BEIJING — Taylor Phinney wasn’t here when it happened. But he saw it. He was in London on his way to a train in Bordeaux, France, and saw teammate Bobby Lea’s face on the Financial Times’ cover. Lea was wearing a mask as he arrived at Beijing’s airport, launching a controversy that has hit Phinney’s U.S. track cycling team to its core.
They were the only team that wore masks to protect themselves from Beijing’s infamous smog. When he first saw the paper, Boulder’s 18-year-old Olympian laughed.
“Then when I got here and learned what happened, (teammate) Mike Friedman was really upset about it,” Phinney said. “It hasn’t ruined their Olympic experience but it certainly made it a lot harder.”
Phinney didn’t wear a mask when he arrived. However, he did wear one here when he competed in a World Cup event in December. This time, he didn’t think he needed it and didn’t want to give the wrong impression. Still, the reaction worldwide has been stunning.
“It’s weird to come to the Olympics and have all this weird media attention,” Phinney said. “Mike on his blog would get hate mail. He’d be reading that every day. We had to take his BlackBerry away from him. He’d just get depressed.
“It was people from all over. They were saying, like, ‘Way to be American.'”
Phinney doesn’t understand what the problem is.
“The thing about the masks is they’re USOC masks,” he said. “A doctor from the USOC sent a note saying, ‘You should wear these masks in all transportation centers.’ The fact that the USOC didn’t back that wasn’t very cool.”
Phinney, who competes in the individual pursuit prelims Friday, said the issue is behind them and while his teammates have had their down moments, he’s had none. He got to rub shoulders with the U.S. men’s basketball team when they met the president (“Way cool,” the Boulder High graduate said) and has hung out with the U.S. women’s gymnastics team.
His father, former Tour de France rider Davis Phinney, arrived Tuesday and Taylor was set to meet his parents, sister and girlfriend before attending the Angola-U.S. men’s basketball game later that night.
“So I’m stoked,” he said.
He’s glad his dad is here as he had a slight downturn after successful brain surgery to relieve symptoms from Parkinson’s disease on April 25 gave him a new lease on life. He watched his son win the world junior championship in Cape Town, South Africa, last momth and then had to return home to Boulder.
“He got really tired,” Taylor said. “The trip took a lot out of him. But I think he’s built way back up now. He was just so excited after the surgery, he wanted to go back to his normal life.”
With his dad gone, Taylor had to train alone in Bordeaux and his parents couldn’t get a track pass for his training here.
“Over the course of this year they’ve been with me the whole time and being here and having them at a distance from me has been a little bit hard,” Taylor said, “but I’m 18 now so I’m supposed to be a man.”
John Henderson: 303-954-1299 or jhenderson@denverpost.com.
