We’re at the tail end of the , currently being held in Paris. I know that some of you are only watching for Snoop Dogg’s appearances…
PC: All over the internets. But I REALLY want that pin, y’all!
But as of this writing, the U.S. is in the lead of medals won. So yay us!
You’d think that Olympic athletes would have some sort of special way to get themselves and their precious equipment, uniforms, etc., to the games, right? They don’t. For the most part, they fly commercial, the same as you and me. So with the airlines losing bags left and right, and with some Olympians’ equipment being a little…unusual…how do they transport their stuff to ensure it stays safe? Well, it depends. And sometimes, it doesn’t stay as safe as you would think.
Hammer time
Case in point, DeAnne Price is a U.S. Olympic hammer thrower. She told ABC News that when we went to the World Championships in Beijing several years ago and checked her equipment, the TSA left a note in her bag to let her know they had opened it. She said that wasn’t unusual. But what was not typical was that, in what she guesses was an attempt to check for contraband or weapons, the TSA drilled a hole into the hammer and then sealed it up with epoxy.
Price said she sent the TSA a bill since her now-ruined piece of sporting equipment was worth about $1000.
They paid the bill.
No horsing around
More than 300 horses traveled to the 2021 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics, taking 19 planes and 185 truck journeys, according to The Chronicle of the Horse.
For the US team alone (9 athletes across 3 equestrian disciplines, plus 3 athletes at the Paralympics), the team included four traveling reserve riders (they were ready to compete in the case of an injury), seven coaches, six team leaders, sixteen grooms (they were there to care for the horses), four veterinarians, two equine physical therapists and one human physical therapist.
Here’s how they did it:
@teamusa We’ve got the horses in the back (of the airplane). 🎥: @usequestrian #tokyoolympics #teamusa #equestrian
Oh, they also brought about 1,000 pounds of feed and vitamins for the horses.
“I think that the captain on our flight over said we had 14 tons of equipment,” Dr. Susan Johns, the evening team vet, told Forbes.
That’s some pole you’ve got!
And then you’ve got pole vaulters. Their equipment is a 17-foot piece of long and flexible carbon-filter composite. Of course, it won’t fit in a carry-on sizer, but you’d think it’d be easy enough to fit into the plane’s cargo area, right?
Well, maybe.
Some airlines allow something that long, and some don’t. Fortunately, most pole vaulters know which airlines are finicky about such things and which are OK with it. Well, until they’re not. From the Washington Post:
Mondo Duplantis, the world record holder and defending Olympic champion, learned at the ticket counter that his poles couldn’t fly with him.
“And we said, ‘You do because we’ve flown with you, like, 20 times in the last year,’” said Greg Duplantis, the athlete’s father and longtime coach. “… And she said: ‘No, you don’t understand. We don’t take poles anymore.’ And I said, ‘As of when?’ She said, ‘Today.’”
Duplantis walked to another airline counter that would accept the poles and bought last-minute tickets for the next flight to Oregon.
Kayakers? Samsies
Kayakers have the same problem as pole vaulters; their equipment is so big that airlines may or may not balk. So they learn which airlines tend to be OK with transporting a kayak (or two or three) in cargo.
U.S. slalom canoeist Evy Leibfarth has even taken to storing one or more kayaks in different parts of the world. She arrives early, picks up the boat and drives it to the competition.
And then you’ve got the shooters
Most of you have probably seen the seemingly nonchalant Turkish sharpshooter Yusuf Dikeç.
(original narrative: In Olympic shooting, they use equipment like:
> A lens to avoid blur
> A lens for better precision
> ear protectors for noise
Then a Turkish guy (Dikeç) came and won a silver medal with just a pair of GLASSES.)
Credit to screenshot https://t.co/vUsWyD0lD3
— Turkish Archives (@TurkishArc) July 31, 2024
Dikeç was probably able to take a car or train from Tükiye to France. But when you have to fly from the U.S. to an Olympic city, it’s a whole other ballgame.
First, they arrive at the airport 6 hours early to make sure that everything – EVERYTHING – goes right. Then they have to deal with every rule for flying with multiple pieces of firearms (rifles, shotguns and/or pistols). Different airlines have different protocols, and each country has its own rules about just possessing guns…so all of that paperwork has to be filled out. And if something goes wrong – a certain gun gets lost, or a last-minute itinerary change – that could be the end of their Olympic participation. Or it could send you to jail. From the New York Times:
It was an innocent mistake, for instance, that once saw Will Shaner, 23, a gold medalist in the 10-meter air rifle event at the last Summer Games, spend hours inside a glorified holding cell at Munich Airport. His travel itinerary had changed at the last minute, causing his gun permit to expire the day before his flight home.
Airport officials informed him that meant he was technically “gun smuggling,” Shaner recalled, and that the consequences could be dire.
“Then all of a sudden they were like, ‘OK, just go — please, get out of our country,’” said Shaner, who said he was detained on another occasion when an X-ray machine detected a single stray bullet in his carry-on bag.
No one said the road to the Olympics was easy.
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