When Time’s Winter Olympics reporting crew arrived in Norway, news-desk editor Susanna Schrobsdorff recalls, “the Lillehammer organizing committee told us, ‘There is no bad weather, just bad clothing.’ ” Schrobsdorff still thinks there may be more to it than that. Norwegians, she says, “are quite capable of chatting outside in -4 degrees F temperatures for hours, wearing their elegant gray-wool and elk-skin coats unbuttoned while we freeze in high- tech winter getups.”
Schrobsdorff may not have conquered the weather, but she is the nerve center for nearly everything else for our 11-person team in Lillehammer. She doesn’t ski or skate, and she majored in English at Barnard before joining TIME’s New York City news desk a decade ago. But she has covered Olympics both chilly (Calgary in 1988, Albertville in 1992) and steamy (Seoul in 1988, Barcelona in 1992) and developed a dual role as reporter and logistics organizer. Says deputy chief of correspondents Paul Witteman: “Susanna has been our decathlete, mastering everything from telecommunications in Spain to computers in France to transportation in Seoul. She has reported from Odessa, Ukraine, about figure skater Oksana Baiul and from Copenhagen about the moves and moods of Torvill and Dean. I first saw her in Calgary being hugged by stuffed bears, which were that year’s Olympics mascots. Now we all feel the same way about her.”
Witteman and Schrobsdorff are joined by contributor John Skow, who covered the 1988 Seoul Games for TIME. Paris-based correspondent Margot Hornblower and Claire Senard are both reporting their third Olympics. Deputy picture editor MaryAnne Golon, assistant picture editor Mary Worrell- Bousquette, picture operations manager Kevin McVea and photographer Jose Azel are veterans too.
Schrobsdorff’s way of relaxing after the Barcelona Olympics was to get married. She is based in Brussels. Her husband, a Swede with roots in the north, lives in Stockholm. The wedding was in Lapland. She wore a crown of gold with spikes festooned with pearls, and looked, she says, “like an escapee from EuroDisney.” Despite the ancient rivalry between Norway and Sweden, she has been greeted warmly — and efficiently. “The Norwegians are so organized that we finished most of the work last September. We’re still waiting for the Barcelonans to send the rest of our phone bill.”
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