LONDON—On Day 4 of covering my first Olympic Games, I got tapped on the shoulder to cover Canada’s ultimately unsuccessful bid to win a medal in women’s gymnastics.
The U.S. had just won gold and I booked it to the mixed zone, where Team Canada and athletes from other countries were herded for post-competition interviews. Cell phone in my teeth, elbows up, I shoved slow walkers to the wayside.
I didn’t need to be quite so aggressive, but I’m not a sports reporter (yet) and my only other experience in a mixed zone had been a day earlier at road race cycling. That had been a bloodbath, like a journalistic Hunger Games, where huge, mostly male British reporters stampeded to the fence in a battle for the best quote. I took a tripod to the gut as the mob sucked me in, rolled me around, then chucked me out, disoriented and immobile just as the Canadian Ryder Hesjedal walked by.
I would not make the same mistake at gymnastics.
“Move!” I yelled at the polite, smiling volunteers who blocked the hallway.
I almost made it.
But a half-dozen men and I collided. One in a black suit stepped in front of me, arms up, legs wide, face unattractive: “Stop right there.”
Usain Bolt
Usain Bolt
Usain Bolt
Usain Bolt
Usain Bolt
Usain Bolt
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