Processing

We went through team processing today. When I mean team processing I mean the US team and not just the US cycling portion. Not the whole US team did processing though. And not all of our cycling team did their processing either. From the cycling portion of the US it was the women and all staff today. The road men and track men and women will process tomorrow. The MTB crew will not process but rather “just pick up their stuff” at the Village. Today’s staff will get their shwag.
As we processed we were in line with the Taekwondo team and some of the Track and field athletes who were then off to an Island directly from processing.
Processing involved team photographs, filling out health info, getting tickets to events (one ticket per event that we were at was free), and getting voice mail set up. They did not find me in the system so I said not to bother with trying to get me a voice mail.ßIn hind sight it was a good thing as time to check it was almost nonexistent. We were also fitted for Olympic rings. The staff ring was cool but the athlete rings were awesome.
Finally we did team clothing. We got one huge rolling duffel bag and one rolling carry on bag both stuffed with clothing. Shirts and shirts and more shirts. Followed by pants and even more pants. Followed by shorts and even more shorts. You get the picture. Then there were wacky things in our bag such as sun screen, a tie, a USA flag with the rings, a swatch watch to name a few. They also gave us a few Olympic cycling pins to trade for other pins.
I guess they learned from past experience so they gave everyone a list of things they would need specifically. People going to opening ceremonies would need one set of clothing and those going to closing ceremonies would need another set of clothing. And then athletes would need yet another set of clothes for Podium ceremonies. The rest they said we could ship home. They allowed us to ship home our small carry on bag full of clothing we did not want to lug around. They would also ship anything else to Colorado Springs for free and then from there it could be sent to our home from the Springs via COD. I kept all my stuff with me as it was a then and there thing and I did not want to decide in such a short time. So I’ll lug my stuff around no problem.
Lastly we had a short intro with speakers from Sports med. on injuries and hydration as well as other things med. related. There was a talk on Security and a talk on attitude and its relationship as a representative of the US. The funniest talk was of how to walk into the opening ceremonies. They commented on how the US team has NEVER EVER walked in an organized manner. Past US delegations walked in mass or single file to try to “Get on TV.” I have a hard time imagining the US team going in as uniform lines. We’ll see.
All in all I left for Processing at 8:00 am and we returned to the Village at about 2:30 PM. What a day!!!!