St. Louis Olympian talks to ToastedRav.com

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What's Sarah Haskins' biggest worry about her upcoming Olympic triathlon?  It's not nerves.  It's not heated competition.  It's the food.  Her last trip to China didn't leave a very good taste in her mouth.  Literally.

"I'm not sure that we had the best stuff, but some of the hotels were trying to be westernized," she told me by phone from Colorado Springs.  "The spaghetti and the pasta didn't really look like spaghetti and pasta.  The sauce was kind of a.....brownish color.  And they eat fried food for breakfast.  I can't say I exactly enjoyed the food there."

But she can definitely stomach the circumstance.  The Parkway South grad is considered by many to be a favorite to medal in the triathlon at the summer games.  She finished second in the last world championships. 

Of course, being a pain in the backside columnist, I tried to get her to guarantee the gold. But Sarah, being an athlete who has dealt with pain in the backside columnists, wasn't biting.

"That would be a very big challenge," she says.  "A bronze would be amazing." 

Just getting to her event is going to be a journey unto itself.  She's currently at the Olympic training facility in Colorado.  She has to go to an event in Minnesota in a couple of weeks.  Then it's back to Colorado.  Then there's a trip to San Francisco where all the athletes will be processed.  Then comes the insanely long plane ride to Beijing.  They'll take part in the opening ceremonies, then turn around and leave the country again...going to Korea for a final week of training.  Then, finally, it's back to Beijing to take a shot at the gold.

I was curious about the side trip to Korea. 

"The air quality is better there," she says, referring to the notorious pollution problems in most of Mainland China.  "It's also easier to get training done, but mostly it's about the air quality."

With all that training and one event still in front of her, I asked if she's worried at all about injury.  She says it does creep into her mind, though not to the level of paranoia.  (Something I freely admitted would be my problem if in her shoes.)

She says family and friends are completely psyched about the weeks ahead.  She says her dad is already well versed in organizing watching parties for friends and interested media.  (ToastedRav.com will be contacting the proud papa!)

Sarah, meanwhile, is just trying to focus on, well, staying focused.

"I don't want to go there just to go there.  I want to do well."

The thirteen hour time difference between Beijing and St. Louis will also be a challenge, though there will be plenty of time to adjust. 

Then, there's the food.  It's a bit of a relief to her that the US Olympic contingent will be bringing some of it's own grub this time around.

Once the event is over, maybe someone can point her toward a restaurant that serves something besides brown spaghetti.  After all, Beijing is supposed to have some pretty upscale Chinese.