London 2012 Games Maker: calm before the storm

Watching the Men's Time Trial on the big screen

Well, I have had my first proper taste of the Olympic experience.

Nearly two years since the initial application went in, I have completed my first two Games Maker shifts. It has been very quiet so far – the calm before the storm.

As a volunteer in the Olympic News Service my role is to collect quotes from athletes after they have competed and file them within 15 minutes, ready for the world’s media to access and use as they wish in their reports.

The first two days has seen us watching the athletes training, making notes and trying to get some practice of interviewing athletes and coaches. As you can imagine, so close to competition (which starts today) it’s quite hard to get them to talk.

Frustratingly, we are not allowed to call out to them to stop for a chat – even if they walk right past us in the mixed zone. Of course, that will all change once the competition starts today – then it is quite literally a free-for-all with us volunteers brushing shoulders (and digging elbows, no doubt) with hacks from across the world.

The (quiet) mixed zone in the velodrome
- my home for the next week.

 Some volunteers are frustrated that they haven’t had a chance to practice interviewing and filing quotes. Fortunately for me, I have worked the same role at two test events, so know what to expect. I think the other volunteers still don’t appreciate how busy it will be from tonight.

My main worry is around using a dictaphone. At the test events we were actively discouraged from using them – mainly because they can stop working and you could miss the quote, and also because the ambient noise in the venue can make them almost superfluous.

Because of that, I had planned not to use one, but am now going to have to do it. I just hope it doesn’t stop working at the crucial moment or I don’t forget to press record!

We will then have to annotate the interview down into bite-sized quotes – ‘flash quotes’ – and phone them through to the news desk.

GB's Men's Pursuit team train in the Velodrome

That could also be tricky: phone them through from track centre and you probably won’t hear the person on the other end of the phone. Phone them through from the quiet space under the track and you will probably not get a signal. Could be stressful, I think.

 Tonight should be great, though. We have the Men’s Team Sprint, Women’s Team Sprint and the qualifying for the Men’s Team Pursuit. Great Britain should medal in both finals of the Team Sprint, but what colour will almost certainly come down to the width of a tyre.

It should be incredible.