FROM THE PUBLISHER

At one point in her life, the most enthralling place senior editor Julia Lamb had ever visited was Winnipeg, Canada. "My family drove up there from our home in North Dakota, 120 miles, and I couldn't get over how wonderful, how exciting, how foreign it was." she recalls. "They had British movies in the theaters and Wedgwood china in the stores, and we stayed overnight at a hotel. I thought that Canada was as exotic a place as there was in the world."

She was 11 at the time. Since then Lamb has seen a lot more than Winnipeg when it comes to exotic locations—she has traveled from Afghanistan to the Soviet Union to Australia. But now, as the senior editor in charge of our 1988 Winter Olympic coverage, she has once again focused on the glories of Canada.

This special 322-page issue, which contains 36 stories, many about Canada and all concerned with Calgary's XV Winter Olympics, has occupied much of Lamb's attention since she first drew up a skeleton list of subject ideas more than a year ago. This is the second-largest magazine SPORTS ILLUSTRATED has ever published, after the 536-page special issue that previewed the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympics.

Lamb has acted as field marshal and guiding editorial light to a detachment of 19 writers, 12 reporters, six photo researchers and dozens of photographers who, in the last few months, have traveled more than half a million miles and visited a variety of exotic places (including Winnipeg, as a matter of fact) to track down Winter Olympic athletes and Winter Olympic facts. Her right-hand woman in our New York offices was designer Holly Matteson, who, with SI design director Steven Hoffman, created the look of this special issue.

With this project complete, another is beginning for Lamb. She's heading back to Calgary, where she will supervise the 34-person contingent assigned to cover the Games for us.

PHOTO

LANE STEWART

LAMB, WHO ONCE FOUND CANADA EXOTIC, WILL LEAD SI'S STAFF IN CALGARY

ILLUSTRATION