Right now, I envy my little truck which has just left for the XXVIth Olympiad.

Friend, John Rudoff, M.D., (son of Hyman Rudoff, whom you know), is a rowing enthusiast. One of his fellow rowers is an Olympian, a contender in the women's open-weight double-sculls. Starting early in the season, John not only obtained tickets for himself and friends, but also reserved a Corps of Engineers campground site close to the rowing venue, Lake Lanier. Then, he asked to borrow my 21-foot motorhome for the expedition. I said, "Yes!" of course.

After a quick study in RV care and handling, John has just driven away from Ocean City, leaving Rudy and me green with envy.

My own memories of Olympiads begin with the XXIIIrd in Los Angeles which I covered as a writer for USIA's press service.

I did not get to see the opening of the '84 ceremonies up close and personal, because the Olympic bureaucracy was so dense. Press credentials were held up. My photographer-colleague rented a light plane (with pilot) so we could overfly the stadium. It is a pure wonder we were not shot down by the security forces. We were well within the two and one-half - mile air limit and were locking eyeballs with Fuji blimps. I wrote a lead story including these facts which was not used because the Washington editors refused to believe what we were doing.

Credentials made everything much easier, and we moved about freely on the press buses provided for us. They were driven by volunteer school-bus drivers from all over the country. One of them told us, "I can't get used to you media types. You keep standing up on the bus. I have to remember I can't send you to the principal's office!"

My particular assignment was the African athletes, contending in great numbers as a result of a US training and assistance program. The African teams were pleased to be recognized, and to have their participation taken seriously.

A great many African boxers competed; so many, in fact, that I had to view most of their bouts in the Press Center's video room. I sat at the screen with my Tandy 100 laptop, following the action and writing at the same time. I found out later that the editors back in Washington were wondering: "Where in the world did Jo learn to write about boxing?"

Well, I had met a kind young Canadian boxer who shared his knowledge with me while watching tapes of his own bouts. He told me -- after I had made several errors -- that knocking your opponent down is not a biggie in Olympic ring competition.

The African athletes had worked hard and, for the most part, trained well. But there were elements they had not learned. For instance, a Nigerian coach told me in an interview that the valiant Botswana marathon runners who led much of the way, were beaten in the last miles by the Europeans who timed themselves carefully over the course.

"Next time, the Africans will do it right," said the Nigerian.

A Kenyan man and a Moroccan woman did it right in track, winning handsomely over all others.

The Press Center was a maelstrom most of the time; we worked day and night with the help of volunteers and the professionals provided by AT&T's computer elements. I was assigned to concentrate on regional stories: led by Africa, then others as assigned: Latin America, Pacific Rim, Middle East... My colleague from the Central Desk did the lead stories. We had two cars among the three of us: two reporters and a photographer, plus the shuttle buses. Our efforts poured out, thousands of words each day.

LA did a terrific job, you may recall. They not only made our jobs easier, they made money.

Following breakfast at our dowdy motel, we lived on nachos from the Press Center snack stand. Once, I think, my colleagues and I actually went out and had a nice dinner.

Finally, the closing ceremonies came, and the Press Center slowed to a crawl. Exhausted, we were lounging around watching the spectacle on TVs, when someone came rushing in from outside.

"You can actually see the fireworks from here!" And we all ran out to see the "real thing" albeit from a distance.

I experienced my next Olympics from an even greater distance, writing in Washington what my news agency called a "paper show." This means that I prepared the text to accompany huge pictures of Olympic athletes preparing for the summer contest of '88 and its following winter games. I interviewed Matt Biondi about events in which win or lose balanced on thousandths of a second. That was when I found out that Jackie Joyner-Kersey's most burdensome competitor was asthma.

I interrupted the busy day of Bela Karolyi to find out how it was to transfer his gift for training gymnasts from the communist world to the capitalist. He was adapting very well, indeed, and pleased with his young American protégées.

Through gymnastics, I found out what it took for a young family to decide that one member would have their united support; that brothers and sisters would put aside their own interests, deferring to that one with a special gift. The youngster I talked with described a work day which made me weary to hear about it. Her discipline was intense. Finally I asked her; "Don't you sometimes think about just lying down and eating candy while you read stacks of comic books?" She giggled. Still normal!

Greg Louganis, the great diver, was one of the most thoughtful athletes I spoke to in advance of 1988. He told me that self-challenge and quality-improvement were his ultimate goals. He said in our interview; "My motivation (has always been) to perform well... excellence for its own sake.... to perform to the best of my ability. Through the years, what kept me going was the pursuit of excellence... you know, the best performance that I can give."

There were problems at the Olympian heights; we've all seen some of them. The picture is not all laurel leaves and good will.

I took a call in 1984 from a boxing coach for the Cameroon team. He swore that winning scores were awarded to the boxers from some nations in preference to others... mainly having to do with the nationalities of the judges.

At a press conference, I asked Carl Lewis if he had heard of any international concerns like this. Understandably, he declined to answer.

In an interview, I asked a sports-medicine specialist who had gone to Africa to teach and work with teams, what he thought about the question of steroid use. I was thinking of the harm such substances do the athletes. The specialist responded, to my dismay, that he was against American teams' use of steroids "because the poor countries can't afford them and it makes for unfair competition."

These and other episodes made me wonder if I really understood what this was all about; if values were really in such disrepair. So, later, when I met Nawal el Moutawakel, gold-medal hurdler from Morocco, while I was on assignment at Iowa State University, I asked her what sport meant to her.

"I reached my dream at the Olympics," she said, "and when you have a title it stays there forever, but the record comes and goes. If I break it tomorrow, another girl from Morocco or a girl from East Germany may come along... so I just want to enjoy the flavor of having broken the (400 meter hurdles) world record even for hours, days... I don't care."

Still, it seems there is always a spoiler. Moutawakel said, "Many people say that I won the gold medal and I didn't deserve it because the Soviet Union and others were not there to compete. Well, I was there. If the Soviets were not there it is their business.

"I was there. I did not boycott the games."

At this time, 1985, the Moroccan had been an athlete for eight or nine years, she said, adding that the longer she worked at athletics the more they meant to her.; "I think they teach you how to behave yourself... I just enjoy being around athletes and track and sport in general. Even if it takes most of my time and does not allow me to spend as much time as I want in doing other things in my life, I still love it. I think it is keeping me from doing things that I consider would be wasting my time."

Remembering her Olympic victory lap at Los Angeles, bearing her country's flag aloft, she said, "I love to run and if I run, I run for myself, but I also love to run for my country. Because without my country I probably would not have been at the Olympics. So I felt proud to run for my country."

I asked Steve Lynn, Iowa State University track coach, how he views athletics and their value to the student and the university. He is almost brutally pragmatic.

"The Athletic Department is the most visual aspect of the university," he said. "You pick up the paper every single day and you read about the university in the sports page. Many times a year ISU will be on TV. And 15,000 people will show up 20 times a year to watch basketball games. Fifty thousand people show up six times a year to watch football.

"Nobody goes to sit in on an English lecture. Now, English is important to the University, but it is not nearly as visible as the Athletic Department."

The Athletic Department is not the most important part of the university, he said, "It is just the most visible part."

How does this visibility contribute to the standing of the University as an institution of higher learning? I asked.

"It gets kids to school here. It gets money coming here,"he said.

Is that what they are seeking in Atlanta? Money and visibility?

What happens to Greg Louganis' challenge to excellence; Nawal el Moutawakel's pride, learning and reaching her dream?