Volunteering: Feb. 15 - The best view in the house

Day 4 of the 2010 Vancouver Games

We finally got some beautiful weather down in Whistler today. Not only did I wake up to below freezing temperatures today, which after several days of warm, wet weather was more welcoming than expected, but also a clear blue sky that rivaled the colour of own uniform from time to time.

Today I got to arrive into the venue around an hour after I've been coming in last week - 9 AM - and was originally assigned to simply help out at the main venue media center with odd errands among other things. But after about ten minutes of being given busy work, I had to be deployed upstairs at the cross-country venue with Asami due to a tougher work load then expected for the women's 10K free as well as the men's 15K free.

I realized why when I got up there. The view from the mix zone for both press and broadcasters were terrible. If your view of the field wasn't already being blocked by the myriad of cameras and television crews in their boxes right in front of the finish line, then it was blocked by the huge scaffold made for broadcasters of the field as well as that massive line of photographers just in front of the finish line. It's especially awful for the writers, whose articles depends on the story they can tell you through the questions asked of the action that took place. But how can you create the story of a win or a loss if all the information you can glean from your position in the press box is only time and placement of their performace?

Without seeing the constant struggle in the race to finish where they did, how can you write a story about that journey?

They tried to amend some of the issue by establishing a special spectator section for the press on the other side of the venue building that had a better view of the field of play. But they only gave access to the written press in that area. Not even the coaches were allowed in there. So myself and Wes (another volunteer press assistant) was assigned there to basically keep out the broadcasters.

The view of the field from the written press spectator area,

which was one of the best views on this side of the field

Remember in my last voluteer blog post I wrote about how crazy the Polish fans are? Well I saw what happens when they lose an event that they were favoured to win today. Poland's Justyna Kowalczyk was the gold medal favourite going into this race, and there was a strong Polish contingent to back her up. But she failed to medal, though she still finished a very respectable 5th place. Still, the Polish fans, as soon as they saw that she wasn't going to be on the podium that day left the venue very quietly afterward.

Actually, as soon as Kowalczyk finished the race, every single member of the press in the spectator zone stormed out of the area in order to line up in their respective mix zone section in order to talk to her and the few that finished in front of her that won the medals. Maybe because Kowalczyk had been avoiding the press for days.

We did end up with a fairly nice surprise during the maintenance period where the field was being prepared for the men's 15k free. We had the press attache for Canada hanging out around our zone, which eventually drew a few CTV commentators for the event, including none other than the pregnant 2006 Canadian cross-country Olympic champion, Beckie Scott! Unfortunately, it did not include Prince Albert, who was also attending the cross-country events, but I'm only aware that he attended the men's 15k.

That men's race ran much less smoothly in the zone than the women's. Apparently, most broadcasters and some athletes were not happy with the "written press only" rule instated in the section. Especially when the section was not anywhere near to overflowing, though it did crowd at the peak times. Some approached us themselves to express their absolute need to be able to access it in order to file their broadcaster stories (basically they threw hissy fits) which required the RCMP to step in to keep them from really overstepping their boundaries and us to call in a supervisor.

They caved. Apparently the pressure was being exerted at all sides and it wasn't condusive to keep excluding them. Basically it was more trouble than it was worth. We opened up the area to broadcasters and coaches. And said, "Let them worry about crowding. It's not our problem anymore."

I didn't stick around for very long at the venue afterward though. I went down to eat soon after the races started. Although I did get to listen in on the press conference later that day.

I've got two days off until my next volunteer shift this week. I'm making use of those days by going into Vancouver tomorrow, and then spending some time with the relatives on Wednesday in Whistler.