Arriving in Sochi

Today has been a very long day but we finally made it to Sochi and the Olympic Park and everything has started to feel a lot more real and a lot more exciting!

Arriving by plane

It was an early start for most of us this morning.  A few of us headed to the gym in Zurich at 6am to stretch our legs before breakfast.  We then checked in for our charter flight directly from Zurich to Sochi.  The female referees and supervisors took up only a few seats on the plane.  The rest of the plane was filled with staff for the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) and some individual athletes from the Swiss Olympic team.

This was the first time it really hit me that I was going to an Olympic games.  Most of the time when I go to international tournaments I travel and arrive at the host city alone, where there is someone from the tournament organising committee waiting to meet me with an IIHF officials sign.  Usually the ice hockey tournament is the biggest event happening in the city and everyone is focussed on it.  It suddenly dawned on me whilst sitting on the plane surrounded by athletes for a variety of different sports that the Olympics is so much bigger than just an ice hockey tournament.  Having been before I should have remembered this, however there is nothing more humbling than realising you are part of something far greater than you can describe or begin to imagine.  It feels like the whole world is descending on Sochi and I am just a very small part of that.

View of Olympic Park from the plane

I sat next to the head of medical for the IIHF and he told me this was going to be his 10^th Olympics, which again made me feel very humble.  I thought I was somewhat a veteran coming to my 3^rd Olympics but I was sitting next to a man who had more than tripled that.  Being from Switzerland he got very excited when he saw the athletes boarding the plane and he pointed them out to me and told me “she is one of our strongest medal prospects” and “he will be Olympic champion”.  I looked on in awe at these athletes who clearly had a lot of expectation and pressure on their shoulders, and whilst I am sure they were full of nerves on the inside, on the outside, they appeared cool, calm and collected.  The Olympics really is what dreams are made of and I was surrounded by athletes who had trained very hard just for the opportunity to try to make their dream come true.

As the plane came in to land I got my first glimpse of the Olympic park in all its glory.  I could see both the ice hockey venues which were glowing with lights and it really hit me then – wow I am at the Olympics and I am one of these people on the plane chasing my dream!

Olympic accreditation

On arrival at Sochi airport we were ushered through security and passport control and then moved on to validate our Olympic Accreditation which will be our most important possession for the next 3 weeks.  Without it we won’t be able to get anywhere and so it is very important to keep it on us at all times.

Whilst in the line for accreditation there was a frenzy of media activity around one Australian athlete who was doing interviews with them all.  He is one of their medal prospects and appeared to be taking all of the attention in his stride.  It struck me how calm he was given he had just arrived and was expected to immediately be ready to talk to the media.  I guess competing at the Olympics is not just about being very good at your sport and performing well – it is so much more than just that.  In a way you have to be able to do your sport without thinking as most of the thinking time is taken up by the whirlwind of activity around you that you have to deal with and manage.

Our hotel

A coach had been organised to transport us and all of our luggage to the hotel.  We quickly filled the luggage compartment of the coach and then being resourceful young ladies we set up a luggage chain as we passed all the remaining bags up and into the main part of the coach.  I wasn’t the only girl with 3 big bags and so if you can imagine 20 girls all with at least 3 big bags you will start to get an impression of the amount of luggage we had to transport with us.

Our hotel is situated inside the Olympic park which again is different from previous Olympics I have been to.  As officials we are not put into the athlete village but instead stay in a hotel which is reserved for technical officials and staff of the international federations.  In Torino and Vancouver our hotels were in the cities a short distance from the ice hockey venues.  Sochi is set-up differently with an Olympic Park enclosure (the coastal cluster) where a lot of the venues are situated.  This is quite similar to London in the sense of there being multiple venues on one site.

Our magical medieval hotel

The down-side to this is that in order to get to our hotel we had to go through security screening to get into the Olympic park.  Again this was like London so those of you who were lucky enough to watch events at the Olympic Park will remember going through full bag and body screenings on entry to the park.  For us this meant getting off the coach ... taking all of our bags off the coach and putting them through screening.  We then had to put all the bags back onto the coach to drive to our hotel inside the park.  However the plus side to this is that now we are inside the park we are able to walk to the ice hockey venues in 10 minutes and don’t have to go through security screening on the way to ref our games (as we had to do in Torino and Vancouver) because we are already inside the security zone.

Welcoming party in our hotel reception

As we pulled through the park we saw a magnificent blue castle like building lit up in blue in the distance and suddenly the coach filled with excitement as we realised this was actually our hotel.  It looked magical and reminded me a lot of the Disneyland castle from a distance. 

As we arrived staff welcomed us at the door and helped us with our luggage.  Singers dressed in Russian traditional dress were providing entertainment in the reception whilst we checked in and again I felt part of something truly magical.  The hotel is completely new and there is something very exciting about being one of the first people to stay in it. 

View of Olympic Park from my room

Outside I have a view across the Olympic park and can hear the buzz and excitement as performers and singers are entertaining the crowds.  There are also some fairground rides and some roller coasters, however they are not in action yet.  Once the Olympics is over the park will be used as an amusement park and fairground (which makes a lot of sense given the magical castle like building we are staying in).

My room

My room is very big with one main double bed and then two single beds as bunk beds all just for me!  Usually at tournaments we share rooms with our fellow officials.  However at the Olympics we are given our own room because we are here for a longer period of time and need to ensure we are focussed and well rested for our games.  It is nice to have your own space and be able to spread out and keep to our own game schedules without worrying about our room-mate and their schedule.  However at the same time most of us tend to like company and so end up hanging out in one of the rooms altogether.

The organising committee had left us each a small gift in the rooms ... a Sochi back-pack with a hoodie and a few other Sochi accessories inside.  This was a really nice gesture which has helped to make us feel very welcome and I am sure we will all be using the bag throughout the Olympics and beyond.

After checking in and getting some food there wasn’t much time for anything else.  Tomorrow morning we are taking our equipment over to the ice rink and hopefully we will get some orientation time and get to explore the Olympic park a little before our first official team meeting in the afternoon.

I cannot wait to see the rink ...