L E T T E R F R O M T H E E D I T O R
Top U.S. skaters participate in Olympic Media Summit
Next month’s Grand Prix Final should give us
a better feel for which athletes will be named to their country’s Olympic team and, perhaps, solidify the medal contenders. But did you know that Team USA’s “Olympic season” actually started before the fi rst Grand Prix Series event in Detroit? In early October, 14 U.S. Figure Skating
athletes were among the 100-plus athletes in- vited to attend the U.S. Olympic Committee’s Team USA Media Summit in Park City, Utah. With more than 350 members of the media in attendance, the event was a blur of activities. Figure skaters joined biathletes, bobsledders,
curlers, hockey players, lugers, skiers, snowboarders, speedskaters and Paralympians in a controlled fren- zy of press conferences, photo sessions and TV inter- views strewn across two major resort properties. “It was just go, go, go all day,” U.S. silver medal-
ist Gracie Gold said. “My longest break was about 30 minutes. I had a little lunch break and then I was still a minute late to another [interview]. People are just zipping around, taking pictures, writing notes, ask- ing questions.” It was a regular “Who’s Who” of Winter Games
stars. Those rushing through the halls of the Grand Summit Conference Center ranged from skiing gold medalist Bode Miller to 2010 London Games track gadabout Lolo Jones, who is trying to make the Olympic bobsled team. And there, amid all the muscle and hustle,
were two faces that stopped even the most accom- plished athletes in their tracks: Michelle Kwan and Kristi Yamaguchi. Kwan, the most-decorated athlete in U.S. Fig-
ure Skating history, and Yamaguchi, the 1992 Olym- pic champion, were working the other side of the camera, attending the Summit as journalists. “Some of the people wandering around were
amazing,” Olympic pairs hopeful John Coughlin said. “We were rushing to get somewhere, and I spotted Michelle Kwan in the lobby. I just stopped what I was doing and said, ‘Michelle, hi. I’m going to give you a hug now.’ Then I went about my way. I wasn’t going to miss that moment.” Kwan attended the Summit as a TV analyst for
FOX Sports 1. In that role, she had intimate sit-down interviews with Meryl Davis and Charlie White, Ash-
FOX Sports 1’s Michelle Kwan interviews Meryl Davis and Charlie White.
ley Wagner, Max Aaron, Jeremy Abbott and Gracie Gold.
Over the two-day period, a stream of athletes
sat in high-backed chairs on the FOX set, their re- spect for Kwan was palpable. Even the highly pol- ished team of Davis and White seemed humbled. In the middle of the interview, Kwan told the ice danc- ers, “You know, so many people look up to you as role models.” The compliment seemed incomprehensible
to White, who burst out, “Michelle Kwan? Calling us role models?” It was a pinch-me moment for the two- time World champions. Yamaguchi’s role at the Summit was a bit more
playful. As the Sochi 2014 digital ambassador for USOC’s
TeamUSA.org site, she mingled freely with a camera crew from athlete to athlete, was lifted and held horizontally by the men’s bobsled team and tried her hand at the Paralympic sport of sled hock- ey. (To see Yamaguchi’s Summit experience, go to
www.teamusa.org/Road-to-Sochi-2014/Fea- tures/2013/October/02/Behind-The-Scenes-At- Team-USA-Media-Summit). For the majority of Team USA skaters, it was
their fi rst opportunity to participate in the Media Summit. Much of the information gathered will be used in the run-up to the 2014 Olympic Winter Games, which were never far from anyone’s mind. “The Media Summit was so incredible and so
exciting,” ice dancer Maia Shibutani said. “It really brought into mind that the Olympics are coming and that this is a really important year.” “This was such an awesome experience,” 2010
Olympian Caydee Denney said. “Just to be surround- ed by all this Olympic energy and the feeling of the Olympics is amazing. I’m so excited to be here be- cause it just seems like a goal that everyone here is talking about. It’s like the Games are in front of your face. It’s so close!” Echoed reigning U.S. champion pairs skater
Simon Shnapir, “It’s truly a privilege to be around so many other Olympic hopefuls. This is a lifetime expe- rience.”
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4 NOVEMBER 2013
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