  The discovery of an optical counterpart to GRB010222 (detected by BeppoSAX;
Piro 2001) was announced 4.4 hrs after the burst by Henden (2001a). The Sloan
Digital Sky Survey's 0.5m photometric telescope (PT) and 2.5m survey telescope
were used to observe the afterglow of GRB010222 starting 4.8 hours after the
GRB. The 0.5m PT observed the afterglow in five, 300 sec g' band exposures over
the course of half an hour, measuring a temporal decay rate in this short
period of F_nu \propto t^{-1.0+/-0.5}. The 2.5m camera imaged the counterpart
nearly simultaneously in five filters (u' g' r' i' z'), with r' = 18.74+/-0.02
at 12:10 UT. These multicolor observations, corrected for reddening and the
afterglow's temporal decay, are well fit by the power-law F_nu \propto
nu^{-0.90+/-0.03} with the exception of the u' band UV flux which is 20% below
this slope. We examine possible interpretations of this spectral shape,
including source extinction in a star forming region.
