Day Seventeen #1 - Jasey Jay Anderson and Men's Curling Team

This morning (though it feels like forever ago) Jasey Jay Anderson and the Men's Curling Team was at the Media Centre for a press conference.

Jasey Jay Anderson is also a blueberry farmer (who knew?) and enjoys farming because he creates something. Anderson said that as an athlete you mostly focus on yourself, and being a farmer brings him peace. Jasey Jay seemed to be incredibly calm for someone who had just won gold. He also had a good sense of humor, when he stood up for photos and was asked to look this way and that, to lift up his medal, etc, he said "dance monkey dance". Hilarious.

The Men's Curling Team was really cool, and very excited about their accomplishment. They said that curlers are now taking fitness seriously, because the unfit curlers are getting beaten by the fit curlers. They also said that they find the insane and loud fans encouraging, as apposed to distracting, as some would think.

This is the first post of a few for today, so keep reading!

Day Sixteen - Media Centre Awesomeness

Today was awesome. First, at 10:30am I attended the press conference featuring the Canadian Short Track Speed-skating team. They were all very cool, and proudly wore their Canada jackets and gold medals. They answered questions in both English and French, and since my French is very primitive, I only understood the English. The conference was a very cool experience, and it was awesome to be that close to our champions!

Later on, at 1pm the Women's Curling Team, who placed silver, came, answered questions and was available for interviews and pictures (see earlier post for interview, see above for pics). They were also very cool, and seemed to remember that they were Olympics rookies, and getting to silver was an incredible achievement on their part.

After leaving the Media Centre, I joined Samaah, Veronika, Cheyenne, Lisa, Dezmond, Hannah and Christina from VANOC at the VANOC headquarters, and collected up all the extra pins, stickers, postcards, and posters, which we then took downtown and gave out to accepting, and sometimes swarming crowds. I managed to score two Moscow 1980 pins, and I picked up two Apple pins from the Apple Store at Pacific Centre.

That was basically my day, and a very good one at that.

Interview with Susan O'Connor

The audio is messed up, so here's the dialogue:

Lauren: Most of the medals of these Games have been won by female athletes. What do you think about that?

Susan O'Connor: I think it's really good. It's really important for girls to see women being really successful in sport. You see a lot of men playing basketball, baseball, hockey, so it's exciting to see women competing and winning just as much as the men.

Lauren: What advice do you have athletes who are just starting out and are trying to make it to the Olympics?

Susan O'Connor: I think the major thing is finding something that you really enjoy doing, because even once you do get to that higher level where it's more serious you do still have to enjoy it, especially when that pressure starts.