The main torch of the Beijing Winter Olympics has been extinguished, but for the staff of the stadium operation team of our National Aquatics Center, it is not yet time for group photos and removal from isolation. Over the past few days, the image landscape of the ice piers has been replaced by snow melting, and our venue has entered the transition period from the Winter Olympic Games to the Winter Paralympic Games. In the next three weeks, we still have the "second half" of the Winter Paralympic Games to run. With the end of the Winter Olympics, many familiar faces have quietly disappeared, and friends who have fought together have gone their separate ways. A thousand reluctance, a thousand nostalgia, there will finally be a time to end. Summarizing and reviewing, too many warm memories are frozen, too many people and things have touched me, even if I have reached the limit of emotions and body, I still want to say: everything is worth it.
Take a photo with the giant "Curling" outside the Ice Cube arena
Receive praise and friendship
During the Winter Olympics, I led the Ice Cube media operation and news publicity team with a total of 75 people, including as many as 59 volunteers. News operation, photography operation, broadcast coordination and news publicity are the four major business areas for which I am mainly responsible. To put it bluntly, our work purpose is to serve all kinds of media from all over the world, to maximize the protection of all the needs of all the media that come to the museum during the Winter Olympic Games, and to do a good job in television broadcasting and winter Olympics publicity and reporting, interview acceptance, public opinion disposal and other related work. The "Ice Cube" stadium operation team has as many as 36 business areas, from the placement of each plug board to the construction of the East and West Grandstands, all of which are the results of communication and coordination between 36 business areas through countless meetings, countless docking and collisions. We went through the "small test" and "middle exam" of the two test activities in April and October 2021, until the "big test" at the Winter Olympics, and finally presented a satisfactory answer sheet.
During the Winter Olympics, the media operation of Ice Cube strives to be orderly, effective, warm and creative. I went to the Communication University of China to select professional volunteers, and through pre-competition training and active drills, I ensured a stable and orderly work during the event. In operation, we do a good job in service from the perspective of media demand, and provide effective services and assistance for the world media from multiple angles such as the formulation of functional area operation rules, the issuance of auxiliary passages, the provision of event information, the reception of consultation and publicity, and the lost and found. Combined with the characteristics of the Chinese New Year, we have produced festive displays, souvenirs and services for world journalists, disseminated traditional Chinese culture and realized "service has temperature". More than 100 postcards left messages and blessings from world reporters, many reporters did not forget to take photos with our staff before leaving, and foreign media veterans said that the venue facilities are perfect, the environment is friendly, and the service is intimate.
OBS (Olympic Broadcasting Service Company) broadcast production team a total of more than 280 people entered the venue to work, including more than 50 foreign personnel, everyone worked together every day to form a deep friendship. In addition, we also actively docked the interview needs of various media at home and abroad, cooperated with the main media center to hold two theme media briefings of "venue construction" and "Winter Olympic Figures", and received more than 60 interview needs from more than 40 domestic and foreign media such as NBC (National Broadcasting Corporation), CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation), Associated Press, Reuters, Agence France-Presse, New York Times, etc., interviewed nearly 100 venue team staff, and more than 50,000 related media publicity reports...
The Italian team won the curling mixed doubles gold medal, the Italian journalists praised the "Ice Cube" as their blessed land after the game, and they also issued a sincere invitation to us on behalf of Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo, the host of the next Winter Olympic Games; the Japanese women's curling entered the final of the Winter Olympics for the first time in the history of the Japanese women's curling, and the Japanese media turned this place into their "home field"; the British women's curling gold and silver medals, which are also the only two medals of the British delegation to the Winter Olympics, both from the "Ice Cube" - compared with the athletes competing for gold and silver on the field. With good service and spiritual outlook, our team has won the "gold medal" awarded by the old memories at home and abroad.
The working team took a group photo with IOC President Bach
Risks and epidemic prevention are not slackened
As a Winter Olympic Games held under the epidemic situation, the epidemic prevention work of the venues can be described as a top priority. As early as the test match, the venue discussed and modified the epidemic prevention partition and streamline over and over again, and strived to ensure that the partitions did not overlap and the streamlines did not cross. Ensuring a safe Winter Olympics without the epidemic is the bottom line and goal in the hearts of every venue. Strictly implement epidemic prevention training and assessment, remind all staff to wear N95 masks in accordance with epidemic prevention requirements; wear gloves and face screens for staff in key positions; run a two-meter safety distance for mixed mining, replace microphone sleeves at post-race press conferences; tirelessly patrol and remind reporters who take off their masks, and prohibit journalists from taking meals out of the tea break area to eat at the workstation... These details are all designed to ensure that there are no positive cases at the venue.
Although the epidemic prevention work is armed to the teeth, we are undoubtedly the "most dangerous" customer group we serve, and the uncertain whereabouts and weak awareness of epidemic prevention of media reporters, especially foreign journalists, are still testing us at all times. On the afternoon of February 19, the venue team suddenly received a notice from the epidemic prevention department of the Winter Olympic Organizing Committee that a female photojournalist of an Associated Press had a positive nucleic acid test result that day. We immediately contacted the reporter to calm his emotions and cooperate with the medical and epidemic prevention fields to deal with it in a timely manner. At the suggestion of the epidemic prevention field, a special car was reserved for the reporter and transferred back to the hotel for re-testing. In fact, the female journalist had been covering our venue for two weeks until she spoke to me several times the day before she tested positive. The next day, the reporter's nucleic acid test retest results turned negative, and according to the relevant provisions of the epidemic prevention manual, she could still work in the museum normally. While we are doing our best to protect her work, we also remind the staff to strengthen their own protection. After the Winter Olympics, the female journalist has successfully left the country as originally planned. The daily human, physical and environmental nucleic acid samples at the venue are negative, which can be said to be a false alarm.
On the evening of February 14, before the game, our volunteers reported an emergency to me, and a foreign correspondent from the Danish National Broadcasting Corporation printed five A3 paper color world maps in the workshop and borrowed scissors and support cardboard from the volunteers. After our verification, the map file includes serious errors in the borders of Taiwan Island, Diaoyu Island and Chiwei Island, the South China Sea Zhudao, southern Tibet and Aksai Chin region. In accordance with the dual reporting mechanism, I immediately started the emergency response process and reported to the Winter Olympic Organizing Committee and the director of the venue. Our volunteers, staff and the Press Officer of the World Kettle Federation have communicated with the person three times in a friendly manner, carefully explaining to him the serious errors on the map, expressing that it is not suitable for any display and shooting with this map, and hoping that he will return the wrong map. The incident involved tacit cooperation and rapid response in many fields such as media, venue operation, security, sports, language services, risk management, etc., and was finally handled properly and effectively resolved. Until the foreign journalists finally left the venue, there were no related negative incidents. However, this incident also reminds us that the operation of the venue is no small matter, and the details are in the real chapter.
Regret and anticipation go hand in hand
Double Olympic venues, water ice conversion, curling and wheelchair curling, when it comes to the National Aquatics Center, these are all familiar. In fact, for the stadium operation team, behind each wonderful presentation, it is a desperate struggle and hard work. It is no exaggeration to say that this is the most "boiling" competition venue. From the opening of the Winter Olympic Games on February 2, two days before the opening ceremony, until the end of the Winter Paralympic Games, the Ice Cube has the longest number of days of operation in the 12 competition venues. From the start of the small closed loop of the venue on January 4 until the end of the Winter Paralympic Games for 14 days, every staff member in the closed loop of the "Ice Cube" could not go home for up to 3 months. Although it is still working in the Ice Cube, it is like two worlds just a stone's throw away from the closed loop. The venue can not "break the ring", go out can only get on the car, the hotel, the venue two points a line, farewell to express delivery and takeaway ... This repetitive, monotonous, almost mechanized feeling of work is a test for everyone. Some of the competition venues have begun to move out and quarantine, some colleagues in other venues have returned home, and we will continue to wake up and fight the "second half".
From the perspective of competition items, curling as a tv hegemonic project, from the Winter Olympics round robin to the knockout round, pulled up 19 match days, while the single day competition time is the longest, the single day competition unit is the most. The stadium team starts running at 6 a.m. every day and can't return to the hotel until 1 p.m. As a competition venue numbered 001, we were the first to speak every morning and evening to report to the operation command room. Every night at 11 o'clock after the race, a late meeting can be held, and the colleagues who rushed to the car after the meeting arrived at the hotel at 1 a.m. the next day. It is no exaggeration to say that we enter and leave the venue every day with the stars and the moon. Many of the staff chose to sleep in the stadium.
To the regret of every staff member of the team, there were only three gold medals in the Beijing Winter Olympics in the "Ice Cube". With the Chinese curling team's high scores and low scores, they finally failed to stand on the podium, and everyone's long-awaited wish to let the five-star red flag rise in the venue was disappointed. Compared to some other competition venues, Chinese athletes won gold and silver, which really made everyone on our team blush. However, we will cheer for the Chinese team in another way and escort the Chinese team with a better working appearance.
Today, we are actively involved in the transition period. In a test match last October, the Chinese wheelchair curling team won the gold medal. At the Beijing Winter Paralympic Games, the Chinese team is also the defending champion. My team and I will welcome journalists from all over the world covering the Winter Paralympic Games with greater enthusiasm. We also sincerely hope that the five-star red flag can be raised on the "Ice Cube" field, and look forward to the "Ice Cube" to write a new history of the Olympic Games. If you have love in your heart, you will not leave the field, all the efforts are worth it, the Chinese team cheers! "Ice Cube" come on! (The author is a sports reporter of Beijing Daily, then deputy director of Ice Cube Media)