POSTED: Thursday January 21st 2010
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Vancouver Vantage Point

Welcome to a column with commentary on the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver, February 12-28, Team USA, and the athletes and others who are part of this extraordinary event.

Mike Moran was the chief spokesman for the United States Olympic Committee through thirteen Games, 1980-2002.

January 19, 2010 #1

So, here we are again, the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Winter Games just days away, with 5,500 athletes and officials headed to Vancouver to chase their dreams in seven sports over 17 days before a worldwide television audience of three billion…......NBC will spread 835 hours of coverage of the Vancouver Olympics over five networks and its Olympic Web site, all of it in high definition….... it will be the most total hours ever for a Winter Olympics, and more than the last two Winter Games combined. Coverage starts with Opening Ceremonies on Feb. 12. In addition to NBC, programming will be on the USA Network, MSNBC, CNBC and Universal HD….........in Colorado Springs, you can prepare to spend your Olympic hours and days with KOAA-TV,NewsFirst 5/30….......just over 200 American athletes will make the journey to British Columbia to compete for glory at the venues in Vancouver and the slopes at Whistler, and once again, this team will be what we all thought would never be…...a winter sports power capable of winning the medals race, even on Canada’s home turf and ice…...the U.S. Olympic Team won an astonishing 34 medals in Salt Lake in 2002 to finish just behind Germany (36), and 25 in Torino in 2006, second to Germany’s 29….........the team the USOC and its National Governing Bodies will send to Canada will be a formidable assemblage of some of the best in the world….....like skier Lindsey Vonn, speedskaters Shani Davis, Chad Hedrick and Apollo Ohno, a pair of powerhouse ice hockey teams, veteran figure skaters Jeremy Abbott and Johnny Weir, and dazzling new faces like biathlete Tim Burke….......my first Olympic Winter Games opened thirty years ago in Lake Placid to much less fanfare, modest television coverage by comparison on ABC, and with an American team built largely around expectations of speedskaters Eric and Beth Heiden, skiers Phil Mahre and Cindy Nelson, and skaters Linda Fratianne and Tai Babilonia and Randy Gardner….... against a backdrop of tense Soviet-U.S. relations and the Iranian hostage crisis….....the Opening Ceremony took place on a chilly February afternoon in a converted equestrian field with temporary seating for 30,000, and it ended seventeen days later with a nation celebrating Eric Heiden’s five gold medals in five events, and the inspiring “Miracle On Ice,” by the 20 young men on the ice hockey team, a resounding, epic triumph by college players over the world’s most powerful hockey team, the dreaded USSR….........it was my first Olympic experience as the USOC’s new, 38-year-old press spokesman, and with my first team of press attaches that included sports information legends Fred Stabley (Michigan State), Bill Callahan (Missouri), Jim Mott (Wisconsin) and Jim Brock (Cotton Bowl)....all dead now, and others like Don Bryant (Nebraska) and current National Football Foundation President & CEO Steve Hatchell…....most memorable was the press conference that never happened after the historic win over the Soviets on February 22, when coach Herb Brooks not only refused to come to the high school press auditorium to talk about the game, but would not allow any of his players to do the same….....it was an unforgettable bad moment for me among more than some 1,500 press events over 25 years that I would be part of…... trust me, there were a lot of great ones…..that hockey team after the gold medal win over Finland, Heiden’s final session with the media after his fifth gold, Mary Lou Retton in Los Angeles, Florence Griffith Joyner in Seoul, Carl Lewis in Los Angeles, the 1992 Dream Team in Barcelona, Edwin Moses, Mary Decker Slaney, Matt Biondi,  Scott Hamilton, Bonnie Blair, Joan Benoit, Evelyn Ashford, Jackie Joyner Kersee, Greg Louganis, and scores of others who allowed me to share the podium and introduce them to writers and reporters after their golden moments….....in another ten days or so, my former colleague Bob Condron will be setting up the USOC media office in Vancouver, as he has done for every Olympic Games since 1984, and the truth be told, I will sort of be there in my head with him, as I always have been since leaving this behind in Salt Lake…......new USOC spokesman Patrick Sandusky will get the treat of introducing new CEO Scott Blackmun and Chair Larry Probst at the first major USOC media session, and I will know what’s going on inside Blackmun’s head and heart as he takes over a spot he should have had eight years ago….....I’ll know and feel the media scrums they will face, the late-night calls and demands for statements, the unforeseen moguls and bumps, but also the surprising and unexpected shining moments for the athletes, which is really the only thing that matters in all of this….....I hope you will be making your plans to enjoy all of this in your home, as well as those lucky few from our town heading to the Games to see it in person…......I’ll try to offer some insights with this column and send it your ways over those seventeen magical days in Canada.

Coming up:

Feb. 4- USA vs. Finland Women's Pre-Olympic Ice Hockey Game, World Arena, 7:00 p.m.

April 9-10- ISU World Synchronized Skating Championships, World Arena

May 10- Sports Corp Golf Tourney, Cheyenne Mountain Resort

June 27- 88th Pikes Peak International Hill Climb

June TBA- Sports Corp College Football Kickoff Luncheon

July 30-August 1- 2010 Rocky Mountain State Games

October 20- Colorado Springs Sports Hall Of Fame Banquet & Induction Ceremony, World Arena

# # #

Keywords · Mike Moran · Colorado Springs Sports Corporation

Name: Mike Moran
Organization: Colorado Springs Sports Corporation
Email:
Phone: (719) 634-7333, ext.1011
URL: http://www.thesportscorp.org

Please refer all questions to the company listed above issuing the press release. SFC will not be able to assist you with any inquiries and disclaims any content in these press releases.