Rio here I come!

So here I am at Heathrow Airport. After months of planning it's finally time to leave the rainy Brtish summer and head to Rio de Janeiro to join the Olympic & Paralympic News Service for two months.

During the course of the few months in which I've known for sure that I was off to Rio a lot of people have asked what exactly I'll be doing there. Essentially, ONS (and PNS during the Paralympics) acts as a sort of news agency for accredited journalists. Anyone who is a member of the accredited media is able to use ONS's services during (and just before) the Games. Our team will produce news stories, race reports, quotes from athletes and other bits of content which can then feed into the media's reporting of the event. You won't see my byline on anything but keep your eye out as sometimes the papers credit ONS for content with a little 'ONS' at the end of an article, much like you might see 'PA' or 'Reuters' on a major mainstream news story. I think I will be focusing primarily on rowing, and possibly canoe sprints, but will hopefully also get pulled in for other sports too.

I'm joining an immensely experienced team of journalists. I did a similar job in London and on my first day I confess to being a little overawed by the skills and experience in the room. Most of my colleagues had worked on several Olympics, World Championships and similar events. I'd done two short stints as a volunteer in the media centre when the rowing world cup and world champs came to Dorney in 2005 and 2006.

The job in London was a challenge in many ways but I made it through and went back to the day job bitten by the events reporting bug. I then managed to secure a reporter role for the Rugby News Service for last year's Rugby World Cup, where I discovered that being a good journalist and doing your research can make up for not knowing a huge amount about a sport.

But Rio's different. I've worked all my other events as a sabbatical from a full-time B2B journalist role, and all of them from home. This time, I've ditched the job. I've found a flat sitter (thanks Nat!), said goodbye to my friends, and have planned six weeks of travelling after the Paralympics are over. I'll be going from Rio to Paraty on the coast, then on to Sao Paulo, before flying to Iguacu Falls on the border of Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay. From Iguacu I'm flying to Lima in Peru, from where I'm going to get a bus to Cusco to walk the Salkantay Trek to Machu Picchu. Then it's on to Lake Titicaca, Arequipa and finally Paracas before flying home again via a couple of nights in Miami. And then ... well, who knows?

At this point, I'm just looking forward to the challenge of working at the greatest sporting event on earth, surrounded by the people in the world who are the best at their jobs - whether that job is making a boat go fast, or doing any of the thousands of other tasks which are essential to make sure that the Olympics runs smoothly.

I'm going to use this blog to share experiences, photos and tips, so please follow to join me (virtually) on my big adventure!