Welcome to my 2008 Olympic blog! I guess the best way to go about something like this is to give a little background info on myself for those of you reading this who may not know me, that way when I start posting my real blog entries, I can be myself and talk about things that matter to me without having to worry about people wondering how all of this started. First, the most general: I'm 21 years old and about to start my senior year at Syracuse University, where I'm studying broadcast journalism in the Newhouse School of Communications. I've been a competitive swimmer for as long as I can remember and I now swim for the D1 team at SU. It has been a (mostly) successful 3 years of school and swimming thus far, and I know that this chapter of my life is preluding many bigger and better things in my future.
Sports have always held a special place in my heart, and I am a die-hard New England sports fan (born and raised, what can I say?), but swimming is about to be the main theme of this blog, so be forewarned. The sport has given me everything I have ever hoped or expected it would: a healthy heart, a powerful dedication to hard work, recognition of my accomplishments on many levels, my ticket to an outstanding school studying a field that I am truly passionate about, and finally, as of December of this past year, my dream internship.The road to this internship actually started way back in September, when I heard that NBC was coming to Newhouse to conduct interviews for internship positions at the Beijing Games. I think it's safe to bet that I was probably one of the first people in my career development center to pick up an application the day they were released; I was so excited I could barely contain myself. Shortly after, I had my interview with the NBC Olympic committee and was sitting tight to hear any kind of response back from them for the next month.
It wasn't until early October that I was in the locker room after swim practice one afternoon and my cell phone rang, which was unusual because cell phones don't normally get reception in the locker rooms. I looked at the number and didn't recognize it, so I decided to just answer it quickly, expecting it to be a wrong number and bad reception wouldn't matter anyway because the call would have no reason to be longer than 10 seconds. I answered, and heard a man's voice on the other end of the phone asking if he had the right person. I assured him that it was, in fact, me that he was talking to, and then I heard, "Hi Dani, this is Bob Costas calling..." Let's just say it was not a graceful exit I made from the locker room in my manic rush to an area with better reception (I nearly knocked myself out on an open locker, before proceeding to wipe out half the girls on my team on the slippery locker room floor). So I ended up sitting in the freezing cold lobby of the athletic building, bathing suit still dripping wet on me, a towel thrown over my shoulders in a rush, talking to the one and only Bob Costas, who had somehow gotten a hold of my internship application and wanted to hear more about the classes I was taking and the experience I had with swimming. God knows I had tons to talk about!
I raced back into the locker room after hanging up my phone, changed in such a rush that people probably thought there was a fire somewhere, called my mom in hysterical tears of excitement, then raced back to my apartment to call everyone I knew. It wasn't until December, though, that I received my confirmation e-mail that I had gotten a position as an intern at the 2008 Games.
Now yes, it obviously would be exciting for any college student to land this internship, anyone at all actually, but for someone like me who's been swimming for the past 16 years of my life, this is quite literally a dream come true. When you grow up idolizing the likes of Lenny Krayzelburg, Jenny Thompson and Amanda Beard, and you read books on Olympic athletes' experiences and journeys to success the way some people read romance or mystery novels, this is it. For me, this is 16 years of discipline, determination, hard work, tears, strict diets, sacrificing a normal woman's body to have the broad shoulders and thunder thighs that "make you faster", thousands of dollars in racing suits and hotel rooms and caps and goggles and sandles, all of it finally paying off in a bigger way than I had ever realistically imagined. I know that every 6-year-old who gets on those starting blocks at a swim meet for the first time is forever plagued with dreams of standing on that top Olympic podium from that very first moment, but a very few number of people ever actually make it there. In my mind, I've made it.
Instead of competing (which really became an unrealistic goal long ago -- college swimming was as far as I had ever even had the desire to go), I get to help with something that I love and something that is going to be so much bigger than me that it will be nothing short of inspiring. The coverage and broadcasts of these Olympics are going to be the most intense yet, with every NBC affiliate showing some or all of the sports, new Web features and updates, streaming video...the possibilities are endless with all of the new technologies at hand. And to be honest, I will be happy even serving coffee for the people who do all of this! I admire the work so much and I am hoping to learn as much as I possibly can, while at the same time getting the experience of a lifetime that so many swimmers dream about. Being in the presence of such outstanding athletes all around me, all brought together for one common purpose, is going to be jaw-dropping. Even watching the swimming trials on TV this week is making me want to cry because I still can't quite believe that I will get to be in Beijing for all of it. The commercials with video clips of all the sports that show the Olympic rings at the end give me chills. I leave on the morning of Friday, July 25th, and until then I am just awaiting my final mailing with my NBC credentials, more details on my position and the venue I will be located at, and everything else I need to know before I depart. I'll be in China until August 27th, and I'm hoping to keep a consistently updated blog for the duration of my journey. Until I leave, I'll most likely be leaving weekly updates on the process of getting ready to go and any new details I find out along the way. That is, if I can subdue my excitement for a long enough time to write what I hope will be a few slightly intelligent and insightful blogs!
I hope that people will come away from reading my future stories with a new appreciation for Olympic sports and simply the understanding that this is something that I am so passionate about that I want to share it with as many people as I can. So until the good stuff really starts, enjoy!
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