Basically [November 27, 2008] was a one on one interview then a 4 hour orientation.  At the beginning they brought out one of the official Olympic torches from the Torino games and you had to hold it while you introduced yourself.  Seems I’ll be helping in one of the skiing sports but I have to wait till they send me an offer which can be as late as summer ’09 but apparently will be much sooner as they want me to help with the Freestyle World Cup in February ’09, but nothing is official.

The orientation was info on the expectations of a volunteer and a lot of team building exercises but no training. We did get a cool looking information binder that explains a lot more. We also got a sticker and a pin.

I sent you a picture of the binder, sticker and pin as well as the welcome letter and periodically I’ll send you scans of key pages from the binder.

I’ll let you know if and/or when I get an offer from them.

I am very happy to have a connection on the inside of the Olympics, but I really do wish that it was me.  If the 2016 Olympics make it to Chicago, I’ll be one of the first to volunteer.

The International Olympic Committee can’t put a Band-Aid on this financial cut: Johnson & Johnson passed on the chance to renew its lucrative global sponsorship deal.

The IOC confirmed Monday that the health care conglomerate would not renew its top-level sponsorship worth up to $100 million as first reported by Sports Business Journal.

“Our sponsorship of the International Olympic Committee concludes at the end of 2008 and will not be renewed,” Johnson & Johnson spokeswoman Lorie Gawreluk e-mailed.

China, with more than 1 billion residents and a burgeoning consumer marketplace, was a major draw for most sponsors. The next two games are in Canada and the United Kingdom — mature economies that combined have about a tenth of the population of China.

For the Beijing Games, Johnson & Johnson manufactured its signature adhesive bandages with Olympic mascots on them and set up a pavilion for fans to come see terra-cotta warriors from the time of emperor Qin Shi Huang — though overzealous security on the Olympic Green kept many away.

Read the rest of the article here.

Worldwide Olympic sponsors are allowed to use the copyrighted Olympic name & logos in their advertising anywhere in the world.  But it comes with a pretty high price.   The Beijing games had 12 Worldwide sponsors, including Visa, McDonalds, and Coke.  The IOC already has agreements with 9 companies to be worldwide sponsors for the Vancouver games, including Panasonic and Samsung.  TV rights, mostly from NBC, will provide approximately another $2.5 billion.

Countdown clock located in downtown Vancouver

I was just contacted by a friend of mine, who just so happens to live in Vancouver, and he just so happens to be in the middle of the application process to become a volunteer at the Olympics.  And if that wasn’t cool enough, he offered to be an inside contact man for me!  As he goes through the interview process and hopefully getts selected to work at the Games, he is going to give me step by step updates so I can report them back to you!  We should be able to get lots of good inside information from him, with pictures!

Here is what he’s told me so far about how the application process works:
The first step I did was register here.  That was about four months ago. Two weeks ago they contacted me and did a short phone interview and two days ago I was emailed to register for the orientation meeting.  It’ll be six hours where I’ll undergo a face to face interview that lasts an hour to find out where they will place me and then they go over all the stuff.  That’s on the 27th (of November).

I’m pretty sure volunteers get a lot of cool stuff including uniforms so I’ll send pics of all the loot I get.

Sounds to me like our guy is a shoo-in.  I’m excited for him, and look forward to getting another update from him.

The drug that got American skeleton racer Zach Lund barred from the Turin Olympics hours before the opening ceremony is being removed from the World Anti-Doping Agency’s banned list.  Lund tested positive for finasteride, an ingredient in a popular hair-restoration pill that also was believed to be capable of masking steroid usage. It was prohibited in 2005, but after further study showed athletes gain no tangible advantage from the drug, it will be removed from WADA’s banned list on Jan. 1.

Lund served a one-year suspension and could not race in Turin, where he would have been a gold-medal favorite.

“When it happened, I said they would make this legal in a year or two, because that’s what WADA does,” Lund said in Lake Placid, where he’s training for the upcoming World Cup season. “They put stuff on the banned list without any scientific proof saying why. They’re not held accountable. It’s not like I’m getting a ‘Sorry we took the Olympics away from you. Sorry we almost ruined your career.’”

Read the rest of the article here.

Yeah, this would stink for Lund.  But I find it hard to believe that he didn’t know that the drug was considered to be a masking agent.  He also should have known that the stuff he was using to battle his baldness contained the banned substance.  If I was an Olympian, I would obsess about what I was putting in (and on) my body and I would make sure that nothing would keep me from participating.  You would think that Lund would have had a trainer who would have made it part of his job to keep track of things like that.

Cost of families to see Games covered by Petro-Canada

Johanne and Jean-Pierre Monette of Montreal have never seen their speed-skating sons Marc-Andre and Jean-Francois compete at any major competition.
They weren’t there when Jean-Francois skated in the 2002 Salt Lake Winter Olympics, or when their sons traveled to Europe for short-track speed skating championships.
Instead, they put all their money into making sure the two boys could compete, knowing that they could always watch them on television or see a video later.
“When we are not there with them, it is always heartbreaking, but they do call home,” Johanne Monette said.
All of that will change for the Monettes and the immediate families of all Canadian Olympic and Paralympic athletes who compete at the 2010 Games.

Read the rest of the article here.

This program will cost $3 million for Petro-Canada, but I think it’s a great move.  Petro-Canada is one of the corporate sponsors of the Vancouver Games, so the company will be receiving free tickets anyway.  They will simply pass on these tickets to the family members of the Olympic athletes.  Meals and 4 days in a Vancouver hotel will be provided for two family members of each Canadian athlete.

The Beijing Olympics ended a month ago and still, not a single American athlete has been reported for a positive doping test.

A reason to celebrate? Not quite at the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, where good news — all news, really — is looked upon skeptically, and bigger goals are always out there.

“I think there’s a premium to one day being able to show that someone can potentially prove they’re clean instead of just saying they passed a drug test,” USADA’s CEO Travis Tygart said in an interview with The Associated Press. “That’s the ultimate dream.”

That dream will come at a cost and might not be realistic. The most logical way of reaching it would be for USADA to vastly expand its pilot testing program, the regimen that 12 American athletes, including Michael Phelps and Allyson Felix, signed up for before the Beijing Olympics.

Read the rest of the article here.

I don’t know if it will ever be possible to have an Olympics that is completely free of performance enhancing drugs.  There will always be someone that is trying to cheat.  But I think we are getting closer and closer to controling the problems and making the games as fair for everyone as possible.

Statue of the Olympic Rings

Someone recently mentioned liking the Winter Olympics better than the Summer Olympics. I thought it would be interesting to see how others felt about it. So tell us what you think….

Summer Olympic events -

Archery, Athletics (Track & Field), Badminton, Baseball, Basketball, Beach Volleyball, Boxing, Canoe/Kayak Flatwater, Canoe/Kayak Slalom, Cycling BMX, Cycling Mountain Bike, Cycling Road, Cycling Track, Diving, Equestrian, Fencing, Football, Gymnastics Artistic, Gymnastics Rhythmic, Trampoline, Handball, Field Hockey, Judo, Modern Pentathlon, Rowing, Sailing, Shooting, Softball, Swimming, Synchronized Swimming, Table Tennis, Taekwondo, Tennis, Triathlon, Volleyball, Water Polo, Weightlifting, Wrestling

Winter Olympic events -

Alpine skiing, Biathlon, Bobsleigh, Cross-country skiing, Curling, Figure skating, Freestyle skiing, Ice hockey, Luge, Nordic combined, Short track speed skating, Skeleton, Ski jumping, Snowboarding, Speed skating

So leave me a comment and tell me what you think!

But there are moments that the Olympians hope won’t be remembered:

I’m always thrilled by the passions of the spectators and the skill of the athletes at the games. I can just imagine what it would mean to each athlete to be at the Olympic games. They dedicate their lives to their sport, so to be recognized world wide as being one of the best in your sport would be an amazing thing indeed. And then the patriotism involved in winning a gold metal for your country would be overwhelming.

I wish I was an Olympic athelete.