From Marion County to Italy

Brian Creekbaum with Camilla, a Winter Olympic Games volunteer. [Submitted photo]

I love the Olympics. As far back as I can remember, I’ve watched the Olympics on television. I remember watching the 1968 Summer Games in Mexico City. As a student at Fort King Middle School, I took naps so I could wake up at 1 a.m. for the 1972 Winter Games held in Sapporo, Japan. My late father and I attended the track and field in the 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta. We were in Centennial Olympic stadium when it exploded with camera flashes and cheers as Michael Johnson crossed the finish line in world record time in the 200-meter dash. I’ve been on the lookout for a Winter Games to attend ever since. It finally happened with the 2026 Milano-Cortina Winter Olympic Games in Northern Italy.

After watching from my Ocala home Ocala speed skater Erin Jackson carry our national flag in the opening ceremony, I left the next morning for an appointment with Delta to whisk me off on my first transatlantic flight on my first trip to the European continent for two weeks of figure skating and speed skating (mostly long track and some short track). These are spectator-friendly sports I would see in person for the first time. A competition could all be seen from one seat location.

The first time I walked into the figure skating venue was during warmups. I thought the rotation in jumps looked even faster than on television, where we often see skaters framed pretty tightly. Something about seeing them surrounded by a giant unmoving arena made for a bigger contrast. But the biggest difference being there is the people. Since I was solo, meals in my hotel and restaurants, admittance lines at venues and watching from my seat became opportunities to meet people as charged up about the Olympics as I am.

I conversed with other fans from 14 countries. My first night at figure skating, I sat next to an Italian family. He managed a nearby ice rink and was involved in drug testing Olympic hockey players. His young daughter, a figure skater, cheered wildly for the Italian figure skaters because, her father said, she knew them from skating on the same ice with them. His 9-year-old son was in the group of children picking up plush toys thrown on the ice after performances. The boy excitedly fist-bumped his fellow skaters when the group left the ice. At a later figure skating session, I chatted about the Olympics with a young Italian volunteer when I arrived early and she had no one else to seat. Camilla (pronounced by the Italians as Ca-mee’-lah) said she would be honored to represent the 18,000 Olympic volunteers in the selfie we took.

I met a former Olympic speed skater for Canada (1984 and 1988) whose daughter was competing, a USA certified figure skating judge who has figure skated for decades and trained on the same ice with world champion Ilia Malikin, and the sports columnist for the “Wall Street Journal.”

I also met a ton of Dutch speed skating fans. The Dutch are crazy about speed skating. As shown by their signature orange, they were about two thirds of spectators at long track. They wear orange funky hats and wigs and entire suits of orange. They have a lot of fun and make a lot of noise, but they are serious about the sport. American Jordan Stolz, who won two gold medals and one silver, is the best long track speed skating sprinter today. I like that when he passes in warmups, the Dutch applaud for him. It shows the integrity they have and their respect for the sport. They cheer for their athletes to beat Stolz, but they have great respect for his abilities and how he comports himself.

While Ocalans Erin Jackson, 33, and Brittany Bowe, 37, did not medal in these Olympics, they performed quite well. Racing two events each, they generally finished in the top half dozen of nearly 30 competitors. Brittany, who is retiring, barely missed the podium. It’s telling that, as good as the Dutch are, Brittany’s 1000m world record set in 2019 still stands.

In between my 13 Olympic sports sessions, I managed to take a scenic train ride across the Swiss and Italian Alps, visit inside the Duomo (the massive cathedral that took 700 years to build), lap swim in two of Milan’s public pools, make a nighttime visit to the Olympic flame light and sound show, and lunch twice at the restaurant Ratana featured in Stanley Tucci’s “Searching for Italy” television series.

I still want to see Olympic ski jumping, which would have been a six-hour rail and bus trip from Milan. Perhaps I’ll catch it at the Winter Olympics in the French Alps in the 2030 or outside Salt Lake City in 2034. See you there?

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes