Skis as Fries for McDonalds; “Passion Lives Here”; “Live Olympic” from Coca-Cola; these are the sites and sounds of the Torino Winter Olympic Games in February 2006.
Torino hosts the Winter Olympic Games this month. I am here on a different mission, though: assess the technology integration challenges for a new training facility in a building on Via Septembre XX – a building steeped in the history of a unified Italy. 20 September 1870 was the day a cannonade of three hours breached the Aurelian Walls, allowing Italian sharpshooters to enter Rome, which was soon annexed to the Kingdom of Italy.
Born 100 years later, I learn this history as I move throughout a city crowded with revelers. My client and close friend, Matt Taylor, sends me to Torino at the height of the Olympic Games. Given three days’ notice, this means staying in Milan – about two hours away via train – I only slightly protest. When Matt calls, the project is always challenging personally and professionally rewarding. Plus, having lived in Lake Placid just before the Miracle on Ice – the 1980 Winter Olympics US-USSR hockey match – I’m drawn to the Olympic spectacle and spirit. So I go . . .
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