Atlanta Chinese & 1996 Olympics(4)

Inside the Olympic Village in Atlanta- August 8, 1996
                       Chen HU

Associate Envoy for the Chinese Sports Delegation
  
I had a real good time in the past six weeks. I spent most of my time in the Olympic Village. I worked with the Chinese Sports Delegation officials and athletes all the time. I enjoyed very much although at the end I was so tired.

Before the first group of Chinese officials came (7/9/96), we went through the final training (second round of training) for a week. ACOG wanted to make sure we understood the functions of each department and all the procedures (booking tickets for the delegations, retrieving information from INFO ‘96, managing room keys, extra officials housing, transportation for athletes and officials, accounting for the delegation, opening and closing ceremonies, accreditation procedures, medical services and all the other things they could think of at that point).

The first six Chinese officials (including General Secretary Mr. Wei Jizhong) arrived on 7/9/96. The accreditation procedure went though very smoothly and they were very impressed until we were ready to leave the Welcome Center to go to the village. We found out that 3 pieces of luggage (out of 9 in total) were missing. All Olympic luggage should have a special tag. They should be delivered from the airport directly to the Welcome Center for security screen. After the test, all luggage should be delivered to a dock assigned to the country. We ran around and talked to many people working there trying to find the missing luggage. It took us three more hours to find the missing luggage which were either delivered to a wrong dock or delivered to the Baggage Claim at the airport. Their explanation was that some delivery people liked the neon-yellow Olympic tags attached to the luggage and they cut the tags off and kept them as souvenir. Mr. Wei was not happy about wasting 4 hours at the airport. He called China as soon as he got to the office to let the next group know there is a problem with missing luggage. The next day at the Chef’s meeting in the village, he asked the Director of ACOG to improve the luggage delivery procedure.

More Chinese athletes arrived every day after 7/9/96. All the luggage had not only the special Olympic tag but also a Chinese Olympic Committee logo. But we still had to deal with missing luggage everyday. Sometimes it took us two more days to find a piece of missing luggage. There was one time when we couldn’t find the luggage for two days, we had to go out and buy some underwears for a couch and an athlete.

The day before the men’s basketball team arrived, I found out that the beds did not meet the China Team’s requirements. Most of beds are too short for the very tall basketball players. I had to stay up all night to make sure all the long beds moved in to the right apartments.

The biggest group came on 7/15/96 in a charter plane from Beijing. There were more than 300 athletes and officials. All the VIPs and most of the athletes were in this flight. Based on the ACOG rules, everybody should take ACOG shutter buses from the airport to the village. But the China Team insisted that the VIPs should have their own transportation. This really created a problem and gave us a big headache.

After everybody settled down, the food and housing became a big issue. For the people from China, this is the first bad impression about ACOG. The athletes couldn’t stand the food in the dining hall because they were not used to the western food. They were not used to air-conditioned rooms either. The rooms were either too cold or too warm. The beds were too soft and so on. In order to make athletes feel more comfortable, we took the officials out on a shopping spree to buy a lot of food such as instand noodles from local Chinese grocery stores. Among the things purchased were many sleeping bags and a couple of big boxes of chocolate.

The flag ceremony in the village was excellent. The Chinese Delegation accepted two quilts representing southern culture from ACOG at the ceremony. The funny thing was the quilts was not recognized as art by some of the Chinese athletes. They thought that the quilts was just a blanket and wanted to put the quilts on the floor so they could sleep on them.

The Chinese Delegation had meetings every night to prepare for the next day’s game. The coaches reported each athlete’s current status and any existing problems. Then the team officials tried to solve the problems during the meetings. I was impressed with how hard they worked. But there were some other problems that were out of their control.

Around 2:00 am, 7/20/96 (first day of the Games), the Chinese athletes were in deep sleep when the fire alarm in the building went off. Everybody was woked up and forced to get out of the building. When they learned that it was a false alarm, they were all very upset and some of them couldn’t get back to sleep. China only got two gold metals on the first day. They (especially the swimming team) were expected to get more than that. To the people in China, this was the second bad image about ACOG.

The alarm went off a couple of more times during the games. In addition to that, there were also flood. There were three times when some rooms were flooded. Twice they happened in the Chef De Mission’s apartment and another one occurred in the Weightlifting Team. When I got to the Weightlifting Team’s apartment, there were two big fans in the room. Also the cleaning people were using the vacuum trying to get rid of the water. I couldn’t believe some of athletes were still in the room under that kind of noise. Since they couldn’t hear what I was talking, I have to pull them out and asked them why they still stay there. They told me that they needed a rest because they would have competition tomorrow. I felt so sorry for them. To my relief though, the guys in the Weightlifting Team did an excellent job anyway. They got 2 gold medals and 1 silver medal, more than what they expected.

We, as Envoys, needed to go to the Envoys’ meeting at 6:30am everyday. In the meeting, Envoys to different countries reported any problems from their country’s delegation to the ACOG. At 7:00am, a meeting for all the directors of ACOG was hold. They would try to find solutions for all the problems reported by the Envoys. At 7:30am, it would be the Chef De Mission’s meeting. All the Chefs from each country reported to ACOG their own problems. Most of time, the problems were the same as the Envoy’s problems, so ACOG usually already got some of the answers.

One morning after the Envoy’s meeting, I went back to the NOC China office. I was told that the men’s Fencing Team was in big trouble. The competition was originally scheduled to start at 11:00am but was re-scheduled to start at 7:30am. But for some reason, the Fencing Team didn’t realize that until 7:15am that morning. They were still in bed! One official ran to the dorm to tell them and I ran out to arrange the bus. We caught the next bus to the Georgia Dome which left the village at 7:30am. On the bus, the athletes were very mad but they were very quite. As soon as we arrived at the Georgia Dome, we ran into the competition field. We were blocked by different security people because the athletes needed to go through the regular procedures in order to compete. But we couldn’t afford to waste any second. We ignored all the security people and ran into the field. The Korean athletes were ready to compete. Our athletes rushed to change uniforms and get the equipment ready. They had to do all these in just a couple of minutes. It is a fact that China men’s fencing is better than Korea’s. So the Korea team were talking to the judges trying to convince them China was late and should forfeit the game. Finally, the competition started but China team was punished by one point. The athletes didn’t have time to warm up and they didn’t eat anything. When it’s finished, they lost 3 points to Korea. But I think they are the greatest athletes I have ever seen. I think this is the team manager’s fault. He didn’t find out the time change sooner. The Olympic Games is hold only once every four years. For most athletes, this is their only chance and they have been preparing for this game so long. I wish they could have another chance to compete because this is not their fault.

When I stayed in the Olympic Village, my roommate is Ms. Sun Fuming (Judo) who got the first gold medal for China. Her parents are farmer and they work very hard to support the family. She said the day she got the medal, the County and the Province of her hometown delivered a washer, a refrigerator, a color TV to her parent’s house and also they installed a telephone at her parent’s house. Chinese athletes who get a medal receives two phone cards worth $400.00 from the Delegation. So I asked her: "Did you call your parents?" She said she tried but somehow she couldn’t get through so she gave the phone cards to her coach. She said she was going to call her parents and her boyfriend as soon as she arrived in Beijing. When I asked her about what she would do with the big bonus for her gold medal, she laughed and said that she was going to share the bonus with her parents because their life is too hard.

The day before the Women’s Volleyball semifinal game, the head coach Ms. Lang had a severe chess pain and she passed out in the dinning hall after her lunch. She was sent to the hospital. When I saw her at the hospital, I was so scared. She looked so weak and tired. When she woke up in the hospital, she told the doctor that she needed to go back to the dorm before 5:00pm to attend a team meeting. I was very moved by her dedication. All the people in the hospital were very helpful. They made sure everything was okay and we went back to the village at 5:00pm. Ms. Lang went directly to the team meeting room without any rest.

ACOG made a huge effort on security for the athletes and the officials. If the athletes go to the training sites on the bus, every bus has security guard on it. One time, two volleyball coaches went to watch other team’s competition. After the game, they were walking back to village from the Omni. On the half way back to the village, they were stopped by the police and escorted back to the Omni. The police asked them to take village bus instead of walking on the streets. Since they wore the team uniform so they were easy to be recognized. However, the Chef De Mission walked from Omni back to the village a couple of times, nobody bothered him at all.

After gymnast Mr. Li Xiaoshuang got his gold medal, he became the most popular athlete. One evening around 6:00pm, I got a phone call from ACOG. Mr. President Bill Clinton would like to meet Mr. Li Xiaoshuang and General Secretary Mr. Wei Jizhong at 8:00pm. My duty was to take them to meet Mr. President. I was a little nervous because I have to make sure they needed to be at the right place at the right time. When we got there, the roads were blocked because Mr. President was arriving. That was around 7:45pm. I talked to the police man but they would not let anyone in. So I had to contact the ACOG people the let them know we were outside of the building. Finally, I escorted them to the building but unfortunately I had to wait outside and didn’t not get to see the President. I had two cellular phones and one pager with me then. People from news media, the NOC office and the ACOG kept calling me to get the status. Finally, they came out and they were very happy about meeting the President.

In last week of the Olympics, the Chinese athlete’s building smelled very good. Every team leader and the interpreter started cooking for the athletes. Most of time, they cooked a meal right before the competition starts. I was surprised to find out how good their cooking skills were. I had real Chinese food in the village.

Maybe 80 percent of team officials were former athletes. Even if they have a real busy schedule everyday, but they really know how to adjust themselves in this kind of situation. Chef De Mission Mr. Yuan Weiming used to be a national volleyball player and he plays real good tennis now. Deputy Chef De Mission Mr. Li Furong was a world champion table tennis player. One day I saw him jogging in the village, he looked like just caming out of the water. He told me he had run about half an hour. He is also a real good tennis player too. Mr. Wei was a volleyball player too. He is almost 60 years old. But he is the busiest person in the whole Delegation.

I went to a couple of events and Women’s Volleyball game is my favorite. I helped the Women Volleyball Team to meet one girl and one boy from Make-A-Wish organization. Everybody had a real good time. Ms. Lang and some players talked to them after one game at the field. Even though I could have gone to any events but I had to spend most of my time in the NOC office. Every morning we needed to come up with the schedule for the drivers. We need to deal with the transportation department, housing department and NOC services everyday. Most of people working in these department are volunteers too. Some of them had no training at all. Most of time, we were told wrong answers or no answers at all. So we had to either wait until the right person showed up or just find out by ourselves. The best thing is that all these offices work 24 hours a day. I found out it saves a lot time if I go to get help around midnight.

In the village, there were game room, computer room, movie theater, disco dancing club, music listening room, coffee house with life music and some other fun places. Before the village opened, I went to the game room. I was in the computer room once because I like to send emails to my friend, but ended up I had a 1.5 hour nap over there. At the closing ceremony, I asked some Chinese athletes, they even don’t know there is a dance club in the village.

I met a lot athletes and coaches during the games and I made a lot friends. I am very proud of them. They did an excellent job in this Olympic game. I wish them best of luck in the future.