Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK

I’ve got to confess something:  I slept through my first Olympic assignment yesterday.  Yep, IT happened.  I got done completing my first blog at 6 a.m. on Saturday morning, after a day that had lasted 22 hours. I knew I was in bad shape as soon as my head hit the pillow, because my wake-up call was set for 7 a.m. I never heard the alarm go off. Luckily I didn’t miss anything terribly important.   I also knew that I had to photograph the women’s fencing match that evening that the U.S. eventually swept all of the medals in, and I would have been pretty worthless on one hour of sleep anyway. At least that’s my excuse.   Why am I telling you this?  Well, just to admit that IT does happen.  And because we’re supposed to give you a peak “behind the curtain” in this blog. So far I’ve slept a total of 7 hours in the past two days, and that will be pretty consistent for the next two weeks.  That being said, you just better be able to count the amount of times IT happens on one hand during your entire career. (more…)