As journalists you're supposed to be professional and not get excited when your country's racing, but frankly I'm just a bit too close to the GB rowing team - not nearly as close as some, but I know their names and their faces and can remember when women's eight cox Zoe first rocked up at my rowing club straight out of school and showed that one day she'd be not just a good cox but a very good cox. So yes, I did a bit of jumping up and down and cheered a little bit and may have had slightly damp eyes once or twice as the medals clocked up.
After Wednesday's racing was cancelled Thursday turned into a mammoth day. Instead of our first finals session featuring just the two quads we ended up with a morning of semis followed by six finals in quick succession, and then six 20-minute press conferences in quick succession. For every final and every press conference we had to get quick, accurate, pithy quotes out as soon as possible. We had an extra pair of hands but the mixed zone was mad, thronged with journalists, and it didn't help that some of the semifinalists were only coming back through it an hour after their racing. Add in problems connecting to the internet and to our CMS and it was a tough couple of hours.
But there were some outstanding races and it was wonderful to stand in the broadcast pen to hear Katherine Grainger's post-race interview. The OBS cameraman Mark, who's been to a few Olympics, said she was the best interviewee he'd ever filmed - she was eloquent, interesting, thrilled and humble all at once.
Yesterday was much, much calmer; the core ONS team of me, Shauna and Olivia handled the four finals and the four semis preceding them brilliantly, our systems all working despite the fact it was pouring with rain until the finals started. Both lightweight double sculls finals were superb and I think everyone was thrilled that the Irish O'Donovan brothers won a medal, not least because they're the funniest interviewees anyone has ever seen. In the post-race press conference, because the French were late, apparently the O'Donovans started the conference by 'interviewing' the Norwegian bronze medallists, with whom they're good friends.
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| Olivia, me and Shauna and the Olympic rings |
Today dawned bright and sunny and while a little breezy, not too windy to stop racing. The minor singles finals were pretty much as standard - a shout out to Dattu Bhokanal, who I interviewed before competition started, who missed his top 10 target but did manage to record India's best-ever rowing placing by winning the C final. Pretty good for someone who was once afraid of water.
The men's singles final happened while I was in the middle of an interview with Ekaterina Karsten (well, me, a Russian translator, and a couple of Belarussian journalists). Karsten's one of those people nobody outside rowing has heard of yet she's a legend of the sport: this was her seventh Olympics at the age of 44 and she has two golds, a silver and two bronzes from the first five Games she went to. She's pretty serious in nature and she was clearly not happy to be going out with eighth overall (second in the B final) but she did say she won't row in Tokyo. What was perhaps saddest was her answer to my question about whether she thought she was an inspiration for others; she said most young people these days spend all their time staring at a smartphone and she doesn't think any of them have role models they follow.
I managed to catch the end of the men's singles - the Croatian journalists were yelling, Mahe Drysdale and Damir Martin slumped, and it seemed to take ages for a result. To be honest, I'm glad it went the way it did (see World Rowing's tweet for a picture of the finish!) as Mahe is a very decent man and I suspect this was his last Games. Martin is 10 years younger and will definitely have another chance.
The women's singles was an entirely different race - my flash quote reporters, being American, were thrilled with Gevvie Stone's silver which was very well-deserved.
And then on to the eights. Somehow I managed to be relatively free for the women's eights final so watched it, heart in mouth, on one of the mixed zone TVs with British Rowing's press officer Caroline next to me. The British eight got out to such a bad start but they paced the race brilliantly - although Romania's charge was incredible. Romania was absolutely thrilled with the bronze and sang a song when they got to their national broadcast interview, but it was so lovely seeing the British women embrace their coaches in the mixed zone (with the mixed zone team trying to shepherd them around the correct route) and then hear them speak about the way they approached the race and what it meant to them.
I was so busy typing up their quotes that I missed the men's eights final until I heard shouts for the Netherlands outside the tent, so I leapt up and rushed outside to see our guys cross the line clear. Caroline and I hugged each other and then it was back to work. But I did have a 10-minute window before press conference quotes came in to go and watch the medal ceremony and sing the anthem. I was very proud to be British.
After everything was filed and all the spectators had gone home we got a few shots of our little ONS team, and later more of the press ops team. It felt weirdly like the end, even though we still have a week of canoe sprints left.
Tomorrow I'm on athletics - the women's marathon in the morning and athletics in the evening. It's the men's 100m final so I expect it'll be slightly crazy. But that's what the Olympics are all about. Looking forward to it!
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