Drumming up foriegn support for Phelps, Hoff
Fronda Cohen and her husband, Richard, will be watching the televised opening of the Olympics in Beijing and reliving a recent trip China.
Cohen, a spokeswoman for the county Office of Economic Development, visited China in May. The trip included a few days in Beijing, where the couple watched workers putting the finishing touches on buildings and other preparations.
Now that she’s home, she keeps in touch with people she met in China via e-mail. Lately, those e-mails have taken on a lobbying bent as she encouraged her new friends to cheer just a little for Michael Phelps and Katie Hoff.
“I made sure they knew the world’s best swimmers are both from my city,” Cohen said.
Cohen, a self-acknowledged “Olympics junkie,” said she’ll be parked on her couch with some friends enjoying Chinese food The Orient, a Towson restaurant, and looking for all of the places she visited.
“I think it’s really going to be like a, ‘Oh, look, we were there’ kind of a thing,” Cohen said. “Kind of like seeing yourself or a friend on TV, seeing it in a way that says I walked on that piece of ground. It’s that familiarity that will be most fun.”