domenica 3 dicembre 2017

Winter Olympics in Turin (2006)

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Let's not talk about the football World Cup, it's better. Let's talk about the Winter Olympics: the 2018 ones are approaching, Arianna Fontana has been appointed flag carrier. I will not go to Pyeongchang: too complicated. Information is not easy to find, I did not even find a schedule, let alone information  on accomodation.

My first Winter Olympics experience was Turin 2006, the second week: beside being close to home, I did not even have accommodation problems, as my parents in law lived nearby. Not very close, however: it was northeast of Turin, while the Olympic sites were west. For mountain races I left the car at Pinerolo or Oulx and took the shuttles, for those in town I left it in some parking and I used the urban transport.


It has been said so much about the success of these Olympics and how they represented a relaunch for the city. As a common spectator, I definitely agree, but I noticed just on defect: it was all calibrated on a spectator who attended one race a day. In fact, if one had taken litterally the instructions in the manual, it would have been impossible to watch more than one: they suggested to arrive three hours in advance! Actually, it was not necessary at all, indeed in many races, if someone had done it, he would be bored a lot. An hour was more than enough for all races: entry controls required some time, but not more than half an hour. I lost a bit more time if I wore a knee pad: the metal detector rang. 


I paid the consequences of this setting especially on the first day: I had tickets for cross-country and then for biathlon. The break was a couple of hours, which seemed more than enough to move from Pragelato to Sansicario, there had to be a shuttle going through the valley all day long. After the cross-country, however, all coaches were for those going back to town and for one in the other direction I had to wait for more than an hour, together with the other people who had the same idea, about ten. Eventually I missed the women's race and managed to see only the men's one (they were the two pursuit races).

Another sign of this mentality was that in the manual there were indications to reach the venues from so many places, but not from other venues. Once I have struggled a lot to find an arena starting from another one, in a pre-smarthone and pre-Google Maps.

The other invention of these Olympics was the Medal Plaza. Now they all have all one, even small events. For me it was not easy to go and watch it, I would have preferred traditional ceremonies.

I have seen many sports: not luge, as it was in the first week, and also not figure skating, where the tickets were expensive and already scarce when I bought them, 9 months earlier. But we'll talk about single races next time.

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