I have to say, thank God for the Winter Olympics. Once every four years we get to disconnect a bit from the more serious news of the day and cheer on, as well as envy, the youthful athletes competing on the world stage. 

Don’t get me wrong, the news of the day is important and we need to be more engaged than ever. Perhaps that’s why the Olympics feel like a mini winter vacation. 

Bend and Oregon has had its share of Olympians, and this weekend one of them, Tommy Ford, goes for the gold in the men’s alpine giant slalom. The competition will air in Beijing late Saturday night into early Sunday morning.

Our sports editor, Mark Morical, has been tracking Ford’s progress since the skier suffered a devastating knee, wrist and head injury at a World Cup race in Switzerland on Jan. 9, 2020. Amazingly he has overcome those injuries to make the Olympic team, and this weekend’s race will be his first since that traumatic crash.

If you missed it, check out Morical’s interview with Ford that appeared on our front page in Friday’s edition and online at www.bendbulletin.com

Mark will be up late Saturday and early Sunday to post the race results to our website, www.bendbulletin.com, as well as a full story in our Monday e-edition. If you want to get the news as it breaks, sign up for our sports texting app, at bendbulletin.com/text.

And as an aside, I cannot say enough about the hard work that Mr. Morical, sports reporter Brian Rathbone and page designer Josh Brayer put in daily to bring you your local sports and outdoors features. A three-man sports department — pandemic and all — keeps its collective fingers on the pulse of all the high schools in Central Oregon. That’s quite a feat.

So, please, if you will, support our local journalism by subscribing to our digital product. We deliver a digital e-edition to your email inbox by 6 a.m. each morning and you have full access to our website. If you are a digital subscriber, you can also receive the Sunday newspaper delivered free to your driveway .

Thanks for reading,

Gerry O’Brien, Editor