I woke up early this morning, I must be getting ready for those early mornings at the Glacier! Only a couple of days to go now and I will be hot footing my way back across the pond! It has been great here but I have definitely had enough now!

Anyway enough of my moaning, what have we in store today? Its Speed Skating and the Gala. First up is the men’s 10,000 meters, what an earth posses someone to skate 10,000 meters? It take 16 minutes and at the end they are foaming at the mouth and cant walk! Actually it is an amazing event, these guys skate so consistently throughout the race it is unbelievable. I cant imagine traveling that fast on a pair of skates, the feeling must be amazing!

It was no breakfast for me today, I went to the IBC on the bus with Michel Drouhard. Michel is one of my French colleagues and I have known him since I started working for Eurosport in Paris about 12 years ago. I think it was he who introduced me to red wine during an evening I will never forget. He invited several of us around to his flat on the outskirts of Paris for some wine tasting and nibbles only as the French can do. As I remember there were about a dozen of us and he started the evening by bringing out a bottle of wine and telling a story about where it was made, how it was made, who made it and how long it took them etc. This went on all evening and the quality of the wine improved as the evening went on. I think we ended with a Grand Cru that was like velvet. So as you can see Michel likes his wine and knows a thing about it too!

p1

 

 

As we trundled our way through Turin it wasn’t long before our conversation turned to wine. He gave me some great wines to look out for in the States and tips of where to get them. Unfortunately the Gala this evening will be his last broadcast for Eurosport as he feels he has come to point where he cant contribute to the program and doesn’t enjoy it any more. It’s a real shame because he is a class act and a real gentleman in every sense of the word, I will miss him.

Put your hankies away, I’ve got the speed skating to do now. This is one of the hardest programs you can do, just imagine two people on the ice for 16 minutes skating in circles against the clock, its always a challenge and I love it!

We went on air for half an hour live for pairs two and three, it was lucky because the eventual winner was in this part of the race. Bob de Jong skated a PB and was the early leader. After his race we went across to the ice hockey so I had a break for an hour or so and then it was live for the last half of the last race. Boy it was exciting, Chad Hedrick is the world record holder and was favorite for this race and was just outside the time of de Jong with six laps to go. He eventually faded and finished a couple of seconds behind the Dutchman who really was flying this afternoon.

 

 

p2

 

 

When I got off air Simon told me that our ratings for the ladies free were the best ever for a program that went head to head live with the BBC. There are a lot of smiling faces around the Eurosport office, with many Frenchmen walking around with their chests out.

I got a ride to the ice rink with Ziggy, thank goodness because it was chucking it down outside. The Gala was great even though the ladies didn’t skate that well. I think it is always difficult for them because they have only just finished their event and have no time to come back down to earth.

The highlight was definitely Plushenko, when he was called out in the finale he did triple axel, triple toe, triple loop combination and this was after skating for more than seven minutes in his exhibition. What a Star!

After the gala we got a taxi back and Joan, Simon and I had a nice Italian meal in a restaurant close to the media village. It was great, good food, good wine and lovely company!

p3