With The Winter Olympics Starting This Week, I Have Memories of My Time At the Winter Games in Albertville, France- 1992

I always get a little excited when the Winter Games roll around, after all, I was present for the Olympic Games in 1992 when Albertville, France played host. The world descended upon the little town of Albertville. While the town was small, most of the visitors and press including myself had to find accommodations over an hour away in Courchevel, France.

My participation was part of a radio broadcasting group that was sponsored by Coca Cola. We broadcasted from the Coke Pavilion back to Baton Rouge, LA. For the trip, our sponsor set us up with translators  and drivers to shuttle us back and forth. Luckily, my Cajun French worked well to help to communicate with the locals.

We stayed in a beautiful chalet in Courchevel, had chefs cook for us, and the French are known for wine and pastries which were in abundance! Really, more wine than anyone should ever need was stocked in the chalet- and it was non stop pouring for those who drank wine. I was not a wine drinker, but the pastries of every kind were with every meal. As much as I enjoyed the french pastries, toward the end, I was tired of french bread!

I do have scary memories of our driver Linel' driving down the narrow mountain road to Albertville everyday to get us to the broadcast center. We had to leave 6 hours before the broadcast start time, due to the fact that the only road going up and down the mountain would close for the high ski jump, so we spent more time in Olympic Village than we really wanted to, but it was still an experience! Not only was the trip scary, we spent a lot of time on the road as Albertville only hosted 18 of 57 games in town, the rest of the competition was at various resorts around the area. I do remember that American speed skater Bonnie Blair won the 500m and 1000m events.

Of all of the events that we could have seen, we were only allowed tickets that our sponsor Coca Cola would give us, I was able to see the Figure Ice Skating. I walked away with a huge amount of respect for these athletes as to watch the sport on TV does not give these performers justice as to how hard and difficult their routines are.

As you can image, The Village of Albertville is beautiful, beyond words!

1992 Winter Olympics were the last time the Olympic Committee scheduled the summer and winter games in the same year.

As things change, so do the Olympics. The security was very tight for the games back in 1992. I remember how unusual it was to see guards with loaded automatic weapons at airports and at the games, and now, it's a different world and pretty much common place to see such attention given to security.