U.S. Olympic media summit: Time to turn off the cynicism

Reporting from Chicago -- Sometimes we cynical journalists (redundant, I know) moan and roll our eyes when TV networks air those up-close-and-personal features that focus on the incredible obstacles athletes have overcome to reach the Olympics.

But after speaking to some of the prospective Vancouver Olympians who are attending this week's U.S. Olympic media summit, it's clear that many truly have endured truly horrific injuries and personal tragedies that have shaped them, made them stronger and helped them rise above average. 

For example: Emily Cook, a freestyle aerials skier from Belmont, Mass. Two weeks after she made the 2002 Olympic team she took a horrible fall in a training jump at Lake Placid, N.Y., suffering a dislocation, torn ligament and fracture in her left leg and fracture and torn ligament in her right leg. "I watched the Salt Lake City Games from a wheelchair," she said.

After more than 2 1/2 years of painful rehabilitation that began with merely taking steps in a pool, she came back to qualify for the 2006 Turin team and finish 19th overall. "I had unfinished business and I was going to do everything in my power to get back," she said, matter-of-factly.

Now it's on to Vancouver

Welcome back to the LAT Olympics blog as it shifts from the Beijing Summer Games of last August to the Vancouver Winter Games, set for Feb. 12-28 of next year. Instead of Ticket to Beijing, it now is Ticket to Vancouver.

We will be posting throughout the year on Olympic news, but particularly as it relates to the Vancouver Games.  All of the Beijing posts can be accessed through the "Beijing Games" category link in the right rail of the blog.

Many of our Summer Games bloggers will be back for the Winter Games, including LAT columnist Helene Elliott and Philip Hersh, a veteran of Olympics coverage who writes for the LAT and the Chicago Tribune.

Many of the features created for Beijing will still be accessible, including photo galleries and videos.

Though we will be updating the look of this blog as we go, you can catch Olympic news right here. That will include blogging from the World Figure Skating Championships next month by LAT staff from Staples Center.

-- Debbie Goffa

Photo: Last week the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympic Games cauldron burned brightly at Canada Olympic Park,  marking the one-year countdown to the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics. Credit: Jeff McIntosh / Associated Press