{"id":26479,"date":"2024-07-25T15:54:02","date_gmt":"2024-07-25T21:54:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/durango-mountain-bikers-amos-blevins-and-blunk-not-attending-olympic-opening-ceremonies\/"},"modified":"2024-07-25T21:54:02","modified_gmt":"2024-07-25T21:54:02","slug":"durango-mountain-bikers-amos-blevins-and-blunk-not-attending-olympic-opening-ceremonies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/durango-mountain-bikers-amos-blevins-and-blunk-not-attending-olympic-opening-ceremonies\/","title":{"rendered":"Durango mountain bikers Amos, Blevins and Blunk not attending Olympic Opening Ceremonies"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A visitor strolls past a \"Paris\" sign that is reflected in the glass wall of the Montparnasse tower observation deck as the Eiffel Tower stands in the background ahead of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Tuesday, July 23, 2024, in Paris. (AP Photo\/David Goldman)
A visitor strolls past a \"Paris\" sign that is reflected in the glass wall of the Montparnasse tower observation deck as the Eiffel Tower stands in the background ahead of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Tuesday, July 23, 2024, in Paris. (AP Photo\/David Goldman)<\/span>(AP Photo\/David Goldman)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

PARIS \u2013 Christopher Blevins will be all dressed up, but he won\u2019t go.<\/p>\n

The Opening Ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympics will be like no other. An estimated 10,000 athletes and another 3,000 dancers will float down the Seine River on boats in an open-air celebration. It is expected to be experienced firsthand by at least 300,000 spectators \u2013 four times as many as typically attend the official opening of a Summer Games.<\/p>\n

\"Blevins\"
Blevins<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Blunk\"
Blunk<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Amos\"
Amos<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

But Blevins won\u2019t be there in person, not on a boat nor on the riverbank. Instead, the Durango native and the rest of the USA mountain biking team will watch the roughly four-hour affair on a TV in a common room of their hotel, just a half-hour drive from downtown Paris and all the action.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a pretty exhausting thing,\u201d Blevins said Thursday, on the eve of the ceremony. \u201cBut we\u2019ve got a good USA Cycling team hotel here away from the village. There\u2019s a big TV downstairs in the conference room, so I think we\u2019ll all be wearing our Opening Ceremony outfits, those that have them, and watch it together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blevins and women\u2019s team racer Haley Batten also missed out on the Opening Ceremony for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics three years ago. Blevins, who finished 14th at those Games, said he hasn\u2019t given much thought to his decision to skip the event even given its historic nature.<\/p>\n

First-time Olympians Savilia Blunk and Riley Amos also will sit this one out. Blunk said the process of getting to the parade, much less being in it, sounded too exhausting.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re on your feet for like 18 hours. You have to leave the (Athlete) Village at like 4 a.m.,\u201d she said. \u201cAt the Olympics I want to have the best race I possibly can. So I\u2019m going to focus on that performance. And then after my race I will spend a few days in the athletes village.\u201d<\/p>\n

The entire USA Cycling contingent is staying at a hotel near \u00c9lancourt Hill, the human-made park where the mountain biking races will be held. Though they won\u2019t get the true Athlete Village experience \u2013 including the cardboard beds \u2013 until after they finish racing, the athletes said USA Cycling has done a good job incorporating the Olympic into the decorations.<\/p>\n

Alec Pasqualina, the mountain bike director at USA Cycling, said athletes were given the option to attend the Opening Ceremony. However, he noted that the reasons not to, include more than just fear of fatigue.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe always honor that individuality that\u2019s a unique aspect of our sport,\u201d Pasqualina said. \u201cBut there are a lot of logistics involved, etc., and security threats. I think it wasn\u2019t much of a decision for them, to be honest.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Children
Children play at a splash fountain area near signage for the 2024 Summer Olympics on Tuesday in Nice, France. (Julio Cortez\/Associated Press)<\/span>(AP Photo\/Julio Cortez)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>
\n

When they ride<\/h4>\n

The women\u2019s mountain bike race begins at 6:10 a.m. MST Sunday and the men\u2019s mountain bike race begins at 6:10 a.m. MST Monday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Team USA\u2019s athletes aren\u2019t in Paris for the sightseeing, Pasqualina added, they\u2019re here on a business trip. An American mountain biker hasn\u2019t won an Olympic medal since Georgia Gould in 2012, and they\u2019ve never taken more than bronze. This group, he believes, could end that drought.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou talk about metal contention, that\u2019s not something that the athletes take lightly,\u201d he said. \u201cYou know, you could have a great opportunity to experience a lot of things, but the athletes aren\u2019t here for that. And it\u2019s 100% them focusing and being 100% committed to their craft, their careers, and it\u2019s not really much of a conversation that we really had at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Opening Ceremony is an iconic Olympic moment, though, and Blevins said someday he would like to have a place to wear his team-issued button-down shirt and jacket other than the hotel lounge. He\u2019s keeping July 2028 open on his planner.<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully I\u2019m in L.A. and maybe that\u2019s the one I can make it there for,\u201d he said. \u201cBut you\u2019re focused on doing your best (at the moment) and hopefully I\u2019ll be able to have some fun afterward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Julie Jag is a former sports reporter for The Durango Herald and now works at the Salt Lake Tribune. She is covering the Summer Olympics from Paris<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Athletes want to avoid fatigue ahead of Sunday, Monday competitions<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26480,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[657,950,28,977,346,2505],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-26479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cycling","tag-durango","tag-headlines","tag-mountain-biking","tag-sports","tag-summer-olympics"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26479\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26479"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=26479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}