It truly is raining medals here in Vancouver!
Team USA is keeping us busy with all of the gold, silver and bronze they’re collecting. It has been CRAZY. Crazy busy, crazy fun, crazy press conferences, crazy scheduling, crazy exciting. Those of us in the Managing Victory camp are pretty exhausted, and we’re only halfway through!
It’s all kind of a blur, so let’s see what I can remember.
Wednesday was just nuts. We had six U.S. medals in one day, which is more than Team USA has ever done at the Olympic Winter Games in one day – Vonn (gold), White (gold), Davis (gold), Mancuso (silver), Lago (bronze) and Hedrick (bronze). That’s as many as we won throughout the entire Games in Calgary in 1988!
So Managing Victory was in full force.
Up in the mountains, our team had Lindsey Vonn and Julia Mancuso run through all of their in-venue media obligations, then got them in a teleconference for writers down here in Vancouver and in a press conference outside of the venue for non-rights holding TV, then to their medal ceremony, a victory ceremony at the U.S. Ski Team house, AND got them in-studio for the Today Show, which sent Matt Lauer on the two-hour trek just for that one 10 minute interview. Making all of this happen is pretty fantastic considering the girls had to compete again the very next morning.
Down in Vancouver, we had Team USA’s first 1-3 at the speedskating Oval with Shani Davis and Chad Hedrick. This was the second event I made it to, and it was well worth it to see the pure joy that Shani had written all over his face! He looked like a little kid, grinning ear-to-ear, giving everyone high fives, looking for Americans in the crowd to celebrate with. He and Chad had some very public feuds at the 2006 Games, and here they are much more mature and friendly, although guarded around each other as well.
Afterwards we had each of them transported to the Main Press Center for press conferences, although Shani’s condition was that he be separate from Chad, rather than hosting a joint-presser. Still, even just getting him here was a feat, as he never would have done this for us in 2006. The media was ecstatic.
And then we had the Flying Tomato do his thing (though he doesn’t like that name anymore – gives you a glimpse into his more high-maintenance, image-conscience side), and Scottie Lago won the bronze. Even though it was crazy late, and Shaun spent 30 minutes in the bathroom once he got here, we were able to get them to the MPC for a press conference as well.
It was a late, late night, but pretty satisfying. So on Thursday, only Shaun and Scottie went through the NBC gauntlet, because the other four have more events to go. I was able to sit in on Shaun’s interview with Bob Costas, which was much more tame than the night before, but still, and as always, pretty dynamic.
I worked quite a bit with Shaun’s publicist on the media frenzy he had ahead, but then he was not only invited to go on Oprah’s live show today, she provided a private jet to get him out of here and to her set. So needless to say the plans changed quite a bit!
I was also working with the Oprah show this week, because we were going to do a large Olympics segment for her live show today from Vancouver – she goes live every Friday. We were bringing many of our U.S. medalists up to the Today Show set on Grouse Mountain to do a live remote with her. But then Oprah changed her mind, as I guess Oprah can do, and instead decided to go only with Shaun in Chicago and a Skype with Vonn in Whistler. Our other medalists were super bummed! But, there is a chance Oprah will be back in the mix next week for her Friday Live show.
So just as things were getting under control, Thursday’s U.S. medalists started popping up! Thursday brought four: Lysacek (gold), Teter (silver), Mancuso (silver again) and Clark (bronze). I made it up to the halfpipe for the women’s event, which was a blast, and also very chilly…
So on Thursday, Julia once again went through all of her media stops up in Whistler, and we got the halfpipe ladies here to the MPC late-night for their second round of media.
We had to make a judgment call on Lysacek, because the earliest we would have had him to the MPC was 1:00 am. Some of the media really wanted to get him last night, and we were fearful he’d get lost behind the Tiger Woods press conference if we waited, but our press conference room was losing bodies as the clock ticked.
So… we decided to hold him until this morning, which is always chancy because the athlete typically hasn’t slept yet at this point, going from their event to their celebration to the Today Show. But it all worked out; the room was absolutely packed for him this morning, and he was dynamite. Right now he’s at NBC going from interview to interview there, and hopefully he’ll have the chance to sleep a bit this evening.
And as for today, Friday, up in Whistler Bode has already won a silver and U.S. skier Andrew Weibrecht the bronze, so our colleagues are off and running with them.
He was being picked up by NBC at 2:00 pm at the Village, and at 1:50 pm we got a text that he would be ready at 2:30 and at a different location. Mind you, this is for a 3:00 pm LIVE interview. When the car showed up, he went out and said he wasn’t ready yet because he was doing his hair and make-up, and left the car waiting until 2:45 pm. NBC was NOT happy. I actually think he’s playing a character though, because he's really quite a nice and polite guy, but the cameras of his reality TV show were probably catching it all. Goodness.
For the most part, I finally have a little breathing room today!
Go Team USA! We're at 20 medals and I'm sure there's plenty more Managing Victory to come. We'll be ready!
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