An evening with the Cubans

Aside from the problems with security the Olympic Village is still struggling to prepare all the rooms for the athletes and teams. Walking around the Village it is common to see groups of tradesmen standing around. After speaking to several of these people it is obvious that the issue tends to be around the supply of the necessary equipment to complete the remaining jobs. For example there are several entire apartment blocks without locks or handles in the doors. I spoke to a locksmith who said that they were in fact waiting for the keys and related hardware in order to get them installed. Aside from this the tempo around the village is picking up. 


Many more delegations have arrived and are busy around the Village. It is not uncommon to see large groups of athletes headed to the transportation hubs to travel to their related training venues, groups arriving bringing all manner of gear and heavily armed police officers patrolling the streets. It is common for countries to decorate their buildings with their flags and colors. The larger delegations have more space and are usually more elaborate. Team Canada, France, Australia and New Zealand being the largest with Brazil, The Netherlands also having a presence. Around the offices of Team Cuba there is a relaxed atmosphere. 

 Wednesday during the day things were pretty calm. There were three Assistants scheduled during the day and two in the evening. Apparently the word was that several officials from the team had been invited to an event at the Venezuelan Embassy and the evening shift was needed in order to transport them to and from the venue. I was scheduled for this and agreed to take the PA to meet a couple of his staff and then to take them to the venue. The other Assistant was told that he was on call should the Embassy vehicle not be able to pickup and drop-off the remaining invited guests. It turns out that the Embassy vehicle was able to pick them up so my colleague had the night off.

After picking up the staff accompanying the PA to the event we headed to the venue. We arrived on time and managed to park in a special Embassy parking spot directly outside. In Central London this is a big deal. Having no idea about what type of event this was I believed that I would be dropping them off and waiting in the car. Upon arrival I was instructed by the PA to leave the car and to come with him. As it turns out this was an evening of entertainment laid on by the Cuban and Venezuelan Embassies. We were greeted like royalty shaking the hands of just about everyone who looked to be official and from a group who I later found out were the performers for the evening. We were shown into a small auditorium with the walls lined with Cuban athletic posters celebrating Cuba’s most successful and famous athletes. There were Cuban flags everywhere. The front two rows of the auditorium were reserved and we were shown to these seats. The auditorium filled up with other invited guests. This was quite an eclectic mix of people ranging from the very old to groups of twenty-somethings. Moments after the rest of the team and officials arrived the performance began. 


First up was a man who came out and introduced the event. He first spoke in English explaining that this event was to celebrate all things Cuban and the terrific pedigree of their Olympic efforts. He then switched to Spanish repeated himself and queued the music. He began to recite poetry set to some of the cheesiest generic music played through one of the worst sound systems I have ever heard in a performance hall.  I can’t speak for the poetry however the accompanying sound, music and dancing were interesting to say the least. Ok, it was so ‘interesting’ that I found myself wondering if the feeling of embarrassment welling up inside was only me or if it was also shared by other attendees. Everyone was extremely polite and clapped appropriately at the end of his performance.

Next up was a young lady who introduced herself in English as an American choreographer who wanted to dedicate this dance to Team Cuba and their athletic excellence. She proceeded to perform her dance, which was even more uncomfortable than the previous act. She flopped and frolicked all across the stage posing in very dramatic and interesting ways. When she finally finished there was adequate applause and I began to wonder what we were in store for next. 

The next act was a solo singer who sang beautifully (in Spanish) along with some pre-recorded music. Her entrance was dramatic as she entered from a door at the top of the auditorium and sang her way down the stairs and on to the stage. After two of her tunes she exited and the next act came out.

Next up was a duet. A violin and a guitar accompanied by an interesting couple of guys. They seemed cheerful enough and began playing. Finally we found some talent. These guys were brilliant. They played Cuban classics and earned a standing ovation.

The final act of the evening was the Cuban band La Sonora de la Calle who were touring and recently played Latitude Festival in England. These guys were your traditional Cuban style 4-piece band with a stand up bass, a guitar, a percussionist and a singer. They also had a professional pair of dancers to get the crowd going. This really worked and by the end of the performance all of the audience was up on their feet with most dancing at the front. Many of the Cuban delegation were enjoying this and also partaking in the dancing.

After the festivities we returned to the Olympic Village and that concluded the evening.

Heathrow Airport on its busiest day ever

Last Sunday we met with the dCdM and the PA to discuss what was going to happen the following day. We learned that nearly half of our athletes were arriving along with several senior members of the delegation including our CdM so we had to be sure everything was ready.  Around the village we managed to tie up the loose ends with the rooms and equipment however a few loose ends still remained. The repair crew had been through the flats to deal with many of the outstanding issues, logistics brought any missing furniture and the IT and cable technicians had been through and finished everything that needed fitting or assembly. Things were starting to look up for us and our hard work the previous couple of days was really starting to show.

Aside from the logistical arm of LOCOG, the Olympic fleet is divided up into 3 different groups ranging from T1 – T3 and as you can imagine each classification services a different purpose. T1 and T2 are dedicated transportation services to and from specific Olympic Venues however T2 transport is only available to VIP’s. This can be the CdM, political figureheads or important friends of the delegation. These services are similar to a cab company where you would arrange ahead of time for a specific journey. The final, T3 is for the dedicated NOC vehicles. Each NOC is allocated a number of these vehicles (with more being available for an additional fee) depending on the size of their delegation and the types of events they are participating in. The T3 vehicles do not carry the same restrictions as the other two services. These cars can literally go wherever the delegation wishes and do not have to stick to the Olympic road network. For us this has meant trips to the Embassy, pickups and drop-offs at hotels and other locations and even shopping trips for missing toiletries.  The delegations participating in road cycling events are given an extra estate car (station wagon) and people carrier (minivan) as part of the requirement for such events.

A plan was in place and we knew what we were doing. We were taking three T3 cars with us for the transport of the officials and VIPs. After arriving to the terminal and proceeding to the short stay car park I was waved down to the ground floor where I was told someone would direct me to park. I headed down and was shown to a front row parking spot marked for Olympic use with a team of Olympic Volunteers present coordinating the T1 & T2 transportation services. This made things quite easy as it was a straight-shot from the arrivals hall to the car park.

To greet the delegation three NOC Assistants were on hand each with their own vehicle, the dCdM, the PA as well as a host of important looking Cubans from their Embassy. The setup at Heathrow was impressive. LOCOG had Olympic Volunteers roaming all over the arrivals hall helping out wherever possible. Our dCdM and PA had pre-arranged some special passes that allowed them to cross into the secured area to greet the delegation so they headed in to greet our new arrivals. The scene was exciting. There were anxious cameramen, groups of athletes and delegates from various countries including USA, Mali and Australia. Once the Cubans began arriving the scale of this event came more into focus. Clusters of athletes began appearing from all directions all wearing their Team Cuba blue and red gear often accompanied by massive trolleys (carts) carrying huge boxes and sports bags.

The arrangements were in place for athlete transfers to their relevant sites and for their equipment (bicycles and gear, boats and oars, and endless giant athletic bags) to be forwarded. This was scheduled to depart 30 minutes after the athletes cleared security and was on time. Two buses were arranged for the group, one would take the teams associated to Royal Holloway, which is the Rowing & Canoe Sprint Village for the games and the rest headed to the Olympic village. For me and the other two assistants were assigned a group of people ranging from 2-5 people bound for various destinations prior to returning to the Olympic Village. We all managed to return to the village around the same time and set out trying to sort out the correct accreditation for a few of our delegates. The accreditation that we all have is unique to each person having the appropriate level of clearances and access. There was three Team Technicians who were having problems gaining access to the village as they only had their temporary accreditation that they received in their countries so this required quite a bit of running around to fix. We were directed by different people to different places leaving our guests anxious and annoyed.

Security for the Olympics was contracted by LOCOG to a company called G4S. Recently it has been widely publicised that they were unable to fulfil their contract and would fail to be able to provide the necessary staffing for such an event. The British Government has stepped in and drafted in 3,500 additional military personnel to cover the shortfall. Rightfully so the UK Government has decided to hold fire on any response on this matter until after the games. What this means to me and others involved and attending Olympic Events is that the main security checkpoints including both pedestrian and vehicle checks will be manned by military personnel. In addition to the checkpoints the military presence is quite visible around the Olympic sites. The G4S security staff are outfitted in light green tops and dark green bottoms while the military are wearing their fatigues. Often you will see pairs of heavily armed SWAT team officers patrolling the area. With this change in staffing for security checkpoints, I have noticed a major difference in the quality and length of the searches. The soldiers have stepped it up and there is now a much more comprehensive security operation in place. G4S staff remain around the village, usually at internal accreditation checkpoints.

With about half of our athletes around we are expecting a change in the jobs we are asked to do for the delegation. We are excited to be able to attend training events and to check out all of the various venues for competition. Our hours worked has remained quite intense with long days being the norm. My schedule has been so scattered that working the late shift one night followed by the early shift the next morning is not uncommon, however it has managed to be a real adventure.

Meeting the Cubans

After the country assignments had been announced a list of other NOC Assistants also assigned to my delegation was circulated. This meant the team could coordinate the scheduling of the first few shifts and allow for the easier distribution of information. Cuba is a fairly large delegation bringing nearly 140 athletes which means they are assigned 7 NOC assistants. To put this in perspective, Senegal is a fairly small delegation has 4 and larger delegations like China and USA have 13 and 14 assistants respectively. Everyone attached to Team Cuba managed to make contact and only 5 of us reported being available for the first couple of weeks. I guess the others will join the team closer to games time. For our first shift we all agreed that everyone would attend together as this is when the delegation would be first arriving to the Athlete’s Village and checking into their accommodation for the next 5 weeks and we wanted to make a good first impression.

The services and facilities offered to each country by LOCOG are determined by the size of the delegation. This refers tothe number of rooms allowed inside the village, number of cars given, medical equipment provided and various levels of IT packages including computers, printers, internet access and mobile phones. All additional services requested by a delegation must be paid for and all of these arrangements are finalized prior to check-into the Athlete’s Village at a DRM. A DRM is a long meeting, usually between 7-12 hours in length, where policies and procedures are agreed, logistical information is provided, services are explained and agreed and a general orientation is given.

Our team of assistants arranged to meet ahead of the Cuban’s release from their DRM. This would be their first look at the Athlete’s Village and Olympic Park and our first opportunity to meet each other. True to form the DRM finished late and wound up being nearly 14 hours! These guys were exhausted. We managed to meet up with them and get them to their area of the Village. The Officials who were a part of the Cuban arrival party were the Deputy CdM (dCdM), the main press attaché (PA), the chief medical officer (cMO), a team leader (TL), and the head of their IT department (hIT) with the others to arrive the following Monday. Everyone was totally beat so after seeing them to their rooms we arranged a plan for an early start the next day. The plan was for us assistants to meet them at 8.30am the next day at the dCdM and PA’s room which would serve as the temporary HQ for the setup operation.

Transportation around London and to the Olympic Village has been strengthened with the addition of Olympic lanes however the logistical issues I face commuting from South West London (where I live) to East London is always going to be problematic. This usually will require at minimum 2 interchanges and as many as 4 should there be problems anywhere on the network. With every interchange you need to allow more time so knowing how much to allow for travel is a real gamble. In addition to travel time extra time for security checkpoints must be accounted for.  The security checkpoints can be fairly quick to get through but are often as tedious as airport security and can take 30-45 minutes to clear at times. I allowed myself 2 hours and arrived 15 minutes ahead of our agreed time. 

Upon arrival we were told that each assistant would be paired with a Cuban and we would systematically deal with the check in procedure for all of the rooms and equipment for the delegation. This meant covering 6 floors of an apartment building checking everything in the rooms from power outlets, TV connections, hot water and locks and keys for each room. I was paired with the PA who spoke the best English. We were given the keys for 5 apartments to start with and we proceeded to work together to cover the contents list for each flat. The task of checking the rooms was lengthy but we managed to complete it without any problems.

The Olympic Village is like a small city with 11 7-10 storey apartment buildings with the ground floors (future shopfronts) given as the admin HQ for each delegation with the larger delegations given a larger space with several internal rooms. The construction of the Athlete’s Village was a massive project from the outset. The Villages’ 11 towerblocks will house 16,000 athletes and officials and is designed so that everything is within close walking distance of one another, the Olympic Park has plenty of green spaces. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18658814) Construction began in June 2008 and for the most part has been completed to a fairly high standard. The layout of the complex is spacious and is impressive on many levels. However after checking the rooms I can say that the finish work inside the buildings is less impressive. Many of the rooms are still far from ready and often include missing door locks, handles, couches, beds, and televisions, and I even heard that another delegation was missing an entire wall in one of their apartments! 

After lunch in the workforce dining area 3 of us took the dCdM and PA to the NOC fleet depot located on the outskirts of the Olympic Village to take possession of their vehicles.  At the fleet depot we collect the necessary VAPs and keys for each vehicle. A VAP is a permit for a vehicle that allows access to certain areas and venues within the Olympic network. The Cubans have a total of 5 vehicles including 2 4-door BMW’S, 2 mini-vans/people carriers and a BMW estate (wagon) equipped with racks for cycle road events.  The dCdM assumes responsibility for these vehicles and is free to use them any way he sees fit. Foreign nationals are allowed to drive as long as they have passed the necessary licence check from LOCOG and however the task of driving will typically lie with the NOC Assistants. Of the 7 of us, 6 have passed the driving qualification and are insured to drive any Olympic vehicle.

One of the reoccurring requests from the Cubans has been for the TM and hIT to be taken to/from their hotel in West London every day. Early pickups and late dropoffs. Because several of our team members live outside of London and have to commute in by train this would be difficult if not impossible for them so me and another guy who also lives near by volunteered to handle this for the time being and I took the first shift starting that evening. The others headed home and I waited until they were ready to head out and took them home.

The next morning I was at the hotel early and they were ready and waiting. We made our way through London traffic and arrived to the village and cleared security after about 2 hours of travel time. Our day was filled with getting to grips with the size of the Olympic administration operation and what is necessary in order to run an event of this size. We were contacting various departments trying to resolve the issues found in the room inspections and were dealing with the latest requests from the delegates. Some of these requests were to help them acquire adaptors and cables for their computer, to take them to a store to get toiletries, to a venue to check for readiness or to the Polyclinic to assess the treatment facilities. As a team, the NOC Assistants with Team Cuba have worked really well together and we are all feeling very good about things so far.

It looks like we are going to have a very busy next few days in anticipation of the arrival of the rest of the delegation, which should be from Monday. I have also noticed that the feeling around the village has really picked up. Walking around you see massive groups of freaks practicing what you can only imagine is for a display for a welcome or medal ceremony. Final preparations are being made to stalls and other landscaping features around the village and there is real sense of anticipation and constant parade of hustle and bustle. 

An Olympic Adventure: The Beginning

My Olympic adventure began in autumn of 2010 when my employer Queen Mary sent an email to all staff informing us about a new Olympic volunteer scheme they had. This scheme was in response to a call for help from The London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games  (LOCOG) aimed at businesses based in the East End of London with the goal of getting higher skilled volunteers. Queen Mary’s offer to its staff was for the two-week commitment needed in order to be considered for a volunteer position at the Olympics, given to anyone who was selected. The best part was this was outside of your annual leave entitlement so boiled down to an extra 10 days off work for free! Clearly there was nothing else for me to do than to throw out an application and see what would happen.

The application form was pretty basic and there was a section where you could give examples from your work history as to your key skills and experience and a section to choose the general area you would ideally like to work. On October 9, 2010 I registered my interest in volunteering at the 2012 Olympic Games. Shortly after submitting my application I got an email thanking me for my application and informing me that I may not hear until after the New Year if I was being considered for anything. They weren’t lying. I didn’t hear anything back until they invited me to an interview in March 2011.

The interview was an informal chat with someone asking very open ended questions to justify our skills. I left the interview feeling happy with my performance. Of course at the interview they let us know that we were being considered for a position with the National Olympic/Paralympic Committee (NOC/NPC) that at the time meant very little to me. Later I learned that this was in fact the daddy of all volunteer positions at the Olympics. The NOC Services Team takes care of all of the different delegations (countries and all the different athletes they bring) acting as the main liaison between LOCOG and each delegation.  More specifically this means working as an assistant to the Chef de Mission  (CdM) who is in charge of an entire delegation.

In October of 2011, nearly one full year after registering I found out that I had been selected to be an NOC Assistant with my country assignment still to be confirmed. In January of 2012 I began my training by attending a massive orientation held at Wembley hosted by Sebastian Coe who was instrumental in London’s bid for 2012. This was a flurry of Olympic propaganda that was meant to win over the hearts of the newly recruited. It was rad. After that came a slurry of 5 hour training sessions; twice in February, once in March, two in April, May and June and I finally began three days ago on July 10, 2012.

It wasn’t until May at a training event when I learned that I got Senegal as my country to work with. At first I wasn’t sure about it because of the fact that they speak French and that my French is crap at best. I found the person in charge of the Africa delegations and asked her about this and she assured me that if I was selected for them that they hadn’t requested language support so it wouldn’t be a problem. After these assurances the idea grew on me.

I started to research Senegal and their history at the Summer Olympics. I learned that they have won a total of 1 Summer Olympic medal (Silver) and that was in 1988 for the men’s 400 meter hurdles so we were certainly going to be up and coming. At 2012 the Senegalese men’s football team drew England first round and it looks to be quite an interesting match so things looked good. Anyway, at my final training session which was held at the Olympic Village I got to meet up with another of the 4 NOC Assistants that Senegal has and I learned something pretty interesting. Apparently Ben, who is also a volunteer for Senegal and who is originally from France, lives near to where the Senegalese athletes have been practicing (outside of London) and has spoken with the CdM and other officials from the team. Ben reported that they don’t speak English, at all. I went and found the head of NOC services teams and explained my situation. She immediately apologized and assured me she would resolve the situation and that she would email me that evening to let me know. Before I had got home Barbara had emailed me again apologizing and offering to move me to another team. She said that at the bottom of the email was a list of countries who she was still trying to fill spots for and that I could take my pick and let her know. Result!  The list:

ALB - Europe - Albania


BRN - Asia - Bahrain 


CHN - Asia - China 


CUB - Americas - Cuba 


GHA - Africa - Ghana 


INA - Asia - Indonesia 


KOR - Asia - South Korea 


PAN - Americas - Panama 


PHI - Asia - Philippines 


PRK - Asia - North Korea 


ROU - Europe - Romania 


SRB - Europe - Serbia 


TAN - Africa - Tanzania 


TPE - Asia - Chinese Taipei

Tough choice and I was having trouble deciding so I asked my friends what they thought and here are some of their suggestions;

“North Korea because of what a bizarre and interesting situation it could be. They have sports people defecting from international competitions often, so you might get a drama like that. It would be interesting to actually have the opportunity to speak to some North Koreans.”

“Mate, throw a dart at the list. Or go for the Philippines because out of all those places that’s where I would most like to go on holiday.”

“NK would be really odd, but then again, perhaps there would be more of a wall with a team like that. “

“If you wanted to have a closer relationship with a small team, and potentially a slightly less intense time of it I'd say perhaps Cuba, they seem to have a good range of medal-winning skills in different sports and were just above half way in the last Olympics medals table.”

“Cuba - Pound for pound, arguably the best sporting nation in the world given its size and resources. Just look and the number of sports they are sending athletes for.”

“Choice #1 has to be North Korea….you will cause an international incident after they find out you are using a fake Brit accent and are truly American.”

So after careful consideration and inspection of previous medals won and lists of sports qualified for I decided on Cuba.

From my training I gathered that my role as an NOC Assistant would be changing with every 8-10 hour shift and every 6 out of 7 days worked. I was hoping that Cuba would be a good delegation to do this with. In our training we were told how to sort out logistical issues that could involve contacting relevant companies, departments, officials etc. and solving problems. This could be anything from getting in touch with the telecoms team to fix a broken phone or internet connection to arranging clearance for high level visitors from respective countries to restricted zones so I had a pretty good idea that this was going to be interesting. Having the driver training and being cleared to drive Olympic fleet vehicles is both daunting and exciting. Daunting at the prospect of possibly having to drive really important people around and messing something up, and exciting because I will get to use all of the Olympic Lanes that have been installed all over London.

Dates:

09-10-2010: Registered to be a Games Maker

09-03-2011: Interview for NOC Assistant

18-10-2011: Role confirmed

21-01-2012: Orientation training

04-02-2012: NOC role specific training #1

11-02-2012: NOC role specific training #2

03-03-2012: NOC role specific training #3

02-04-2012: NOC role specific training #4

30-04-2012: Uniform and Accreditation pickup

10-05-2012: NOC role specific training #5 and country assignment announced

12-05-2012: Driver’s training #1

16-06-2012: Driver’s training #2

23-06-2012: Venue Specific training; Olympic Village

25-06-2012: Changed from Senegal to Cuba (viva!)

10-07-2012: First day