Why go to London 2012? Still wondering?

• Some go to collect athletes' pictures
• Others to volunteer at the games
• Others go to take in the Olympic Atmosphere
• All go to have a memorable time!

What better opportunity to meet people from around the world and party together?

Meet some Olympic Groupies.  They know why they go.

George Reed-Dellinger's office is a shrine to the Olympics. The walls are covered in posters of the opening ceremony in Sydney, a figure skater from Salt Lake City and other icons from Games past.

Close at hand is a photo of Mr. Reed-Dellinger cozying up to Canada's 2006 alpine team in Torino, and another of him with Tommie Smith, winner of the 200-metre dash in 1968, whom he met in Beijing. "I'm a groupie," says Mr. Reed-Dellinger, an investment analyst in Washington, D.C. "I collect the athletes He collects the Games too. So far, he has been to 10 Olympics – is about to add Vancouver to his list.

For Mr. Reed-Dellinger, the Olympics aren’t on some blog of “100 things to do before I die.”  Instead, they’re a chance to keep reliving the global-village rush.

Olympic junkies like him are the Deadheads of spectator sports.  Many travel the world as Games volunteers.  Others trade Olympic pins or sock away cash each month to fund their biennial habit. As Vancouverites count own to the days before the opening ceremony, these uber-fans are already planning their trips to London Sochi & Rio. Some people can’t get enough of the Olympic Atmosphere, says Richard Lustberg, New York based psychologist and founder of psychologyofsports.com. 

Cheering en masse at a universal get-together can be addictive, he explains, at least metaphorically. “It’s like being at a rock concert,” Dr. Lustbeg says.  “It’s a big-time high.” For most fans coming to Vancouver, he adds, “the Olympic experience is a bigger attraction than any specific sport”. The chance to meet people from around the world is a major draw, says Daniel Presburger, a teacher in a Los Angeles suburb. He got hooked on Olympics when they came to Los Angeles in 1984, he recalls. He watched a city he’d seen every day of his life transform into an idealized image of itself.  “It was a huge two week party.”

Since then he says the Games have become a home away from home. Wherever they are, the crucial elements are the same.  There are endless concerts, art exhibitions and festivals, and hordes of people walking around carrying flags, smiling and having a good time.  “It’s almost like everybody is on drugs or something.” Jim Schaefer, a federal bank examiner in San Francisco, does not consider himself an Olympic nut.

Even so, he is about to attend his fifth Games and to volunteer at a Winter Olympics a third time. Besides the sporting events, Mr. Schaefer says he enjoys the positive spirit of the nationalism at the Games as opposed to “all the bickering that happens in the world.” And there is always the thrill of meeting an athlete. While off-duty in Salk Lake City, Mr. Schaefer truck up a conversation with Vonetta Flowers the same day the bobsledder became the first African-American to win a gold medal at a Winter Olympics. “She was one of the coolest people I have ever met.”

Olympic athletes tend to be friendly, according to Mr. Reed-Dellinger.  His strategy is to approach them in a hotel lobby or in a crowd while carrying a disposable camera,  “I’ll go ‘team picture’ in my hokey little way and put my arm around then”, he says, adding that somebody always offers to take a picture. For certain fans, notes Dr. Mahoney, being photographed with an athlete is a form of vicarious achievement.  “There’s this notion that when you connect yourself to somebody famous, there’s a rub off effect”

But Mr. Reed-Dellinger says he has no interest in players with bloated salaries and prima-donna attitudes.  “I gave up on American sports 20 years ago” Instead he gets a kick out of seeing the cream of the world’s athletes meet in one place, knowing that the poorest of nations could rise to the top, he says.  “That’s the reason I go.”

Article from Globe and Mail, Vancouver edition 4 Feb 2010