The Sports Illustrated Olympic Daily is published in Salt Lake City and available in event venues and on newsstands for 16 straight days during the 2002 Winter Games. Here are some sights and scenes from today’s edition.

Prince Albert of Monaco reflects on a lifetime of Olympic involvement

By Albert Grimaldi

It has been 16 years since I first traveled down a bobsled run, and even in my fifth Olympics, I still long to go faster. It has been 17 years since I became a member of the International Olympic Committee, and I am still honored to serve sport and athletes. It has been 40 years since I can recall my family first telling me about their Olympic experiences, and I still want to hear more. I love the Olympics. I have been extremely fortunate in my life to be involved with the Olympic movement as a spectator, athlete and administrator. The opportunities the Games have afforded me have enriched my life immeasurably. My passion for them started when I was a boy, seeing footage of my grandfather John B. Kelly rowing at the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp. When I was 14, my Uncle Jack, who had rowed in four Olympics himself, took me around the village in Munich and introduced me to Jesse Owens, who was at the Games as a guest.

With my family's encouragement, I was lucky enough to experience many sports firsthand: I fenced, ran, swam, went skydiving and earned a brown belt in judo. In 1985 I was introduced to bobsledding while on a ski holiday in Switzerland. From the middle of the sled, I remember thinking I was in a roller coaster. I took lessons as a driver, and later that year I rattled down awkwardly from the top of the hill for the first time. I was hooked. To understand the sensation, you really have to live it. Everything comes at you so fast, but as your eye gets used to it, the speed becomes less intimidating, even though, as you get better, you start getting faster. I expected to retire after my fourth Olympics, in Nagano, but the honor of representing my country and the satisfaction of little improvements made it hard to walk away. My best placing at the Games is 25th, but our four-man sled is still striving to surpass the highest Olympic finish ever by a Monegasque athlete, 16th at the 1964 Tokyo Games.

When I first became an IOC member, I felt it was like an old gentlemen's club, but I've seen the IOC do a lot of good things: bringing more athletes into its membership, incorporating new events, such as women's bobsled, into the program and taking an increasingly vigilant stance against doping. Under the fine leadership of our new president, Jacques Rogge, the IOC has some important decisions to make in the next few years. In particular, we need to keep the number of accredited people at the Games to a manageable size, to minimize the strain on the host cities without shortchanging the athletes who strive to participate. In my role on the athletes' commission, I also see ways to help the athletes, such as improving the training facilities available to them in the Olympic Village. Life in the village is a highlight for me. No matter how much I have traveled, I have always learned something new about people from different cultures, whether I was meeting skiers from Mongolia last week, exchanging stories in Sydney with athletes from Papua New Guinea or renewing friendships with people such as Picabo Street and Maurice Greene. People turn to the Olympics as something that celebrates the best in all of us. Though I am still trying to go faster, I am also taking the time to enjoy it more than ever.