We Screwed Up

Today, we knew was another big day. We had the Men's Team Pursuit final, the Women's Points Race, and a lot of sprint qualifying. When they put the schedule up of who was going where, I was frightened, because I saw my name up there...a lot. The two medals mixed zones and the two press conferences after those events. I was going to be busy. I was looking at the list and commented on having to be in a few places at once. Amy told me that I was their go-to guy.

Scary, I know.

First up was the Points Race. With the PR, the women ride 100 laps (no that's not a typo) and then, every 10 laps, they sprint. The people who win the top four spots from each sprinted lap get points. The person with the most points wins.

Early on, within a few laps, there was a huge crash. We're pretty sure it was no one's fault, just two bikes running into each other. But, nonetheless, in the aftermath, USA's Sarah Hammer was holding her collarbone (broken collarbones are the most common cycling injuries) and Trine Schmidt, a 20-year-old rider from Denmark who I interviewed during training, was down. Trine got back up...Hammer, obviously, didn't.

So, after the race, when Marianne Vos from the Netherlands had won, saving the Netherlands Cycling Team from being a complete failure at these games (just Google Theo Bos...if the word overrated doesn't show up on your screen ten times, it should be considered a surprise), I waited around to see if I could talk to Trine, since she was involved directly in the crash and lived to tell about it (I still don't know how Hammer is). After she got done with a really long interview with all of the Danish press, she saw me and remembered me. The medals ceremony was about to start and neither of us could go anywhere once it started so we had this really long interview, which was awesome. She showed me where the crash and fall had BURNED THROUGH HER SUIT and gave her this nasty raspberry and these scratches all over her arms. It was crazy.

Then, I hit up the PR press conference. The bronze medalist didn't show up. This has been a very common thing: people not showing up for the press conferences. The most common excuse is that they have to go to Doping Control. I wish I could write more about what the athletes go through, but all I can give you is the quote I got from Great Britain Cycling GOD Chris Hoy today:

"It took two hours. It was really unorganized and very unprofessional. When you're competing on a world stage you expect it to be a little more organized than that. I didn't get to eat until half past eleven, and I had a race the next day."

Really, what more is there to say about that?

Anyway, we had the press conference and then went back up for the Men's Team Pursuit. Great Britain broke the record that they set last night. I was actually taking down Hoy's quotes while watching him watch his teammates. He kept telling us, "They're going to break it. They're on pace." It was pretty awesome.

Things were going perfectly. We went back down, and Lauren and I dominated the TP press conference. And, by dominate, I mean we were the only two people who asked the silver medalist Denmark team any questions in English. Seriously, the DANISH PRESS was sitting in the front row...and they didn't say a word. Not even a Danish word. Ticked me off.

It was all going well...

...until we screwed up.

To be honest, it wasn't really our fault. And I say we because, even though I had no part in it, we're a team and it's everyone who screwed up.

There was some confusion at the end of the day about one quote from the GB TP team and who said it. It was attributed to one guy, but probably said by the other. The problem was, we figured out, was that they switched numbers. Every cyclist has a number, a number that is put on all of our start lists for each event. In a team mixed zone, you have some sort of idea about who's who, but most of the time you're talking to team member X and have no idea what the person's name is.

In that situation, as we were told during our training, you do a couple of things.

1. Listen for the journalists. A lot of times, they will throw the athlete's name into the beginning of a question. If you can hear the name and match it to the start list, you have whoever is speaking.

2. Look at their number. You can see the number, match it to the list and you're good to go.

Unless cyclists have switched numbers.

And that HAS to be what happened here. Has to be. I poorly took a couple of quotes from one of the guys in question (later, when I went backstairs to put them in, they were the same as quotes that had already been put in, so I didn't bother) and thought that he was guy X until the press conference, when I realized he was guy Y.

So, all of that confusion, the retraction and the correction and all of the sense of failure that came with it put a damper on what was otherwise an awesome day.

Oh, and before I go, I thought I would go through the rest of the week I have left here. Some people I've been talking to from home have been curious.

TUESDAY- BMX & Mountain Bike Training; Men's Madison, Women's Sprint, Men's Sprint
WEDNESDAY- BMX Seeding (Probably done by 2 p.m.)
THURSDAY- BMX Semis and Finals (Probably done by 1 p.m.)
FRIDAY- Women's Mountain Biking
SATURDAY- Men's Mountain Biking (LAST DAY OF WORK)
SUNDAY- Day Off and Closing Ceremonies
MONDAY- Day Off
TUESDAY- Flight Home