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.