Cultural sensitivity

As if I didn't already have enough to do. This weekend the USOC is flying prospective Olympians to a small conference for two days in D.C. The Olympic Committee is actually holding this same conference in California and Colorado Springs for the athletes out on the west coast.

I haven't received a lot of information about why this is manditory but from what I heard from some poeple I gathered the following. The USOC is worried about the image of American athletes so we are going through media training (been there and done that) and some "cultural sensitivity training". Seriously? I could teach the Chinese culture class. What is really going on?

I'm intrigued as to why we have to go through this. My only guess is that there are a lot of other athletes in other sports that are causing problems because if a fencer at this level doesn't understand how to interact with other cultures, you must not be a good fencer. We travel so much that we should be able to deal with these situations and the lot of us have been through this before.

I wonder if there could be an exemption. The upside to this is that I get to reunite with some of my friends from the Beijing Press Tour and perhaps see some of my other athlete friends this weekend.

I'll let you know how it goes. Oh yeah, my mother said I am probably not Chinese enough and have to go through the training. My father thinks I'm too German, that's why I am told to go to D.C. this weekend to partake in the conference. Either way-I'm headed to D.C. on Friday.