By WARREN DILLAWAY - Staff Writer
The sense of excitement leading into the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver was witnessed first hand by Ashtabula County resident Pete Ives.
Ives, a part-time driver for Anderson Tours, has been in Canada for several weeks preparing for the once-in-a-lifetime experience. He was asked to drive at the Olympics last Fall and excitedly accepted the offer.
“The city is incredible,” Ives said in a telephone interview Saturday afternoon from the Olympics.
“The training process was three days and very interesting,” Ives said. He said some of the security issues make it difficult to explain his specific job, but he drives people to a variety of secure locations.
The especially rainy weather during the last several days has slowed his work. “I haven’t worked too much,” he said of weather-related issues that changed the schedule of the Olympics.
“Each day as we got closer (the excitement built),” Ives said of last week. He said he was able to watch the Olympic Torch Relay as it wound its way through the area.
On a side note Ives said he had contact with a driver that took the Georgian delegation to a secure site prior to the opening ceremonies after one of the luge team members was killed in a Friday training crash.
Ives said he is a skier and attended the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid as a college student. He said he is looking forward to the rest of the Olympics and will hopefully be able to share more stories during the next two weeks.
