It was an absolute honor to represent the United States of America and compete on the world’s greatest athletic stage.
I want to do my best to share with you (in pictures and in words) what it is like to walk in Opening Ceremonies at the Olympic Games!
This picture is of the U.S. Men’s Bobsled Team lined up for a team photo in the Olympic Village. Steve Langton (far right) clearly has the best hair.
Ralph Lauren provided our gear for the Opening and Closing Ceremonies.
The U.S. sent two bobsled teams (USA-1 and USA-2) to the Sochi Olympics in the 4-man bobsled event. I was on USA-2 sled and here is our team picture.
Side note, take a look at our shoe laces and socks. Ralph Lauren had an Opening Ceremonies app on our phone to show us how to dress properly in order to walk.
The shoe laces had to be tied in the back and we had to have three folds in our socks.
It was simple: follow the dress code in the app, or don’t walk in Opening Ceremonies. You decide.
A few of us bobsledders found snowboarding legend Shaun White and asked for a team picture. He happily obliged and we all became best friends.
We made it to the Olympic stadium and each country is instructed to line up in alphabetical order, according the the host country’s dialect.
No one on our team spoke Russian so it took awhile to find where the “U” (United States) is located in the Russian alphabet.
Each country had a specific section to sit which was the easy part. The hard part was trying to coordinate a seat within the Team USA section.
It was tough to navigate fellow athletes as we were all taking selfies and photos of the crowd… like this one.
After the Opening Ceremony (which was incredible!) we were walking back to the Olympic Village and I HAD TO get a picture with the Olympic Flame. I was a student-athlete at the University of North Texas in Denton, America and the third person in school history to make an Olympic Team.
The first two from UNT were Summer Olympians (David Clark, Pole Vault, 1960; Bill Schmidt, Javelin, 1972) and I was the first Winter Olympian.
Here I am doing the Eagle Claw with my hand. Now say it out loud with me… CAWWWWWWWWWW!
I hope you enjoy watching the Opening Ceremonies as much as I will!
Go Team USA!
P.S. The Olympic Flame is really hot to touch. It almost burned my finger. Almost.