Rachel Blount is going back to where it all started. These Tokyo Games will be the 12th Olympics, both summer and winter, for Blount, with her first coming at the 1998 Winter Games in Nagano, Japan.

Columnist Jim Souhan will join her again, their sixth pairing as our Olympics writers. The Games give Souhan a chance to make a pivot from covering the biggest leagues and Minnesota's highest-profile athletes to writing about sports and athletes that catch a slice of the global spotlight once every four years. Do you want to know more about the Olympic sailor from White Bear Lake? (Of course you do!) Coming soon from Souhan.

Blount thrives on covering the Olympics and uncovering the stories that you don't see shouted across NBC telecasts. Yes, she'll be ready to cover Simone Biles and Katie Ledecky and the other superstars, but her focus will be on doing what she does best: telling stories of exceptional Minnesotans. These athletes are, as we like to say, One Of Us — they just happen to swim faster, flip higher and wrestler harder than the rest of us.

Back home, Naila-Jean Meyers will be editing our Olympics coverage for the first time. Will Meyers stick to Minnesota time with her working and sleeping patterns, or will she adopt Tokyo time and be wide awake at 3:30 a.m. here watching gymnastics and handball for three weeks? Actually, probably a little (er, a lot) of both.

It'll be easy for readers (and listeners) to stay connected to our coverage and our journalists. You'll read stories from Blount and Souhan each day, and diary entries from both as they experience these strange Games. You'll hear them on our "Daily Delivery" podcast regularly as well.

Blount and Souhan fly out Monday morning. Safe travels to them, and let's hope these Games give us all many more moments of glory than worry.