PLAYING ‘CATCH THE LUGER’
A popular game among the fans (and some journalists) at luge is to try to take a picture of them with your iPhone as they speed past. That is Jim Luttrell above trying to do the same. He’ll tell you he was successful, but I think he managed to get a toe in one of the frames. Four years ago in Vancouver, I was with Jonathan Abrams, a reporter from the Times who was trying it. I bet him a dinner that in 10 tries he couldn’t get any part of the luger’s body in the frame of his picture. I won that one. But I have to admit I owe John Branch a dinner because he nailed it last night.
MEET THE FOURTHERS
We have been working on a daily piece about athletes who come in fourth. You can find it here. It’s official title is shown at left, but we refer to it in the office as Meet the Fourthers, or just Fourthers. We usually pick an event or two a day and a reporter goes there with the sole purpose of interviewing the fourth place athlete. I have gone to a bunch of them to take the picture. Many are bummed but philosophical (Skiers, snowboarders), some just blow right past us and leave us empty handed (Russian biathlete, Korean speed skater). Last night’s was at luge relay. A pretty fun event that was packed with raucous fans. We were semi-relieved to see that the fourth-place team was Canada — no language issue. But we were unprepared for their reaction. It was gut-wrenching. They were devastated. Turns out this was the third time in four luge events (women’s singles, doubles and relays) that they came in fourth. In the words of John Branch who wrote the luge piece, “Combined, the three bronze medals were less than one second beyond the Canadians’ grasp.”
PUPPY LOVE
You’ve all heard about the stray dogs (many of which have disappeared since the bad press). But a small group of strays, including the puppies at left, that were hanging around the Gorki Media Center (GMC) in the mountains have been more or less adopted by the media —bringing them water and leftovers from the cafeteria. The puppies hang out near the bus stops outside the media center so they get lots of affection from the journalists waiting for the next bus.
EDITORS WEEP
No, it wasn’t a heartwarming rags to Olympic gold story. It was a grocery store! It is no accident that the dogs get a lot of leftovers from the media center cafeteria, official name: Food Court 1. No one should ever set the bar very high for the food they serve at these places. Institutional at best. But the food here at the GMC is remarkably bad.
But several days ago, the sports editor Jason Stallman made a discovery in the basement of the mall that is slowly opening, store by store. It has a fully operational, fully stocked grocery store. Just like your local Stop and Shop. He came into the office and told us what he found and all it had to offer. He finished his conversation by saying, “I nearly wept”.
Not 15 minutes later, Victor Mather, another Times editor came in to regale us with what he had found: a grocery store in the bottom floor of the mall. “I almost cried,” he said.
I am sure all of you have signed up for The Times’s Olympic newsletter, which gets delivered to your email inbox every morning. It’s a bit of a primer for the day. You can sign up here. Here are the first few words from this morning’s edition: “Let’s start with a quick introduction to Joe Ward . . .”
Eat at Joe’s 
Leave a Comment