More Olympians

Corey and I have recently made an investment in some mountain bikes. We like to ride together, and the only time we can fit in a ride together is later at night, when it's dark. Even though the bikes are in good condition, I wanted to be as safe as possible, therefore wanted to add some tail lights to each bike. On Saturday during the day, we went to this bike shop in Sugarhouse to find some tail lights and a bike wrench. It took us forever to find what we were looking for and while we were looking, there was a table set up and the store personnel and a few customers were waiting for some people to come and sign some autographs. Since neither Corey nor I are avid bikers, we didn't pay much attention to anything, other than getting our tail lights and getting out of there. While we were paying, they made an announcement of who was coming in, and one of the riders was Tyler Hamilton, an Olympic gold medalist from Athens 2004. I remembered that name, and totally quit paying attention to anything else and was just in awe. He was the Men's Cycling Time Trial Olympic Champion. Tyler participated in the Sydney games in 2000, but did not win any medal. The other person present Saturday is one of his teammates from the Sydney Games, but he did not participate in the Athens Games, and obviously neither are participating in the Beijing Games. These two are not the first Olympian I have met, and the other one, I did not get her autograph (I met Picabo Street in the VW dealership while we were both waiting for our cars to get fixed. She was so neat to talk to and we chatted for 2-3 hours. I was in heaven, but stupidly did not get her autograph.) so this time I did not want to leave empty handed. Luckily, they were signing posters of images of themselves racing in their sponsors colors, but I didn't care. I got their autographs, shook their hands, and briefly discussed the Olympics with them. It was so great, and the highlight of my day!!! Talk about being in the right place at the right time!

On another note, my good friend Boyd, lives next to the home that Chris Witty owns. She is a multiple Olympian, and I believe the only American to compete in the Summer games and the winter games (she does cycling in the summer and speed skating in the winter). She was going through some of her Olympic things, and going to get rid of them when Boyd said his good friend (me) would love to have them because I am such an Olympic fan. I now have a bag the she got, the jacket from the closing ceremonies from one of the Olympics she competed in and two shirts from two other different Olympics she participated in. I will never do anything with these items, but they will be part of my cherished collection.