Mizzou Olympic interns get to work
GUEST BLOG
I’m in!
I went to training at a hotel in the Olympic Green. When we got there and were seated, a man stood up on the stage and asked if anyone in the room had experience with synchronized swimming. I immediately jumped up and booked it toward the stage. I knew this was my chance. Kayla wasn’t far behind me, and we basically tackled this old man. I told him I’d done synchro when I was younger, and Kayla said her mom had done synchro. Long story short, the synchro “expert” didn’t show up, and we have been reassigned to the Water Cube to be the people that create event previews, event recaps and press releases for synchro. YES!!!! All I have to do is pass a test on my practical knowledge of synchronized swimming. I have been studying madly for the past four hours and don’t plan to stop anytime soon. I hope I can pull it off.
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The Cube and I
It is so cool to flash your accreditation and walk in to an Olympic venue. There are wire fences surrounding the entire Olympic Green as well as all the facilities, cutting off access to 95 percent of the grounds. Supposedly this will all disappear, but right now it looks like you’re almost walking into a prison. We can’t take pictures, as there are guards everywhere, patrolling the premises and the inside of the facility. Even on the comp pool deck there are about three guards who will lunge at you, waving frantically, if you attempt to whip out your camera, as Kayla did on the first day. I seemingly passed the writing and knowledge test, much to my incredible excitement! It was worth sitting in my room, staring at a computer for two days straight. The studying doesn’t end here. I have to explain to the world who won, who lost and WHY. Usually they have paid people do this job, but the synchro woman had visa trouble and wasn’t let into the country. The world works in mysterious ways. Our boss, Tim, is an Aussie residing in the UK and is very on top of things. We got a lengthy speech from our Chinese manager about how we are not allowed to blog about our training or the goings-on at ONS; you can be fired and sent home immediately. So I won’t be spilling any secrets. But I’ve learned that ONS is run by Infostrada Sports, a big communications company, and we are their unpaid labor — getting great experience.
-Allison Bennett (Mizzou swimmer)
Training
Try to keep up with these acronyms. There must be at least two dozen for the Olympics committees/groups, like ONS (Olympic News Service) and ISS (Infostrada Sports, the online technology and data supplier). You have the venue names (NIS is the National Indoor Stadium, where I work). Then you have job titles (FQR, Flash Quotes Reporter, and SIS, Sports Information Specialist). Then the country names (RSA: South Africa, PRK: North Korea, etc.). Then, finally I hope, are the events (GA: Artistic Gymnastics). While the NIS may not be quite as cool as the Water Cube or the Bird’s Nest, it’s still pretty spiffy.
The Chinese are definitely taking the Olympics seriously. We have to pass so many detectors and gates just to get into work [and then] actual X-ray machines and pat-downs. Even to get into the Green (main Olympics area), you must have either accreditation or a ticket. And you can’t go into any venue otherwise. I can’t go into the Cube. Ever! People who are volunteers at venues outside the Green can’t even come past the first gates.
My official job title will likely be an FQR. I’ll be working either in the broadcast MZ or press MZ. They have their advantages. In the BOB (Broadcast area), I can’t ask any questions. And if you see me on TV, I’ll get fired. You think I’m kidding? In the press area, it’s a scrum to get to the athletes, with 100 reporters and FQRs in a tiny, itty-bitty area. But I do sometimes get to ask my own questions, and it’s closer to my real line of work. The print Mixed Zone (MZ), is called that because the press and athletes “mix” together, separated by the gates, of course.
Laura Dotson in her ONS intern uniform.
Other than that, I don’t know if I can tell too much about training. We’ve been told we can’t talk much about specifics of the job, at least during the Olympics.
-Laura Dotson
Recently in Beijing
I have been extremely busy the past six days doing my training at the National Indoor Stadium. I have grown to actually enjoy my polyester pants and nylon shirt that is definitely NOT suitable for Beijing’s heat and humidity. My favorite part is the fanny pack. The bucket hat that came with the outfit is just too much for me to handle, but many of the Chinese volunteers in my group wear it every day. It’s pretty hilarious.
My schedule has pretty much been the same the past few days: Wake up around 7 a.m., get to the National Indoor Stadium by 9 a.m., and train until around 5 p.m. My favorite part has been getting to know the Chinese volunteers in my group. The first day I arrived, they were all so curious to “finally meet” me after “staring” at my picture. They started taking pictures of me when I arrived, and I have been told multiple times that I look just like Britney Spears. I think they would say this to any American with blond hair.
Yesterday was a “rest” day as they call it here. The pollution has been horrible the past few days. My eyes burn when I walk outside, and it is so hot that I don’t even bother with a morning shower. With the Olympics just a week away, I really hope China does something to clear the air.
-Paige Hansen
First days of work for ONS
The ONS operation is more complex than I had expected. There are 951 Chinese and international people working or volunteering for the ONS. The reporting we will be doing is slightly different from any other I’ve done; we’ll be asked to write down two or three quotes per athlete we interview and provide context for the quotes, and that will be what we release for use by journalists reporting at the Olympics. It’s a little trickier than it sounds, though. We’ll be sharing space with journalists covering the Olympics, and we can listen in on interviews and take quotes from that. We’re certainly not supposed to get annoying and ask a bunch of questions when there are other journalists, and we definitely can’t “hog” an athlete for our questioning. Which almost takes the pressure off, because at a high-interest event like gymnastics, there almost won’t be a need for an ONS flash quotes reporter to ask questions of athletes since so many journalists will be asking them questions already.
Our target athletes for our flash-quote gathering (the flash part comes from quickly and concisely taking two or three quotes per athlete) are the medalists, the surprises — those who win bigger than was expected — and favorites who lose. Since our quotes go to large audiences of journalists, we’re trying to hit the athletes whom reporters will be most likely to want to quote. Then we have 10 minutes from the time the last quote was uttered to make it back to the press office, dictate it to a “copy taker,” or someone who will write what we tell them and help us keep it in correct style, etc. We will be taking a typing test later on in our training to determine who among us would qualify as good copy takers. A good copy taker not only is fast but also can spell the British way — “colour” instead of color, “grey” instead of gray, etc.
Questions we can’t ask athletes are non-sports related, such as questions about the venues, facilities, athlete village and any controversial issues inside or outside the arena. This makes sense, since we’re going to be interviewing athletes right after events, and journalists are going to want to know athletes’ emotions and opinions about their performances, not about whether their toilet flushes the same was as back home.
My French skills may come in handy during the Olympics, as the French are supposed to do well and not every member of the team may speak English well enough for an interview. I am excited at the prospect of using my French, but I need to learn French terms for gymnastics.
- Beth Androuais
Team players
We are making the transition from being uncertain tourists to [being] Olympic employees. The first two weeks, which include some of the most fulfilling and amazing days I have ever had, were filled with tours of Beijing and surrounding areas. Now, with the Olympics just weeks away, our real reason for coming to China begins.
As gymnastics flash quote reporters, our job will be both stressful and important. I am one of 18 MU students working the gymnastics venue. It was pointed out to us that we are not the stars of the coverage; none of us will have bylines from our reporting, no one will be on camera, and the only way we can become famous (or infamous) from this job is for less-than-appealing reasons.
I have had jobs where my boss referred to us as a “team,” and we in turn ignored that feeling. At the Olympics, however, the team concept feels right because of the situation we are in, and I have to continually remind myself this is not an average job but a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Personal credit for doing my job correctly is not what my bosses or the people we are serving care about. My job is simply to get my work done in the best way, as quickly as I can. If that happens, the rewards from my work should be evident in the skills I have learned and the quality of the product we put out.
This is my last experience as a student at MU, and having been abroad before, I am trying to make every day I have a worthwhile one.
-Justin O’Neil
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