AP blogs from the Olympics
From the days approaching the opening ceremony on Feb. 10, through the final day on Feb. 26, AP staffers from around the world have filed reports on the sights, sounds and the atmosphere of the Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy.
Sunday, Feb. 26, 5:30 p.m. local
TURIN, Italy
Two years' worth of planning just ended, and I'm not sure if I like this.
The Turin Olympics are over and I'm loathe to even think about the Beijing Games right now, even though we've already started work on them.
I want to savor this for a while:
-- A great staff that worked really well together, especially in the mountains.
-- Late night chowdowns with paper-thin pizza marinara and a bottle of Barolo.
-- The lady at the pastry shop who patiently watched me hold up 10 fingers and point to different trays of goodies.
-- Our great AP jackets.
-- My daily exchanges with Rome photo editor Domenico Stinellis:
"Buongiorno."
"Come sta?"
"Bene, grazie"
"E lei?"
"Molto bene, grazie."
When I leave Tuesday, I'll have my Guide to Italy in my carry-on.
Any place this special deserves a return trip.
Ciao, Torino.
I'll never forget you.
-- AP Sports Editor Terry Taylor
Sunday, Feb. 26, 5:24 p.m. local
TURIN, Italy
Tonight's the last dance, the closing ceremony. As the games have wound down, it's been a time of relief, rest and a bit of reflection.
And apparently, if you're a Turin volunteer, it's time for last-ditch attempts to charm female athletes.
At the curling venue in Pinerolo earlier this week, I was talking to Russia's Ludmila Privivkova (yes, about her match ...) in the mixed zone when an awestruck young volunteer stepped forward. He told her how devastated he and his fellow staffers were that she and her team -- well, mostly she -- had been eliminated.
A few days later, a volunteer approached American Cassie Johnson. After a heartfelt speech about how much he appreciated her kind attitude throughout the Olympics (I was worried he might start crying) the staffer presented Johnson with a bag -- in it was a red souvenir hat.
So the last stone has been slid, the last puck has been shot ... and at some point, the last gift will be given. Time for one more table of Olympic statistics, and I don't mean the final medal chart.
At the beginning of these games, I wanted to track the success rate of medal predictions by three major news organizations that made them. As these things go, Olympic predictions are a pretty low-risk proposition. I work out of Little Rock, Ark., where if you pick against somebody's favorite high school football team, a phone call or an angry post on a message board will occasionally follow.
Somehow, I don't think Michaela Dorfmeister's fan club was quite as worked up when USA Today picked her to finish second in the women's downhill.
Anyway, I took the pre-Olympic predictions from USA Today, Sports Illustrated -- and ours, made by AP beat writers. I awarded the following point values:
Correctly predicted gold medal: 5 points
Correctly predicted silver or bronze: 4 points
Right person/wrong medal: 1 point
And the winner is ... Sports Illustrated, with 305 points. SI correctly picked 26 gold medalists, 23 other medalists and 83 athletes who won a different medal than the magazine predicted.
USA Today had 299 points and AP had 297, although both correctly picked 27 gold medalists, one more than SI.
To give you an idea of how difficult this was, SI picked three events perfectly. USA Today and AP picked two each. Only in men's figure skating (AP and USA Today) and the men's cross-country team sprint (AP and SI) did more than one organization pick the exact order of finish.
The hardest sports to predict? All three organizations whiffed completely on four events, earning no points for the men's alpine combined (won by American Ted Ligety), the women's giant slalom (American Julia Mancuso), women's biathlon sprint (Frenchwoman Florence Baverel-Robert), and the next-to-last event at these Olympics, Italian Giorgio di Centa's victory in the men's 50-kilometer cross-country race.
-- Noah Trister
Sunday, Feb. 26, 3:08 p.m. local
Turin on Two Wheels, Part Three:
Mission accomplished. The bicycle has been sold.
I sold the bicycle and the lock, for which I paid 210 euros, to a colleague who will take it back to ride around Rome, for 85. A good deal all around.
This saves me from having to try to sell it like a carnival barker at the Porta Palazzo market, a solution that apparently would have had more obstacles than my natural shyness. I am told a lot of stolen property moves through there.
"They'll arrest you if you try," a friend told me.
A university student I met at a reception last night told me the story of a friend whose father had bought his daughter a new bicycle, only to have it stolen the first week. He then bought it back at Porta Palazzo.
I doubt a foreigner with a receipt would get arrested. Still, I didnt need any more reasons to back out of this.
I had already begun composing a letter to the American studies professor I met at the same reception, announcing that I was making him a gift of the bike.
And I got to take one nice last ride, threading my way through town on the chocolate-shop version of a pub crawl, getting goodies for the folks at home. And I came to the office via the path that runs along the Po, a pretty ride, as the sun is finally shining after almost two weeks.
Pretty as it is, I'm ready to leave. For one thing, it'll be nice to ride on roads without streetcar tracks.
-- Warren Levinson
Sunday, Feb. 26, 2:32 p.m. local
TURIN, Italy
Ahhhh, the Winter Olympics.
It took me two weeks to say that -- in my head, of course -- because I spent all of my time in the Turin area until working in the mountains the past two days.
Don't get me wrong.
I knew I was covering big-time events involving the world's best hockey players (men and women), speedskaters (traditional and short track), ice dancers and curlers here at the Olympics. But without snow on the ground or mountains in view every day because of smog or clouds, it just didn't seem like the Winter Games.
A last-minute assignment Friday afternoon changed all of that.
I was off to Cesana to get quotes for our writers covering four-man bobsled, a quintessential Olympic sport that gave me flashbacks of watching the 1980 Lake Placid Games.
Like hockey, watching bobsled on TV doesn't compare to seeing it up close. The highest banks are perhaps 12 feet high, and the sleds roar by like stock cars. Add some snow and temperatures that reminded me of Detroit, and I felt like I had finally arrived at the Winter Games.
The next day, I headed back to the mountains to write about the women's 12.5km mass-start biathlon race, and I was awed by the power, poise and precision of the 30 women competing in a sport I had not seen before in person.
I topped off my two-day stint in the Italian Alps with a fabulous meal in a centuries-old restaurant in Sauze d'Oulx, a crafty little ski village at the foot of the majestically looming mountains.
Now I'm at the gold medal men's hockey game between Sweden and Finland, and the Finns are leading 1-0 after the first period. While I'm glad to be here, I'm thankful my gig at the games included some time in the mountains.
Ciao.
-- Larry Lage
Saturday, Feb. 25, 7:04 p.m. local
TURIN, Italy
Trying to get from one hockey arena to another is far from an easy task with the complicated transport system of buses, trams and taxis.
I found, however, trying to get somewhere else off the beaten path can be even harder and extra-frustrating.
A member of the American media support staff and I wanted to go from the U.S. men's hockey practice to the bronze medal women's game. While attempting to hail a cab during Turin rush hour, one of the U.S. men's players approached us and asked where we were going.
He wanted to meet up with some teammates, and knew the general location where he was headed but wasn't sure which way to walk. He figured a cabbie would surely be able to get him there, and he asked if he could share a taxi with us.
It didn't take long for him to notice that the driver was going the wrong way. Over a bridge we went, and suddenly we were closer to the hockey arena than the planned first destination.
"Sir, you're going the wrong way," the player said to the driver, who didn't speak a word of English. But apparently he knew enough to be able to signal that we were indeed on the right path.
"I don't think so," the player said.
By now, the heat had been turned up in the car, to which the annoyed player said, "I'm sweating like I stole something."
After a bilingual argument between the player and driver in which the street name, Via Emanuel, was bounced back and forth, we continued on.
"Why is everything so difficult here?" the player asked.
After several minutes, we pulled over to seek assistance from a police officer, who spoke English. The player asked the officer to explain to the driver where he wanted to go. It only took a moment until we were back on our way, and yes, back in the direction from which we came.
"It's over there, right?" the player asked. "Si," said the driver.
"Yeah, I thought so. Why didn't you understand it when I said it?" the player asked, knowing he wouldn't get a response.
We drove up by the main train station, and the player got out of the car. He left his fare on the passenger seat.
"Now I'm in a bad mood," he said.
-- Ira Podell
Saturday, Feb. 25, 5:07 p.m. local
TURIN, Italy
If you're counting on someone to bring you a souvenir from Turin, better hope they're not a last-minute shopper.
A group of us went to the main Olympic superstore, a tent on Piazza Vittorio Veneto, on Thursday morning and found a scene of consumer-society apocalypse: empty shelves and racks, with a desperate mob of would-be spenders (armed with their IOC-approved Visa cards) snatching up whatever trinkets remained.
There wasn't much. Pins, some keychains, refrigerator magnets. A few of the less attractive T-shirts and sweatshirts, most in inconvenient sizes. Some bags inexplicably branded with both the Torino 2006 logo and that of the 1972 Sapporo Games (for that all-important 34th anniversary commemoration?). A lot of cowbells.
My wife and kids are in luck -- I did most of my shopping during the first week of the games. But I wanted to take a hockey puck home to a friend, so yesterday I went to a second Olympic store, on Via Giuseppe Garibaldi near the medals plaza. There was a line outside the door and it was raining, but I waited. When I got inside, I discovered the reason for the cramped conditions: The entire second floor of the store had been closed off. Downstairs, the selection was even worse than it had been a day earlier at the superstore.
The scene was similar at the Palasport Olimpico, the main hockey venue, and in the athletes' village, where I ventured earlier this afternoon.
Ever since the '96 Summer Games in Atlanta were criticized for their tacky, flea-market feel, the IOC has gone out of its way to ensure the games aren't overcommercialized. For the most part they've succeeded.
Still, it's clear that sales of licensed souvenirs do matter to the IOC; an update on the level of merchandise sales has been a regular feature of the daily briefings given by the IOC and TOROC, the Turin organizing committee.
So I have to wonder how hard it would have been to re-order some of the most popular items last week, once it became clear stores were going to run out.
After all, when you watch people who want to spend 100 euros on souvenirs fighting for the privilege of buying a 7-euro pin and a 6-euro magnet, it's hard not to think about all the money being left on the table.
-- Tim Whitmire
Saturday, Feb. 25, 4:21 p.m. local
SESTRIERE, Italy
Maurizio, the owner of Il Portico bar and restaurant, said the Barbera d'Asti wine we were drinking was full-bodied and fruity. For me, it also had a bouquet of fine memories.
I had been saving the bottle for more than two weeks, promising myself I would savor it as the Olympics drew to a close.
Last night seemed like a good night.
My roommate, John Klobucar, was going to take the bus down to Turin the following morning, and I figured it would be nice to share the bottle with him and Maurizio at Il Portico, where we had been eating most nights since the beginning of the games.
As we drank, I told the story of how I'd acquired the wine.
I had just arrived in the mountains and was gathering material in Sauze d'Oulx -- site of the freestyle skiing events -- for my first story of the games, a piece about the atmosphere in Olympic venue towns. Walking along a narrow cobblestoned road in the town's historic center, I came across an elderly gentleman standing on the terrace of his old granite home. His name was Bruno Baldi, a retired company director from Turin who now lived eight months of the year with h s wife here in the Italian Alps. He told me how much he was looking forward to seeing people from all around the world. "We're curious to learn what they think of us," he said.
After about 20 minutes of chatting about food, culture, our families, sports, and dying mountain traditions, he suddenly said: "Let me give you a gift of a bottle of wine from our family vineyards."
"Oh no, I couldn't possibly ..." I said.
"What do you mean, you couldn't possibly? Don't you drink?"
"Of course I drink, but ..."
He interrupted me: "Then wait here."
He shuffled back into the house, and after a couple of minutes he emerged with a bottle labeled "Mo Giuseppe" -- the name of his cousin who made the wine.
So that was my wonderful sunny afternoon in Sauze d'Oulx.
And on a wonderful snowy evening, I made another memory reliving memory while drinking with Maurizio and John.
-- Joji Sakurai
Saturday, Feb. 25, 3:25 p.m. local
TURIN, Italy
The shopping list I brought to Turin was a long one.
I wanted something for my three nephews in New Jersey, plus my brother- and sister-in-law there. And my mother, of course, who has long professed that she'll gladly accept "anything." Another sister-in-law wanted a ski hat. Couple souvenirs for colleagues at home, followed -- most importantly -- by something nice for the wife.
Struck out on all counts.
As with any Olympics, there's been much to complain about and much to enjoy. But this is unlike any other I've seen in one regard, because no matter how hard I've tried, I CAN'T FIND ANYTHING WORTH BUYING HERE.
Look, I'm a guy who likes shopping. I admit it.
I pride myself as a pretty good gift-giver.
But the souvenir stands here are largely empty, and what they have left is ridiculously overpriced. Forgive me for sounding like a capitalist whiner. But $44 for a golf shirt? $31 for a T-shirt? $20 for the ugliest lime-green "Bobsleigh" hat you've ever seen?
Scusi?
Here's hoping I find something -- anything -- on my last day in Turin tomorrow.
-- Tim Reynolds
Saturday, Feb. 25, 2:20 p.m. local
TURIN, Italy
Turin on Two Wheels, Part 2:
I said earlier that Turin is not exactly a bike-friendly city, and I stand by that. But after riding around here for a couple of weeks, I will add that it's not for lack of trying. I've run across a handful of bike lanes and dedicated, separated-from-motor-traffic bike paths, though unfortunately few of them go very far.
One important exception is a delightful walking, jogging and biking path that runs by the Po River, similar to the one that runs around Manhattan. It must be really great on a clear day. Which we've had almost none of.
One of the pleasures of having your own transportation is that you can find your way around without depending on mass transit schedules or giving directions to taxi drivers whose English is no better than my Italian. The downside is that when it rains, as it has for the last two days, you discover you have no knowledge of either the Olympic transport network or the public one.
Last night, I did OK. I hopped a couple of buses that were going in the general direction I wanted to go, and when they turned or terminated, I knew enough from my rides to be able to walk the rest of the way.
Today is a borderline day. It's raining again, but not as hard as yesterday. So do I ride or not ride? On the one hand, the big paving stones are treacherous enough when dry. On the other, it's getting late in the Olympics, and I'm now getting a little anxious about selling the bike. I don't want to encounter a prospect and not have the bike with me. So I rode.
I've gotten better about finding a route that minimizes my contact with non-asphalt surfaces, and wonder in fact why they didn't route the press bus down the corso Umberto Re. It's not as pretty as Baroque Turin, but it's more like Park Avenue than Coney Island Avenue, which is the closest New York analogue to the bus route.
But if the bike doesn't sell today, I will probably go out to the Porta Palazzo outdoor market and try to sell it the way they sell everything there: by calling out. I may have to learn the Italian for, "Used Bike for Sale! 185 new, two weeks ago! Make me an offer!" My 13-year-old could handle this fearlessly, but I may have to overcome my natural shyness.
-- Warren Levinson
Saturday, Feb. 25, 2:09 p.m. local
TURIN, Italy
My pants are wet. And my hands are wet. Which means my pants are going to get wetter.
Somebody's got to take on the Bathrooms of Turin. I shall step into the breach. And whatever else is on the floor. It started with the main bathrooms in the Main Media Center.
First, enter the door from the hallway. Then, quickly decide which of the two doors in the narrower hallway ahead is the men's. I've seen several wrong guesses. On to the bathroom itself, where we strive to wash our hands and ... there's no water handle. How do you turn on the water? Push, pull on the faucet, wave your hands around blindly hoping that an invisible beam sees you before anyone else does and has your press pass withdrawn, and then ... there ... what's that on the floor? A rubber knob. Tentatively ... and ... yes! There's water flowing from the faucet. Oops, my foot slipped. Okay, point the toe, pivot just right, push on the knob on the floor, balance, gently, turn and ... ouch, my knee went out. Geez, it's like playing twister.
Ok, I'll try the other bathrooms, the kind of port-a-johns down the hall. These are temporary. They have two doors. The outside one, leading to the sink, has no lock. The inside one does. OK. Into the bathroom, things go fine, and then off to the sink to wash my hands. No water handle. Ah, but this time I'm ready. I look down and ... what are those? Two metal rods, parallel, about three inches apart, sticking out from the wall. One plastic red cap, one blue. Gotta be hot and cold. Okay, I can do this. Place foot on ... no, that's just one bar ... now the other ... okay, okay, I'm balanced, my foot's on both bars ... and tip the toes gently forward, get some soap, rub the hands, balance, balance ... Geez, aerials doesn't look so hard anymore. Roll the toes and, oh for crying out loud, this is just goofy. I'll just use the cold water. Down with the pedal, water flows and GEE GOLLY WHIZ THAT'S HOT! I jerk back my hands quickly, and water sprays all over my pants. I have wet pants. My hands are soapy. I'll try the red one. Good grief, it's hot too.
I actually walk out of the port-a-john with soapy hands and go to the one next door to rinse my hands. Ah, cold water from the blue. Finally, I'm done. Clean, wet hands and ...
No towels.
-- Dave Ochs
Friday, Feb. 24, 4:09 p.m.
TURIN, Italy
We rarely leave the Palasport Olimpico before midnight because the hockey games start so late. There are usually only a handful of fans left wandering the streets around that beautifully odd new rink and the adjoining main Olympic stadium -- usually a random Czech man still wearing facepaint and somehow not freezing in 20-degree temperatures, despite wearing only a red-and-white jersey.
But we're not alone on the streets while we try in vain to find the media bus or jump on the right tram.
That's because every night, no matter the hour or the temperature, about 20-30 Torinians (is that a word?) park their cars on both sides of the street running past the stadium. They smoke cigarettes, take photographs and mostly just gaze at the Olympic flame burning brightly above the stadium.
Turin has been ripped by foreign journalists for being indifferent at best (and antagonistic at worst) toward the games, but you'd never believe it when you see a man holding his 4-year-old daughter and staring with wonder into the sky, or a quiet teenager speedily setting up his tripod and camera in the middle of the street to take long-exposure photographs of the games' symbol. When we left at 3:30 a.m. the other day, a steady trickle of Italians still were checking out the ever-burning flame.
The carabinieri simply direct traffic around the flame-seekers while they check it out themselves. They can't be bothered to help us find the right tram, though.
-- Greg Beacham
Friday, Feb. 24, 2:20 p.m. local
SAN SICARIO, Italy
I never thought I'd spend three weeks in the Italian Alps listening to karaoke.
The cheerleaders at the biathlon venue rouse the crowd before every race by singing, among other things, awful renditions of "YMCA" and "Hey Baby."
They're dressed in garish green and orange and green outfits and ski caps complete with faux neon mohawks.
Thing is, they're usually the only ones singing, despite their pleas over the loudspeakers for the spectators to join in the revelry.
"Come on, Russians, your turn!"
One time they asked for some noise.
"Noise!" the crowd shouted back.
Perfect.
Before the races begin, the cheerleaders conclude their performances by begging the crowd to join in karaoke songs with lyrics displayed on the huge scoreboard by the rifle range.
It's not a pretty sight, and not a pretty sound. I can just hear Simon Cowell scolding them.
Even Randy Jackson and Paula Abdul would have a hard time finding anything nice to say about the noise reverberating across these beautiful snowcapped mountains.
-- Arnie Stapleton
FRIDAY, Feb. 24, 12:45 p.m. local
TURIN, Italy
For the past few days I've been trying to keep up with the unfolding doping allegations involving the Austrian ski team at the Turin Olympics.
The bane of my existence on this beat has been trying to talk to the main prosecutor on the case -- Raffaele Guariniello, Italy's top anti-doping magistrate.
Guariniello has handled many high-profile cases, including the doping allegations against top Serie A soccer club Juventus, and he's a regular star-prosecutor on Italian press and television.
But for some reason he doesn't seem to be interested in talking to the foreign press.
His assistants inevitably claim he's out of the office, and he hasn't answered my messages, e-mails and faxes. He's avoided my (admittedly clumsy) attempts at staking him out at Turin's judicial offices, which must have something like six exits. And when I did meet him once at a press conference there, he didn't say a word.
So on Wednesday I listlessly called his office once again in a half-hearted attempt to confirm yet another little factoid in the ongoing investigation. But this time it wasn't a secretary who answered the phone.
"Siiiii?" went the nasal and very annoyed voice on the other end.
I had an epiphany: I just felt it, it had to be him. In near shock and in clear emotional turmoil, I stammered an introduction and asked if I was speaking to Mr. Guariniello.
"Yessss..." went the nasal and even more annoyed voice on the other end. "But I can't talk right now, I'm questioning somebody. Goodbye."
Click.
OK ... that went well.
-- Ariel David
