"We have to do loads on The Olympics as everyone will be fascinated by it," one of our senior reporters said to me last month.  "We want daily updates, reports from our contacts out there, a special section on the news page, news of all the behind the scenes goings on, coverage of all the athletes and sports not just ones with British involvement but most of all we must to keep our reporting impartial/independent and report interesting stories".

I seem to remember grunting something along the lines that most British people aren't terribly interested in The Winter Olympics and we won't win any medals anyway. I probably said something about the time difference too.

No repeat of 2002 successNow here we are, over half way through the Games, and large sections of PlanetSKI are taken over to The Olympics, we are doing more than just report on British sporting success (or otherwise) and I am finding myself staying up to all hours of the night. I even watched the women curlers last night, knowing they would probably loose. Maybe it is because I was working for the BBC in 2002 in Salt Lake City and was hoping for a repeat of that success.

The hits on the site and reactions from readers have been huge.

Many are praising the speed of our coverage and the fact we are prepared to criticise certain areas of the Games without going over the top.  Some people though have complained about how we reported the attempts of Zoë Gillings and Ben Kilner in the snowboarding, saying we were far too negative and they deserved praise for all they achieved. 

On reflection I think those comments have a point as the 2 athletes have worked extremely hard, but Gillings had been touted as a medal winner and not to even make it to the final was a disappointment. Others though think they did really well and we respect that judgement.

The skiing has been fantastic with Bode Miller winning 3 medals, Lindsey Vonn doing well but not that well and our own Ed Drake putting in some very respectable performances.  He is looking like he could be a very exciting prospect over the coming few years with the right backing and coaching. Chemmy Alcott has done well, albeit with no medal success, but she has been great to watch.

And then there is the ski cross. What a fantastic sport! We have won a gold medal, the first for 30 years, and in some sports we are competing on a world level. The ice hockey has been thrilling, the ski jumping exhilarating and even the biathlon riveting in places.

The BBC has covered it superbly both on line and on TV; I even love watching the trailers. It's hard to believe there are only a few days left but we will be following it even closer I reckon.

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