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Tim Blumenthal is the current executive director of Bikes
Belong and the former executive director of the International Mountain Biking
Association (IMBA). He has been a cycling announcer at the Olympics since 1984.
We caught up with him before he headed to China for his seventh summer
Olympics.
What have been your most memorable experiences at the Olympics?
Blumenthal: This will be the seventh summer Olympics that I
have worked at. I started in 1984 working for ABC at the Los Angeles Olympics.
The Los Angeles Olympics were an amazing experience, in part because the U.S.
Bicycling Team—which hadn’t won a medal since 1912—did so well. We won nine
medals, including four gold medals.
On the opening day of the ’84 Olympics there were two
bicycle road races. Those were pretty much the first or second medal-awarding
events of the games. It was amazing because Connie Carpenter, who has lived in
Boulder since 1980, won the Olympic road race for women and Alexi Grewal, who
is from Aspen and now I believe lives in Boulder County, won the men’s road
race.
So here it was, it had been 74 years since a U.S. cyclist
had won any medal in the Olympics and we had not really been one of the better
countries, and suddenly—boom—on the opening day we win both and both were won
by Coloradans. Needless to say, my first day working for network television at
the Olympics was pretty exciting.
[Working at the Olympics] is frenetic, crazy work and it’s
really intense. It’s very high pressure when you are doing live television
anyway, but it’s especially hard when it’s the Olympics just because of the
size of the audience and the fact that the Olympics only happen every four
years.
In ’88 NBC took over [the Olympic coverage] in Korea. That
was pretty cool and really different. During the Olympics, the host cities go
berserk cleaning up and adding new things. They use it as an opportunity to do a complete makeover for
everything.
1992 in Barcelona was really fantastic because Barcelona is
such a beautiful city. 1996 in
Atlanta was exciting because it was the first time that mountain biking was in
the Olympics. But it was also a little strange because there was the bomb
explosion in the park in downtown Atlanta. That nearly knocked me out of my
bed. I was about a mile away, and it was such a loud explosion with such
reverberation that it basically knocked me onto the floor. From that moment on,
security was really tight and the whole atmosphere was really tense.
2000 in Sydney was fantastic because the Australians are
such great people and so exuberant, friendly, outgoing and welcoming, and they
like Americans.
The last one was Athens. Two things made Athens really good: the mix of the roots and the history of
the ancient Olympics and, also, I felt it was a healing event for the world and
diplomacy after 9/11.
What are you looking forward to the most in Beijing?
TB: I am looking forward to how successful the Chinese are
in orchestrating the Olympics. There’s been so much turmoil surrounding the
torch, and so much concern about air quality, and the athletes saying that they
won’t even be able to compete because the air will be so bad. I’m specifically
looking forward to the opening ceremonies. I’m sure, having been to China,
their sense of festivity and pageantry and fireworks and dragons and color
[will be] phenomenal.
Tell us
about your work with Bikes Belong.
TB: At Bikes Belong (Bikesbelong.org)
our mission is to get more people riding bikes more often. That means
maximizing the federal investment in bike paths, bike lanes and dirt trails.
It’s forming partnerships, not only with bike groups, but also with the
National Association of Realtors and AARP. We give out close to half a million
dollars a year in grants to help support other groups and other projects. We
promote all the benefits of bicycling.
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