It was an excited Rebecca who got the call up to help cover the Rio Olympics. I knew some of what to expect: sun and relief from a chilly Sydney winter, good sport and plenty of insect spray. I didn’t expect to be offered a room with a double bed to be shared with my editor!
We soon got the rooms sorted and I moved in with two Dutch journos in our precisionist styled high rise, one in a cluster of about 17 all neatly placed on top of a small hill right in the middle of South America’s largest military base. Our neighbours were paratroopers and I can’t say it was unpleasant watching them all jogging the streets in regiments or working out in the field first thing in the morning. In the evenings, it was important to have your windows closed around 17:30 as the DDT truck made its procession around the complex, its plumes of white spewing out behind, presumably keeping us safe from dreaded zika. However, I did my own zika control procedures as well.
The biggest talking point between residents had to be the water. It was a bit Goldilocks. All hot and no cold, next day all cold and no hot and the occasional lucky punter got the perfect medium. For the amount we paid for rooms, we hoped for perhaps a temperate shower. Besides that, the rooms were quite fine, brand new in fact.
Olympic photographers…
Deodoro is about 30 minutes from the main Olympic centre at Barra, but a world apart in terms of socioeconomics, Barra being fabulously wealthy. Our accommodation village (or DAV as we fondly came to know it as) was equipped with a small convenience shop, cafe and gym, all in a tent, plus a bar and even a laundry (though it was a bit of a fight to grab a washing machine with the Olympic Broadcasting Service brigade outnumbering everyone else here in their tan and blue uniforms).
Breakfast was included and we got to enjoy perfect papaya and drippingly ripe mangoes, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to eat scrambled eggs for a while. The staple for dinner was rice and beans with a green salad, not exactly Michelen star cuisine, but not bad for the “cheap and cheerful” Olympics that Rio had become. Rafael turned out to be our saviour. He ran the catering here. I asked for more salad, more salad was available; I told him how lovely the watermelon was this morning, he brought me out a bowl for dessert, he saw us drinking wine from normal glasses, he went and found us wine glasses. He was our Mr Fixit and we loved him. And he has an interesting story. From moving to America with nothing, working as a dish washer at a restaurant and sleeping on the kitchen floor, to running five restaurants before coming home to Brazil with aspirations of opening his own establishment. I just wish that he could have done something about the amount of plastic plates and cutlery we were going through!
Bright yellow/orange (yelange) clad Olympic helpers were always on hand and often outnumbered everyone else. Exceedingly friendly and pleasant, help possibly wasn’t their forte, especially in the transport department. Or maybe I seemed to just venture out at bad times. My first foray out of confinement was to get my media accreditation. “Yes…just take the bus to Barra” I was told. And which bus might that be? “This one here.” So off I went to Barra, but to the Athletes’ Village. No problem, “You can walk to the media centre, that way.” That way turned out to be about 5km to the “Welcome Centre” which turned out not to be the media centre. “Oh the press centre is closed today because of the opening ceremony.” What?! “And by the way, now all the buses have stopped running because of the opening ceremony.” Double what?! It was only lunchtime, but after much begging and pleading, I found myself in an official car with some official looking men which dropped me…at the main media centre which even happened to be open! Hurrah! Accreditation in hand, I managed the last bus back to Deodoro, the road to ourselves as the new highway was just for Olympic vehicles.
It was not a one-off experience as an evening out to Leblon and a day to Copacabana proved. But hey, it’s the Olympics, how upset can you get? …and I did find out that the metro works brilliantly, thank you very much.
The media centre at the equestrian venue was manned by the wonderful Anja Krabbe. Now here was a yelange person who was over and above helpful. The centre was yet another tent and it turns out tents are not good at warding off bullets as we discovered on day-one when a bullet plopped through the roof. We were in the stands at the time so missed the whole excitement, but a few unhardened journos were starting to get nervous. It wasn’t helped by reports of media buses being attacked and one of the Canadian photographers sitting next to us having her gear stolen off a press bus, but I thought this whole Rio expedition was starting to sound like a real adventure!
Anja Krabbe
Security was stepped up and we got used to bag searches, body scans and X-ray machines everyday. No one day was the same, line up over here today, no insect repellent allowed into the venue the next day, over here to get your accreditation rescanned on another, but always, always a march across the squishy, antiseptic filled mat to drench, sorry I mean decontaminate your shoes.
While the equestrian sport was indeed marvellous, the spectator crowd was unfortunately sparse. There seemed to be more yelange people than fans at times. I imagine tickets were quite expensive for many Brazilians, and foreigners were few and far between. Those that showed did so with great enthusiasm and were mainly from Holland, Germany and the UK. That was until the show jumping, when the stands were near capacity, Brazilians going crazy nuts, cheering, clapping, foot stomping and I was just hoping the stands would cope. Who knew they could outdo the French in helping their team horses over every fence? That was atmosphere indeed!
The atmosphere was also helped by the dear tractor driver. At every arena grade, he would drive a final lap with his Brazilian flag flying high. He became a bit of a celebrity, having to field television interviews. Everyone came to look forward to him and I think he got a bigger cheer than most of the sporting heroes out in the stadium.
The press desks were very pleasant and unlike Normandy, we didn’t have to hold our breath all day just to fit in. Pure luxury! Add to that, the internet was even better than home in Australia which allowed fairly stress free reporting. We were flanked by the very knowledgeable Germans from St Georg magazine and “Team Canada” from Horse Sport. What a cracking group of people to spend two weeks working alongside. The majority of journos and photographers are good fun and helpful. Sure, we all want the best quotes, coverage, info and photos, but we’re all in it together and we all know the pressures each other is under, so it tends to be good fun. You also learn a lot in an international press room. There are journos who have been doing this for years, covering everything from all the big international shows to their local events, so they know exactly what’s going on where and with whom everywhere in the world.
The day basically consisted of the following routine: breakfast, bus to the stadium (farewelled by the most delightful little sagui monkeys), catch up with news from overnight and write a round up of the day ahead (I felt like I was back in the money markets!) then up to the stands to set up…computer, hard drive, camera, power, internet, start list, live results up and running, phone ready for interviews….all check. Then it was full on…news, interviews, results, photos taken and edited and uploaded bang, bang, bang (again….I felt like a hedge fund trader with the speed things went!). Then it was the end of day roundup before heading back to DAV (I chose to walk home the last week of comp. The pilates instructor in me was a missing the movement) having dinner and backing up the day’s work.
There were many highlights though between the hard yakka; getting to talk to and mix with the sport’s elite, both two and four legged. The ability to walk Olympic show jumping courses. You get to legitimately stalk your equestrian heroes. Hey, I’m a journalist, my job depends on it!
The highlights of seeing Charlotte and Valegro do a perfect test in what may be their last competition together. The bond between them is almost tangible. To see Chilli Morning’s last run. To witness Isabell Werth winning the Special by sheer determination. She’s arguably one of the greatest competitors ever. The ridiculous brilliance of George Morris and what he did with Brazilian show jumping. The skill, and even more so, the self belief he instilled into his team was inspirational. He gave the local spectators one hell of a jumping experience watching their team go round. And of course, the sheer pride in seeing our eventers jump up onto that podium for that bronze medal. Knowing the unwavering determination and sheer hard work that went into each and every medal.
The biggest highlight though was seeing the legend that is Nick Skelton finally win an individual gold after seven Olympics on his self-proclaimed greatest horse of his life, Big Star. That was a fairytale ending indeed.
I’ve said this before and it really hits home in these big competitions; there’s just nothing like seeing the best-of-the-best in the flesh. We’re lucky today that almost everything is available online either instantly or within 24 hours and that’s 100 times better than not having it at all, but at the end of the day, it’s one dimensional. We do our utmost to bring the best information to you from all angles, right from the source, to describe the best we can in words and pictures, to capture the movement and emotion (not having any television rights, we would have been thrown out on our ear if we had videoed anything) but really, if you can get to these events, you really must; see it in 3D, the athletes, the atmosphere, the crowd, the tension, the inspiration; nothing compares.
Thank you Rio, you put on a jolly good show. Sure, there were some trying times, but at the end of the day, we’ll go home with the wonderful memories and the bad times will make for good dinner party stories.
