Olympic Digital Media Resources

Courtesy of Olympic Committee on YouTube. Click through to see full video!

Get excited for the Olympics!!!! In approximately two weeks, the torch will reach the Olympic zone in London, England, and the world will watch as seasoned and brand-new athletes will compete for Olympic gold. For some, these Olympics will be there last. Michael Phelps, for example, will retire at 27 this year after he competes. Hope to add more gold to his collection of 16 medals from two Olympic games. For high schoolers like Gabby Douglas and Aly Raisman (gymnastics), these Olympics mark their first of hopefully many. (P.S. Follow @Aly_Raisman on Twitter for news about gymnastics and sweet Instagram pictures of her and her teammates). They hope to avoid the fate of Sean Johnson – 2012 Olympic gymnastics hopeful who tore her ACL skiing, forcing her to retire at age 20. Don’t we all wish we could do that? Perhaps not in that fashion…

In light of all the news stories and media releases in the past few weeks, I have compiled a list of digital resources that you need to know and are just plain interesting for Olympics fanatics like me!

Time Olympics is your one-stop-shop for all things Olympics. With popular topics, breaking news, and photos of the events, this website is sure to squelch all of your Olympic-media cravings. Check out the “50 Olympic Athletes to Watch” — this article will definitely give you a preview of the most amazing athletes and their backgrounds.

With the Olympics comes the media, and the new media center opened in London will house 6,200 members of the media throughout the games. The games are the biggest media event in UK history, making the media hub a very important part of this year’s Olympics.

The media hype around the Olympics is exciting enough, but five Penn State students are getting the chance by the US Olympic Committee to report for the Olympics. The juniors and seniors will be providing “as many as five stories per day that will appear in “USA Daily,” which is distributed to media members, sponsors, members of the U.S. delegation for the Games and representatives from non-governmental bodies. The students will write stories to be posted at USOCPressBox online as well.” This is a fantastic opportunity for my fellow communications students, and I could not be more jealous that they are taking advantage of this fantastic opportunity. Here are their reactions to covering the Olympics on YouTube.

Finally, the Olympics would not be complete without android and iOS apps. They include: 2012 Team USA, which is good for the Olympic trials. I haven’t quite figured out why they won’t provide USA stats throughout the games, but I’m sure we can find results elsewhere. London 2012: Official Results includes personalized notifications about events, medal counts and schedules. You can even set it to send you push notifications to remind you about certain events! 2012 London: Official Join In app is more for people attending the games, with information about venues, ticket prices, maps, and spectator guides. Lastly, the 2012 London: Official Game is also included in that suite of apps, offering an avatar to compete in virtual games. Search “London 2012” in the Apple AppStore (sorry, not familiar with Google Play for Android!) to see the selection of Olympic-specific apps.

Of course, you can always download NBC Olympics for information about all things Olympics, but is not part of the London 2012 official app suite. Enjoy!