 |
| This Just In: Dreams Do Come True Our Cub Reporter Gets a Press Pass Main Accreditation Center, 15th IAAF World Track and Field Championships, Beijing |
There’s something about the last Friday in May.
This year, Friday, May 29, was 40 years ago to the day
since I had brought my camera to a track meet at the University of Oregon, one
of only two times I brought it in my first 5 years of meets at Hayward Field.
As Steve Prefontaine and Frank Shorter warmed down after
the 5,000m, I took a snapshot of the two of them, likely around 8:30pm. It may
well be the last photo ever taken of Prefontaine in a competitive setting. Four
hours later, Pre died in a car accident.
In this, my second year of writing trackerati, I decided it was time to start applying for press passes.
To test the waters, yes, but much more for the access a pass gives you to the
athletes. I was eager to fill out my stories with their voices more clearly
heard.
I was delighted with positive responses from the Prefontaine
Classic (IAAF) and US Nationals (USATF); the Pre Classic media people wrote
back to say, “Who are you? What are you doing?”
I tried for the Olympics and
World Championships as well; the Olympics application lasted about two weeks.
From Beijing, in spite of the fact that they had adhered
rigorously to their application timetable at first, the LOC (Local Organizing
Committee) of this year’s World Championships fell oddly silent. Their notification
deadline blew by, and hope of this dream coming true anytime soon slipped away.
I don’t usually check my email right before I go to work,
but with a flight to Eugene and its fabled “Distance Night” scheduled for late
in the afternoon of May 29, I thought I’d better look.
A message from Beijing.
In the sort of chatty tone that suggested we were picking
up a recent conversation, they said 'we need just two more documents from you. Once we receive them we’ll issue you a writer’s credential for the World
Championships.'
Hello?!
Then a follow up message to clarify that this is for
writing only, and if I’d like to take pictures, even if only in the mixed zone
(interview area), they’d have to send my application back and it would trigger
new rounds of review for a different kind of credential.
Conversation with myself: dude, you are hours away from
having a press pass to Worlds. You could mess up the entire thing by reaching
for too much. How would it feel to be on press row at the Pre Classic tonight with a World’s media credential in
hand?
Came the email from Beijing: ACCEPTED.
So when it came time to retrieve the Worlds pass itself,
I found myself in Beijing this past Wednesday on a sweltering, heavily polluted
day. The only description I can give to the air that day is apocalyptic.
My first attempt at getting to the Accreditation Center
at the foot of Ling Long Pagoda in Beijing’s Olympic Park ended when I found
myself – at the end of a very long walk – fenced in by what I later deduced was
the protective fence for the marathon and race walk events.
Try getting into those without authorization.
My retreat brought me back to my hotel, a cooling off
period, and more careful scrutiny out the window of my route.
By the time I got to the pagoda half an hour later, I was
beet red in the face and drenched in sweat. No matter how hard I tried, I
couldn’t stop the sweating. A young woman showed up and asked if I’d like water
and I declined; she brought it anyway.
My photo on the media credential shows the glistening,
shows the redness, and indicates the insufferable heat and humidity of that
day. But it shows something else.
I’m beaming.
* * *
Unexpected epilogue:
Yesterday, Track
and Field News invited me to join their events news writing team for the
World Championships. My assignments will come next week and I’ll post them here.
Two years, one week, 6 days since I started writing
again.
Now I know how long it takes for a dream to come true.
* * *
Interestingly, two related pieces, “A Ride for Robert”
and “Teardrop of Sunlight” have been my two
most widely read pieces of the first two years of trackerati. They are, respectively, the longest and shortest pieces
I’ve posted. “A Ride for Robert” starts and finishes when? On the last Fridays
of May in 2012 and ‘13.
I’d like to send out special thanks to Sieg Lindstrom,
Managing Editor of Track and Field News;
Amanda Brooks, USATF Marketing and Communications Manager; Curtis Anderson,
Director of Communications for TrackTown USA; and Kim Spir, Editor of the TAFWA
(Track and Field Writers of America) newsletter.
It was Sieg who saw something he liked in the summer of
2013 and starting linking to my work on the Track
and Field News website. It was Curtis who vouched for me for the first press
passes, including this year. It was Amanda who made it possible for me to
initiate the Beijing application process by issuing an accreditation access
code to trackerati. Without an
accreditation code from Amanda, in this business you are toast (or, as my
laptop autocorrected so wisely here in China, Taoist). And it was Kim who introduced
me to my colleagues in the US by including several of my pieces in the TAFWA
newsletter.
Without the four of you, I am not sitting in a hotel in
Beijing writing this post.
To you and to everyone who has read a single article on
this website the last two years, thank you.
No comments:
Post a Comment