Yes, this will be my sixth trip to the Olympics, but, you know, going to Athens still fills me with a mixture of eagerness and anxiety, just like the first time, in Los Angeles, almost exactly 20 years ago.

In 1984, my eagerness largely came from the fact that the Olympics were here, in the United States, for the first time in 62 years and I was young (24) and a veteran of a whopping two years here at the Chronicle. But I’d followed and gotten to know the riders and their horses, and the gold-medal performances of our three-day and show jumping teams (and of Reiner Klimke on Ahlerich) in that marvelous arena at Santa Anita Park have made it a truly rose-colored memory I’ll always treasure.

My anxiety then resulted just from going to the Olympics and dealing with all the rules, regulations and dozens of other media types. It was a completely new experience. At that point, I don’t think I’d ever covered a competition where there were more than a tiny handful of journalists (usually it was just me), and I’d certainly never been anyplace where I couldn’t go into the stables or anywhere else I wanted.

That kind of anxiety has almost evaporated since then. I now know pretty much what to expect, although the host city’s cultural and bureaucratic vagaries always add some new twist. (In Barcelona in 1992, one day we credentialed press could enter the stadium at a certain entrance and the next day we couldn’t. With no explanation, just “No.” And the next day we might be able to enter there again.)

But this year, in our uncertain, newly dangerous post-Sept. 11 world, I can’t help but feel a new kind of anxiety. Nicole Lever of my editorial staff has been regularly feeding me articles about security concerns (with a disconcerting laugh), and she and the rest of my staff are joking about who’ll get my cluttered office if I don’t come back. At least, I hope their joking?

But security in Athens won’t be a joke, and I’m sure it’s going to be overbearing and even annoying. And I’ll have to keep telling myself that there’s a good reason for it and that I hope it’s working. I fear, though, that the threat of terrorism-whether from the groups we know hate us or from some local whack job who thinks the Olympics would be a great time to “make an impact”-is going to succeed in keeping these Olympics from being a whole lot of fun for everybody.

Yes, the Salt Lake City organizers pulled off a Winter Olympics that worked six months after Sept. 11, but the Greeks aren’t nearly as ready or able. But that’s just my opinion, I could be wrong (as Dennis Miller says).

People often ask me what I’ll get to see in Athens (or Sydney or Seoul). And my answer is always, “The equestrian venue,” because, honestly, that’s about all there’s time for. In Barcelona, Marty Bauman, the U.S. Equestrian Team’s former press officer and a good friend, got us tickets to a soccer semi-final between Spain and a South American country. And in Sydney friends Cora and Ted Cushny (now of eventingetc.com) got us tickets to a night of track and field that featured the men’s 100-meter finals among lots of other action. Those were both great nights, but I’m afraid I haven’t seen too much else of the Olympics.

This time, in some ways I’ll be more immersed in the Olympic experience than I’ve usually been, but in other ways I’ll be more removed.

For the first time since Seoul in 1988, I’m staying in a media village, for three reasons. First, cost. At about $110 per night, it’s half to 1/10th as expensive as any hotel. Second, although I stayed in private homes in L.A. Barcelona, Atlanta and Sydney, that option wasn’t really available this time. Third, telecommunications, which in parts of Europe (like Spain for the 2002 World Equestrian Games) is rather Third World (although in some places it’s 22nd century), and I have to be 100-percent sure that I can send my daily reports and photos immediately-to keep you folks happy. We know that the media village will have up-to-par telecommunications.

The media village where I’m staying, called Ag Andreas, on the coast of the Aegean Sea, northeast of Athens, will in some ways put me closer to “the Olympic experience.” In Atlanta I stayed about an hour from the equestrian venue and from the city, and in Sydney I was more than an hour by train from the city. (In L.A. and Barcelona I was a three-minute walk from the equestrian venue.) But even then I still had to make regular trips to the Main Press Center in the city to get my film developed and photos printed. But I’ll be shooting strictly digital in Athens and will have no need to go downtown.

So I’ll still be somewhat isolated, especially because I don’t expect I’ll have much, if any, time to go into Athens. There are only two days without equestrian competition-between the end of eventing and start of dressage and between the dressage and show jumping finals-and I expect to spend almost all day writing my reports for the magazine and selecting and sending photos from among the 1,000 or so I’ll shoot for each discipline.

Nevertheless, I’ll be trying in this “Athens Journal” to give you folks a taste of more than just who won and how. I hope we both enjoy the experience.