Steve Dilbeck: Arrivederci, Italy
They’re packing up in Sestriere media mini-hub, carrying out copy and fax machines. All the volunteers and staff are hugging and kissing each other goodbye. Writers you’ve seen 18 hours a day, come over to shake your hand and wish you save passage home.
In the mountain’s main media venue, one that is normally packed with over 300 writers and photographers, there are four others in here still working.
The Olympics don’t wind down, they come to an almost screeching halt.
This has easily been the most difficult of my six Olympics. There seemed a dearth of good stories. I was on the mountain the entire
time, fighting missing buses, freezing temperatures and a hotel that would not allow you to sleep __ Saturday night the bar beneath it had a Brazilian stripper and the place rocked until 4 a.m.
Italy was OK with its Olympics, but never really got into it. Was unable to ever make it feel special, even Italian. We could have been in any subzero location on Earth.
Turin was a major disappointment, but a little research could have told me it was basically the Detroit of Italy, only with more graffiti and a mountain backdrop that was almost never visible through the smog and constant gray clouds.
Would I do it all again? Yeah, sure. Odds are it won’t be like this again. If my long-time colleague, Paul Oberjuergue, and I are fortunate enough to be alive and invited to cover the Vancouver Winter Olympics in 2010, hope to be there.
One thing: If the mountain venues are going to be two or three hours away from the city again, Paul’s in the mountains.
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