A Non-Olympian "Thanks, Mom"

With a heavy heart I'm posting from Sochi with news my wonderful mother Betty entered hospice care in Oklahoma on Monday night. The news is surprising given her condition just two weeks ago was good. Writing in a fog.

 

Too many non-Games memories to share, but I will always love that Mom bought me the influential-to-seven-year-olds Lake Placid 1980 Olympic color book when I was in first grade, and she took my sister and I to the Los Angeles 1984 Olympic Torch Relay in Edmond, Okla., the fifth-grade summer event that launched my Olympic journeys.

 

In 1989 we volunteered together at U.S. Olympic Festival '89, and the following summer she drove me to the 6 a.m. flight to Minneapolis for my first paid Olympic gig at U.S. Olympic Festival '90 (setting the course for my college days in the Land of 10,000 Lakes). Neither of us knew that flight would be the first of hundreds for this traveler (hard to know who had more nervous excitement).

 

It was Mom who first told me the 1990 news Atlanta won the 1996 Olympics, setting another course for nine Olympiads of fun. On Mother's Day 1996 she held the "runner flag" to start my leg of the Atlanta Olympic Torch Relay. 

 

Before and since her diagnosis of Alzheimer's in 2008, she always supported my five-ringed dreams and every dream. In her determined fight to slow down her condition, we shared dozens of walks and talks -- the above photo from one hike at Lake Arcadia near Edmond -- and it was so fun to show her around D.C., Atlanta and Savannah in recent years. As she did through years of working hard as a self-employed parent (her seamstress business boomed during the 1980s and 1990s in support of my sister's and my dreams), she continued to smile and laugh through each step of her declining condition.

 

I love you, Mom. Thank you, Mom. I will be home to Oklahoma on Friday, the soonest airlines could arrange passage from Sochi. Prayers appreciated for Mom, my dad and sister at her side, and for many family members, friends and caregivers helping mom. Fingers crossed the journey home will get me there safely and in a timely manner.

 

The blog will resume in due time. Thank you for reading and for support.

 

Photos by Nicholas Wolaver

Hailed a cab last night in Sochi and shook hands with the Armenian driver.

When asked his name he said, "Robert" to which I replied, "... Like Redford, Plant or De Niro?"

Without missing a beat he stared at me with stern look, pointed and said, "You talking to me?"

Most surprising taxi driver so far!

 

There's a surprise around many turns here. On Wednesday the temperatures approached 60 degrees, I found a sushi restaurant and discovered potato chips marked like sour cream and onion are actually dill pickle-flavored (tasty).

 

Thursday was another warm day, and though there was not yet time to try it, the spa in my hotel offers a foot soaking treatment through which flesh-eating minnows go to town on the callouses for one's heels and toes.

 

Olympic pin trading is gaining steam, and about twice a day fellow American tourists and I cross paths and swap stories about the Sochi commute. It's amazing how clean it is on the train, in the venues and all over the city -- I have yet to find serious litter, even at the end of a sold-out event with the rowdiest of crowds. The train is so quiet and smooth (and spotless) people nod off and fellow passengers nudge them at the end of the line.

 

Downtown Sochi features a European-style pedestrian park (gorgeous), mini-zoo (there are monkeys

on display just outside my hotel) and urban views of the Black Sea reminiscent of Milwaukee's hilltops overlooking Lake Michigan.

 

One aviary mystery here: How many tens of thousands of birds are in the black cloud flock 500 yards off-shore? (Seriously, it looks like the Hitchcock film when the black birds churn the water.)

 

The train station is a 1950s design with a clock featuring the zodiac tracked by month.

 

Valentine's Day should be interesting. I have a ticket to skeleton competition but need to sell it as a work project will have our P.R. team taking a couple of athletes to The Weather Channel studio in Olympic park for an interview with Al Roker.

 

It's the mid-point of the journey and all is well.

 

Photos by Nicholas Wolaver

 

 

Heavy Medal Arrives In Sochi

On Wednesday at Sochi Media Center, attending reporters and photographers were treated to the VIP arrival of 2014 Winter Olympic and Paralympic medals -- 1,254 of them, with a combined weight of one ton, to be exact.

Scanning the room filled with dozens of media and P.R. folks, I think this blogger may have been the only U.S. outlet rep in attendance.

The ceremonial special delivery included a press conference including Russian Olympic figure skating champion Aleksei Yagudin and Olympic speedskating champion Svetlana Zhurova who joined Andrey Sidorenko, chairman of ADAMAS, Russia's largest producer of jewelry. ADAMAS CEO Maksim Vainberg also spoke.

Through brief remarks by executives and both Olympians, presented with three videos about the medal design concept and detailed manufacturing process, we learned of several "Olympic firsts" related to the medals.

According to ADAMAS, the Sochi Games presented a first-time challenge of geography between the host city and the capital, necessitating a "unique transportation solution" and "unprecedented security measures." The challenges yielded the new opportunity and concept of taking the medals on a 16 city national tour which helped more than 2.5 million Russians get close to the medals during their circuitous journey to Sochi.

Like the Torch Relay, shall we say there is now a "heavy medal tour" option for future host nations?

The Sochi medals are the first to feature a "high-tenacity transparent polycarbonate insertion"

featuring the Sochi 2014 "patchwork quilt" look of the Games engraved by laser.

There are more medals for Sochi given 12 new competitive events.

ADAMAS is the first jeweler entrusted to create Olympic medals, through which about 2,500 employees contributed to the design, engineering, manufacture, finalization and secure delivery of the medals.

ADAMAS also created and sells dozens of jewelry items such as bracelets, charms, earrings and pendants celebrating Sochi.

Yagudin and Zhurova shared stories of their own Olympic medal experience to provide perspective on what a Sochi Olympic medal may mean to its future owner.

"I did not take off my medal; I wore it for one week and a half except to shower," said Yagudin of the Salt Lake 2002 experience.

Zhurova, winner of gold at Torino 2006 (her fourth Olympics), accompanied the 2014 medals as a tour ambassador.

She said the new medals had a different meaning for each person she met.

"Everyone who saw the medals and touched it had a special idea of who might later win it," said Zhurova. "Perhaps the IOC will let the tour process occur again [for future Olympiads]."

A live feed showed the ADAMAS couriers arrive with special containers and security who carried some of the medals into the press center.

The executives and Olympians took turns showcasing the gold, silver and bronze for cameras.

"This gold one might look good for a hockey team," said Zhurova. "A Russian team."

Photos by Nicholas Wolaver; video by ADAMAS