a POGOG staff pin from an employee of the local organizing committee (do they exist?) or a volunteer Swatch watch. 

Wish me luck.

Happy collecting!

Photos by Nicholas Wolaver

Final Push Toward PyeongChang

Two weeks from now (Feb. 4), this blogger will be aloft on a Delta Air Lines flight half-way across the Pacific. Destination: Seoul, and a couple of days later via rental car, PyeongChang and the 2018 Winter Olympics.

It's exciting this countdown to the Games, my fifth consecutive snowy Olympiad and 11th overall trek to a new host city.

This will be a first-time adventure in South Korea, and I'm as pumped about exploring the historic 1988 summer Games sites in the nation's capital as much as experiencing the shiny and new venues in the mountains and on the east coast of the Korean Peninsula.

Photo via KoreaHerald.com

As with prior travels to Olympic competitions at destinations deemed "unsafe" (Rio with Zika), "un-secure" (Athens w/terrorism) or "scary" (Sochi or Beijing and "being watched"), friends and family already inquired about the outlook for PyeongChang safety and the Olympics' proximity to potential aggression from North Korea.

Honestly, since 2016 I was always more hung up on the potential for a Rio-repeat (abysmal and frustrating fan/volunteer logistics) than ever concerned about the Communists a few mountains away from the snow venues south of the 38th Parallel.

Photo by Amy Sancetta/AP

Fortunately, North Korea's pro-Olympic stance announced on January 1, and subsequent friendly conversations involving International Olympic Committee top brass and diplomacy from Korea's North- and South-based leadership, put many folks' (and my own) further at ease that peace will reign in PyeongChang. Will a Nobel Peace Prize result from this? Maybe.

It's historic and exciting to read about the unified team, individual athletes from both South and North, and the delegation crossing the border in just over 21 days. I'm definitely going to try to score an interview with some North Korean athletes or fans (wish me luck).

Let's just hope The White House avoids mucking up things in the next 18 days to the Opening Ceremony and the 16 Games-time days and nights that follow!

Thankfully (sort of), the Team USA delegation leader-designate is Vice President Mike Pence -- what thin ice will he manage to skate and create next month? We'll see.

Blog and PyeongChang mascot image by Nicholas Wolaver; ski jump photo via KoreaHerald.com; Torino 2006 Opening Ceremony photo via Associated Press.

Right Place, Right Time

Sochi is buzzing now. Foot traffic is getting crowded with more international team jackets and fans with flags.

After putting in a few hours at Sochi Media Center, where attendees were treated to a visit by a historic Russian Folk Group (among them a designated octogenarian Olympic Torchbearer), on Thursday I trekked over to the Coastal Cluster of venues for my first look at the Olympic Stadium.

A-MAZE-ING!

Another reason for the seaside train ride was to retrieve Day Passes to volunteer at the Coca-Cola Olympic Pin Trading Center inside the Team Russia House, a massive and very cool activity center for fans of all ages and nationalities. While inside, word spread that Olympic silver medalist Maria Sharapova would visit with a crew from NBC to film her experience at the venue. Hello!

Readers of this blog may recall the fortunate series of events leading to Sharapova's Olympic tennis final with Serena Williams at Wimbledon. And who could forget the flag ceremony video captured there?

Since capturing many action shots of both players that day in London, I've looked forward to another opportunity to speak with the Russian tennis star, icon and founder of the candy enterprise named Sugarpova.

How sweet it was to spot Maria flanked with a dozen NBC camera, sound, editing and production team members and a legion of fans with cameras like mine fixed on Sharapova, who professionally worked through her taped interviews (set to air during the Opening Ceremony tomorrow via NBC). She also graciously signed autographs for Olympic volunteers.

Then it happened -- a pin collector (not me, but Pete C., in the photo) shouted out to Sharapova those words only a pinhead can proudly exclaim ... "want to trade a pin?"

Apologetically, Sharapova declined with a smile, stating "Sorry, I don't have any pins to trade" over the heads of the entourage.

Enter Nick Wolaver, a.k.a. Johnny on the Spot, with a hot-off-the-press Olympic blog pin and business card.

Sharapova accepted my pin offer and others' then proceeded to complete the pin trade (for fun, note the person she traded with already is wearing one of my blog pins in the photo).

Sharapova, therefore, held on to the pin this blogger gave to her, and only time will tell whether it may lead her back to this site and/or post. As you may concur from the images below, the tennis great is holding an "Olympic Rings And Other Things" business card and pin during the post-trade NBC filming.

Moments later, at the conclusion of her official NBC taping duties, I showed Sharapova my camera and the action shot photographed in London (shown above, with this post).

She said, "O.K." to a 'selfie' pose beside me, and voila! the serendipitous Olympic Park experience du jour was over.

I'm so appreciative of Sharapova's kind response there is no time to frown that the 'selfie' only has my partial forehead, eyewear and cheek. Besides, I have that photo with the octogenarian Olympic Torchbearer to keep me company.

LOVING the Olympics!

Photos by Nicholas Wolaver are copyright Nicholas Wolaver not to be reproduced without written permission

 

Chicago Sports Collectors Event

I'm in the Windy City sharing a dealer table at the National Sports Collectors Convention (a.k.a. "The National"), a five-day event at which baseball, Olympic and other sports memorabilia are showcased. Some tables are like museum showcases, while others (like mine) resemble a portable garage sale of souvenirs gathered from closets and draws full of five-ringed fare.

It's an interesting event, and also enjoyable to get acquainted or re-acquainted with several fellow Olympic collectors. The show is also challenging, finding the balance of selling items (to clear space in the apartment) with the desire to buy several items on sale.

Another highlight of the event: Meeting Olympic champion Dick Fosbury again (we first shook hands in Vancouver). Fosbury presented a keynote during a special dealer/collector dinner hosted by Olympin, which helped bring the Olympic section of the collector event to the USA for the first time (Olympic collector events of this scale traditionally take place in Lausanne, Switzerland, and the IOC sanctioned the Chicago event). Also discussed the World Olympians Association with Fosbury as he is president of the organization.

Pin collectors looking forward to London were dazzled by the official pin maker of London 2012 -- HONAV -- which as a corner display at the Chicago event. HONAV will produce 2,012 pins for London 2012, and sell up to 500 exclusive complete sets (retail price: about $17,000).

While The National will be back in the USA next year, I understand the Olympic section of the show next moves to Athens in 2012, which is perfect -- gives me another year to prepare my portable garage sale.

Olympic Blog Pin Offer -- Get 'Em While They're Hot!

Olympic pin trading is everywhere in Vancouver, from the "official" trading areas in department stores and the airport, to casinos and Yaletown tents, to impromptu swapping (and discreet sales) spots on Granville Street and other points of interest.

Now the sport of Olympic pin trading is here on this Olympic blog with a special offer:

The first five readers who post a comment -- describing your favorite place to trade pins in Vancouver -- will receive a free Olympic blog pin for OlympicRingsAndOtherThings.blogspot.com (as shown with this post).

You must post a comment on this blog to qualify. I'll either deliver the pin to your suggested Vancouver location or mail the pin to those first five to comment.

There are only 500 of these Olympic blog pins (numbered by hand), and I'm getting down to the last of them.

Happy writing, and thanks for reading the Olympic blog.

Back to Blogging

The last few weeks were a bit insane.

Holiday treks to Oklahoma and Milwaukee, and some post-holiday catch-up work at the office kept me away from blogging, but with only a few weeks to go before the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Opening Ceremony, I'll endeavor to post daily or near-daily for the weeks to come.

Here's a random hodgepodge of Olympic topics, story suggestions and general stuff that piqued my interest in recent correspondence or trolling online:

• Thanks to a colleague and fellow blogger for pointing me to the SI.com Olympic galleries for Vancouver 2010 Olympic hopefuls


• Good traffic of Olympic news and views on the New York Times' Rings blog
  
• Adecco is still looking for a silver and bronze medal "Office Champion" via a video contest.


• MediaDailyNews reports on social media and the Olympics


• Stephen Colbert first took U.S. Speedskating to new heights, and last night's show featured Colbert Report on thin ice with the USA Curling team for Vancouver 2010


• One family's quest to get Vancouver 2010 Olympic tickets hit a snag, according to the Vancouver Sun
  
• The LA Times reported on Canada's Olympic hockey team selection, and more than 4 million Canadians took time to care about this news, says the National Post blog


• Lots of people went to see the new film "Up In The Air" during the last few weeks, and it really impressed me for its "real-ness" and story (compared to the digital-ness of the also-popular release "Avatar"). I now have a huge crush on Anna Kendrick, thanks in part to one of her talk show TV appearances


• ESPN and ABC noted some changes to anticipate for locals and tourists in Vancouver


• SafeGames2010 will apparently distribute more than 250,000 Olympic condoms during the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games
  
• The Vancouver Sun's Olympic reporter Jeff Lee took on P.R.-types at VANOC on December 21, and I have to agree with just about everything he wrote. Lee also peeked at Olympic pins on deck for next month in a post dated December 3, which took me to a blog post about the Coca-Cola Pin Trading Centre that opened last weekend.

See you in Vancouver! Only 37 days to go!

Rings Go Better With Coke!

For 80 years, The Coca-Cola Company has been a sponsor or supplier of the Olympics. Today's Atlanta Journal-Constitution includes a feature on Big Red's activation plans for Beijing, and even delves into their future work for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver.

My earliest Olympic soda memory dates back to the summer of 1984. The cross-country Olympic Torch Relay passed through my hometown of Edmond, Okla., and a few weeks later the Opening Ceremonies broadcast from L.A. was narrated by Jim McKay on ABC (with the greatest card trick of all time). And sometime that summer we discovered that Coke was marketing its Olympic participation with special 12 oz. glass bottles on which Sam The Olympic Eagle mascot was waving -- I think one of those bottles went on to become our family's "last 'original formula' bottle" until New Coke came and went away a couple of years later.

The big soda company also took Olympic pin collecting to a new plateau at the Winter Games in Calgary, Canada, in 1988, with what I understand was their first Olympic Pin Trading tent (a program replicated at most, if not all, of the Games since). They even had "Coke Olympic City" in downtown Atlanta in 1996 (now site of the new World of Check-Out-Our-120-Years-of-Advertising Museum beside the Georgia Aquarium).

I don't play favorites when it comes to soda -- most major, and sometimes regional, brands are often inside my refrigerator (at this very moment I'm drinking a delicious cola with a five-letter name that starts with "P" and sort-of rhymes with "Dizzy Gillespie" -- a client of the firm where I work) . If someone could just come up with official Olympic root beer (like this one), I'd be set.