2002 Olympic Experiences
of Patty and Raymond

This is part of our crew in the "Soldier Hollow - Sports Information Center". Julie,  Toni (Our 'boss'), Camille,  Raymond and Patty. This was taken during the Paralympics where our crew wore blue uniforms.

(A side note added here)
When we went to Salt Lake to get our uniforms for the Olympics, they didn't have the size jacket that I needed.  I guess I squawked enough so that on the opening day that we were all to be in full uniform, I was finally given one that was my size.  They didn't have any green left with the Olympic patches, etc. on it,  so they took one out of the Paralmpics and had a tailor take a patch from  a different colored Olympic one and put it on a green Paralympic jacket.  The big difference though is the back of the jacket.
The Olympic jackets had the five silver rings on the back where the Paralympic's had 2002 in silver on the back.  So I have the only Olympic jacket in existence that has the Paralympic emblem on it.

We were watching our closed circuit TV of the action on the venue trails. Believe it or not, but it was a whole lot better than standing in the snow in all that cold!  Plus that, we had shots of areas no one else could see as they had a snow mobile following some of the athletes around the course plus video cams all over the place. When we weren't having any races at our venue, the TV went to the other venues and we watch some of that.  The sledge hockey was unbelievable. Toni's favorite was the "curling".

This is what they call "mag and bag!"  You have to walk through a metal detector and if you make it ring, you get the full treatment of the WAND.  Everyone though had to have their half packs and anything else they were carrying, checked. You couldn't even bring in a can of anything  unless it was in a plastic bottle so they could actually see it, as it might be a bomb so they took it. ( Definition of a half pack.......about half the size of a back pack with the same amenities but you wear it like a shoulder bag.)

One day I had forgotten and left in a can of orange juice from the day before in my half pack, so even before they searched I just handed it to them. Got a few chuckles from the security crew on that one. <smile>

An explanation here; the yellow jackets are mainly security, the green is for field of play, the red is medical, the blue is everything else.  But for the Paralympics the colors meant something different.  The field of play was blue, the green was used mainly for paid personnel and the important people, with the yellow and red the same as the Olympics.

This is the athletes "mag and bag".  Theirs was different as it took longer for security to check their ski equipment, etc., but they still had the WAND!

We did bring in goodies every so often, which we weren't supposed to do, but by making an extra recipe and giving it to the check in crew worked wonders!  I would have munched on it myself just to prove it to them that it was okay, but I guess gray headed grandma's have that "honest look" about them.

It was so neat to have all of the uniformed National Guard, police, safety personnel and others there.  We all really felt very safe.  We had helicopters fly over head and the ski patrol was in the hills all over the place.  There were even tiny telephone booth size huts scattered around the hill side that had security in them.

I really don't think that anyone could have entered the grounds even if they wanted to, without the proper accreditation hanging around their necks, what with security guards at every corner, between corners and just about everywhere you looked.  Although, a media person tried to climb over the fence that was around our area to interview an athlete, needless to say, he didn't stay on the grounds very long!

This is an Accreditation Pass.
The SHP on it meant, Soldier Hollow Park.  The blue on the 
bottom meant that I could go just about any where the athletes were and it's what got me in the gates to the Athletes Compound.

Below is showing both sides of the Bronze Olympic Medal that was presented to all of the volunteers.  It is made from the same material that the Olympian medals were and all of the ores are found in Utah and were used for all of the medals that were made locally.

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