HARRIS (GBR)

* Note to confused readers: for my last post from the Olympics and Paralympics before this becomes a proper travel blog about, you know, travel, I decided to use the 'flash quote' template which is the backbone of what the Olympic & Paralympic News Service produce, complete with capitalised names!

Men's T54 marathon

RIO DE JANEIRO - Comments from Joanne HARRIS (GBR) after the end of the Rio 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games on Sunday.

Joanne HARRIS (GBR)

On how she feels right now:

"Knackered, mainly."

On what the Paralympic Games have been like:

"Incredible. I've spoken to such a wide range of athletes in five sports with a whole range of impairments and stories and hopes and dreams. I've spoken to established, experienced athletes with multiple Games and medals behind them, and to rising stars finding out what they can achieve for the first time.

"The atmosphere has been fun and supportive from all sides: the volunteers have helped each other, and the athletes have shown real sportsmanship and friendship which has been a privilege to see. The Brazilians properly got behind the Games and especially behind their own; the sheer volume of noise in the pool whenever the Brazilians were swimming, and particularly when Daniel DIAS won gold, was utterly deafening and exhilarating at once.

"It's a very different sort of Games from the Olympics but that doesn't make it any less competitive or any less exciting. It also doesn't make the athletic feats any less impressive."

Copacabana from the marathon tribunes

On her best Paralympic memories:

"Do I have to pick just one? I don't think I can. Here are a few though:

Interviewing GB gold medallist, canoeist Anne DICKINS

"When GB won three golds on the Lagoa, not once but twice, in both canoeing and rowing.

"Interviewing Ellie ROBINSON after she won the 50m butterfly S6. She was so very thrilled and shocked and it was lovely.

"Interviewing US swimmer Cortney JORDAN after she won silver in the 400m freestyle S7 because of the way she talked about her teammate McKenzie COAN, who got gold. They're best friends and she gave the impression she genuinely didn't mind being beaten by COAN. To be fair, COAN was also a fantastic person to interview, with a massive smile and brimming with enthusiasm.

"Meeting the Zimbabwe rowing team, who I talked about in an earlier blog, for their joy at being in Rio at all."

On her most random Paralympic memories:

"Having a selfie with the Danish flagbearer at the opening ceremony was odd but nice.

"Having my shoulder squeezed by Brazilian swimmer Phelipe RODRIGUES after what was probably the second of three interviews over the course of the week as I thanked him for the chat."

On why she is very proud to be British:

GBR LTAMix4+ - gold

"Officially one is supposed to be impartial when doing this job, but sometimes it's hard and I'm particularly bad at it. I love seeing the Brits winning stuff, and we won so very much in Rio. I covered 36 finals at the Lagoa (14 Olympic rowing, 12 Olympic canoeing, four Paralympic rowing, six Paralympic canoeing) and Britain won 10 gold medals in those events, plus three silvers and three bronzes. Which is pretty bloody impressive.


"I'm proud my country puts effort into the Games. It's a relatively small amount per capita and I think it matters. I'm proud that the Paralympians are supported in a similar way to the Olympians and that their achievements are praised just as much. I'm proud that our Paralympic broadcaster went to the effort of getting live coverage from places no other broadcaster touched.

"And as a journalist, I'm glad that our athletes will stop and talk even if they're disappointed with their performances while those from other countries rush by, sometimes even if they won gold."

On what the future holds:

"Tomorrow I pack my bags and head to Ilha Grande, which is an island fairly close to Rio which is known for being a beautiful place to chill out. There's walks and beaches and waterfalls. After that, Paraty (pretty much ditto, except it's not an island), then Sao Paulo, then Iguacu Falls, before I fly to Peru and get confused about which language I don't understand and can't speak." 

On who she'd like to thank:

"Working in Rio has been an amazing experience and it was great to share it with my ONS and PNS colleagues who are all superb, as well as various Press Ops team members at rather a lot of venues, but especially Lagoa. And thanks to Lisa for being a great roommate during the Olympics."

ONS/PNS jh

The joy of the Paralympic Games

Today is the first day of the Paralympic Games. Last night I was fortunate enough to be one of the team collecting flash quotes from the flagbearers before the opening ceremony, easily one of the most fun things I've done so far.

There was such an infectious mood among the athletes, even though they had a long wait - the first countries, at the start of the alphabet, started arriving at about 4pm and they started moving out about 6pm. Such a lot of diversity (of all types) in one place, and everyone trying to get selfies of themselves with other people from other countries, catching up with friends, and wreathed with smiles. There was a samba troupe moving around to keep everyone entertained, complete with several dancers and musicians with disabilities, which went down well.

My favourite interview was probably Annika Lykke Dalskov Risum from Denmark, a four-time Paralympic medallist in her third Games, who was so excited and happy and willing to talk and then wanted a selfie with me!

Once we'd collected enough quotes we went and watched the ceremony. The parade of nations was a bit long - the music a little repetitive and the gaps between countries too big - but once they got back to the ceremony part it rattled along nicely with beautiful choreography and design celebrating different types of disability. My favourite bit was where they brought pictograms to life by pushing them through giant cages, while the stage was turned into giant basketball courts, running tracks and so on with lights. Incredibly clever and effective.

It was also incredibly emotional. The Paralympic flag was carried in by a group of children and their fathers wearing special boots created by a Brazilian, which allow disabled children to walk supported by an adult. The kids were loving it and the Paralympic athletes they were walking past were loving it and I suspect half the crowd was somewhat tearful.

Then as the torch was being carried around the stadium it started to rain, and former runner Marcia Malsar fell and dropped the torch. But she got up again and to huge cheers and a standing ovation made it, solo, to the handover point.

Then the flame was lit, amid the pouring rain, and the Games officially began.

In the past few days I've been speaking to athletes in the three sports I have responsibility for - rowing, canoe sprints and sailing. It's been incredible listening to their stories. Some are at their first Paralympics and a few only took up their sports a short time ago; others have spent their lives pursuing elite sport, particularly Irish sailor John Twomey who is here at his eleventh Paralympics (six discus, including gold in Seoul; two where he also did table-tennis; and now five as a sailor).

I spoke to the Zimbabwean coxed four, who have the most basic of training facilities back home and whose effervescent coach Rachel Davis has supported them financially as well as on a sporting basis. I met GB rower Laurence Whiteley, who got bone cancer aged 14 and is one of just two survivors from his treatment group of 14 in Newcastle. I spoke to canoeist Curtis McGrath, who had his legs blown off by an IED in Afghanistan only days before the London 2012 Paralympics started and made a promise to his mates stretchering him away that they'd see him compete at a Paralympics - some of them will be in Rio.

I had a chat to Anke Molkenthin, who at 54 is competing in two sports in Rio (rowing and canoeing). She was diagnosed with a congenital nerve disorder in the 1980s and even with only 80 per cent of nerve function ran ultra-marathons through to the end of the 1990s. I met the fantastically fun Aussie sailing duo of Daniel Fitzgibbon and Liesl Tesch; during their training every day Fitzgibbon, who has quadriplegia, has to pass the jetty which he fell off in 1997. Yesterday I met Kenyan rower Itaken Kipelian, who got polio aged five and was taken away from his Masai family by a missionary and educated. Now he's supporting four of his brothers through school and he says his life has been a miracle.

The atmosphere is subtly different from the Olympics. Everyone wants to win just as much but I think there's an even greater camaraderie between competitors. And in my sports in particular, I get the impression that the athletes feel by participating they achieve real freedom which they don't always have on land. Sport makes a tangible difference to these athletes' lives and I'm looking forward to covering their achievements in the next 11 days.

Tears and cheers on the Lagoa

The rowing is over. Eight days of drama, mixed zone madness, wind, rain, sun and 14 incredible finals.

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.

Olivia, me and Shauna and the Olympic rings

I did do some unprofessional jumping up and down with the women's pair and then pretty much missed the men's four final, managing to just see them cross the line ahead of Australia. When the Olympics are over I'm going to spend some time watching all the racing again as as usual I haven't really seen the whole of any races.
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!

Mixing up the mixed zones

The past couple of days have brought home how massive a thing the Olympics is - both literally, and figuratively. Literally in terms of the thousands of people involved in making it happen, and in the size of the stadia (and of Rio); figuratively in terms of how much competing means to the athletes.

Two races in particular drove this latter point home. Yesterday it was the repechage of the women's quads, in which Australia lost out for a place in the final - it's particularly brutal when there's only seven boats in the quota and six final spots. The boat featured Kerry Hore, on her fourth Olympics and with a bronze from Beijing to her name. When the Australians came back to the mixed zone later they all gave interviews to the Aussie press and I managed to run over for the end of the written press bit, by which time poor Kerry was struggling not to break down. She'd given so much for so long and going out in the rep was not the ending she'd hoped for.

Today, it was the lightweight men's four, which is always incredibly competitive. On Saturday the unfancied Italians won the heat, GB made it into the semis as planned. Today the Italians got out to a rapid start which nobody could match. France, GB and the Kiwis were trading second, third and fourth through the race and the NZ sprint was too much for the Brits. Remarkably, five of the six boats in their semi were faster than all the boats in the other semi - conditions didn't change that much in 10 minutes so it'll be fascinating to see what the final result is. It's always disappointing when a British boat loses and more so when you know someone in it even a little bit. The crew came back later and were calm, measured and gracious in defeat, which was somehow just as heartbreaking as watching Kerry Hore's tears the day before.

Apart from that it's been a weird few days. On Sunday we hung around at Lagoa watching the wind blow until they finally decided to cancel racing for the day, at which point it got even windier and I was dispatched to help out at the swimming. Not, of course, that I saw much swimming or even the inside of the pool; after a long journey on a media bus trying to avoid the roads closed for the cycling I saw only the mixed zone.

But it was good to experience a different sort of mixed zone where they have the luxury of picking the people they speak to in the knowledge that they'll all have to come by straight after the race - unlike in rowing, where we usually don't know which athletes will respond to the request for an interview or when they'll do it. It was also weird to be back in a swimming environment after so long away from the sport and I was reminded how different swimmers' bodies are from rowers'! Chad Le Clos was probably the biggest name to come by, but we got some great quotes from British swimmer James Guy too about Adam Peaty and his 100m breaststroke world record in the heats. ("I said to him, 'Peaty, don't smash it'. He said 'no, I'm going to effing smash it'.") The subs edited out the effing.

Sunday's cancellation at the rowing meant that FISA decided to squash two days' racing into one, which made sense as yesterday was originally a short day. It was a fairly standard sort of day racing-wise with no major upsets really apart possibly from the Danish Olympic champion LM2x who didn't make it straight to the semis. 

We weren't done until about 2.30pm and then I had to hightail it up to Deodoro to help out at the hockey. Rio's Olympic 'cluster' system means that venues are in four zones; Deodoro is miles away from Copacabana and hosts equestrianism, rugby sevens, volleyball, canoe slalom, mountain biking and hockey (and probably something else I've missed). I thought I had public transport sussed but clearly not as they've helpfully closed the station nearest to the Deodoro Olympic Park and you have to walk back from the next one along. That meant I was lost, outside the park without the right accreditation, and late, which wasn't a brilliant start to the evening. I'd also not had time for lunch, which at 5pm was fine but was less so later.

My colleague Will had to go to the rugby which was why they needed another hand, so he left me with instructions and extremely accurate match predictions and I watched some hockey. International hockey is fast, aggressive and good entertainment and I quite enjoyed it although I couldn't work out why teams were penalised or anything like that! I also got to watch Britain comprehensively beat India, which was nice.

It was, however, a long old day by the time I finally got back to Copacabana and today was another long hot day in the mixed zone. We got some good stuff today though. I finally managed to talk to the Danish LM2x who are only in Rio because the Belgians decided to race Hannes Obreno in the M1x instead of their LM2x who won the final qualification regatta ("we're very lucky to be here," Rasmus Quist admitted). Czech Olympic W1x champion Mirka Knapkova told me that when she sank in her pre-race warm up it was the first time she's ever fallen in (!) and Kim Brennan, who'll probably be the new W1x champion later this week, revealed she likes doughnuts and especially the ones with pink icing someone gave her for her birthday. It's that sort of personal chat which makes things fun.

Tomorrow, if the weather gods are kind, is our first finals day. Woohoo!

Day one. Done

After three weeks of training and waiting, the Rio 2016 Olympic Games are finally here - and what a first day we had at Lagoa!

I slept badly (I blame the combination of opening ceremony excitement and mixing beer and a capirinha) and woke early, so decided to just get up and go. I arrived at the lake as the sun was rising over the most incredible flat water. It couldn't have been more perfect.

Yes, this was the morning before the storm

Even before 8am it was hot, and when me and my two American student flash quote reporters (Olivia and Shauna) went to the mixed zone it was starting to get very hot.

The mixed zone, for those unfamiliar with the term, is the area in a sporting event where the athletes mix with the media. They do broadcast first - NBC is the first pen, followed by our colleagues on the Olympic Broadcasting Service/Olympic News Channel, and then BBC. Then it's radio, and finally print and digital press. In ONS we have a privileged position to stand in the OBS pen and listen to their interviews, which is extraordinarily useful as they're often the only people to get a decent interview and always one of the first.

In the mixed zone our job is to produce flash quotes - quick, pithy quotes which journalists can use if they want to create their stories. Ours are also used by World Rowing so if you want to see the sort of stuff we produce check out their Olympic live blog.

Shauna, Olivia and I developed a pretty good method today. We had two computers and I needed to check over their quotes before sending them to be subbed and published, so they alternated between standing in the OBS pen and taking quotes and writing them up. I hovered to pounce on athletes to get extra quotes or quotes from people who'd bypassed OBS. After a slow start when I thought that nobody was going to stop, it all kicked off and in total we managed to get quotes from almost 30 athletes or crews over the course of the five hours we were there.

The topic was almost entirely about the weather. Although the first couple of races were pretty good the wind then kicked up with a vengeance and it became a survival game. Although the men's races went pretty much as I expected there were some surprises in the women's singles - especially in heat one, where a 22-year-old Mexican lightweight took on the race with utterly no fear, posted the fastest time of the day and beat favourite and London 2012 bronze medallist Kim Brennan. Nigeria's first-ever rower Chierika Ukogu, who I interviewed last week - a very impressive woman - also had a good race, leading Olympic champion Mirka Knapkova to the 1500m mark.

Then in the men's pairs Serbia caught a crab and capsized, which I totally missed because I was busy interviewing someone else. In the women's doubles Australia caught a little crab and then Greece, chasing hard, caught a proper boat-stopper. It was all quite dramatic and every single person who came off the water said that it was the worst conditions they'd ever rowed in. We had to stop putting in quotes about how atrocious the conditions were because there were simply too many!

I had a comedy few minutes when the British doubles came through. There was a bit of a scrum to interview the women, and they were playing drums nearby and Katherine Grainger's got quite a quiet voice, so I couldn't hear a thing. I gave up and went to interview the men's double, who were disappointed with missing the semis but pragmatic about it. The women were still hanging around talking to the fans watching on from the spectator pathway next to the mixed zone, so I checked with the press officer Caroline that I could grab them for a couple more quotes. But all the fans wanted selfies with Katherine and Vicky Thornley and I ended up taking a bunch of them before I could get to speak to them. I apologise to anyone whose picture I messed up ...

By the time I left the lake at about 5.30pm it was glassy calm again. I suspect the schedules may move around in the next few days. Please pray to the weather gods for everyone racing, and those of us covering the event. I'm not sure I can do seven more days of quotes about waves.

Long Lagoa days

I've now been working from the Lagoa stadium most days for just over a week. It really is a stunning venue, with the statue of Christ the Redeemer looking down over the lake and hills all around.

For the most part, the water has been pretty good. On several days including today it's like a mirror in the mornings with the wind picking up slightly in the afternoons. Yesterday it was much worse with white caps in parts of the lake, and they postponed the start of training, before opening the course only from the 1000m mark.

View across to the stands

Of course the mainstream media have been mostly focusing not on how flat the water is but on how clean it is. There was a bit of a fuss last year when a number of the US junior team got sick at the Junior World Championships, although given that very few other athletes got ill it does seem as likely that the Americans picked something up on their flight to Brazil or through eating something dodgy as through the water. US rower Megan Kalmoe wrote an excellent, passionate response to the negative press last week (which, reproduced on The Guardian, picked up a whole bunch of people saying she was over-privileged and moany and missing the point that she thought the press should focus on some of the more serious problems in Brazil).

A friend introduced me to Manoela, a Brazilian journalist and rower who trains out of Botafogo rowing club, and she kindly took me out in a double last week before the lake was closed to non-Olympic rowers. Manoela says she's been rowing on the Lagoa for 20 years and has never got sick. You wouldn't drink the water (it's partially salty anyway), but equally a few splashes are unlikely to be harmful. They're monitoring quality every day and the word is that at the moment, the water in the Lagoa is the best quality it's been for years.

Botafogo is one of several clubs around the lake. Flamengo is the one most-affected by the Games as they row basically from the finish line and their whole area is taken up with Games stuff. There's a permanent rowing stadium on site and a cinema and restaurant complex - we're in there, along with the workforce and athlete dining areas, and they're using a cinema as the press conference room! Then they've added an extra grandstand and all sorts of tents for everything needed to run an Olympic regatta - it's quite an operation.

I'm working from the venue media centre alongside a great group of mostly Brazilians in the press operations team, led by our venue media manager Cora who I worked with in London. Although my job is less operational than theirs I'm trying to help a bit as they prepare the media centre for journalists, who arrive next week when we open for business properly.

At the moment we're arriving fairly early (although it'll be earlier during competition). There's a quick team meeting and then everyone gets on with what they need to do. I check social media and news websites for any updates about rowers or canoeists I ought to be aware of, and then about 9.30am I've taken to heading over to the boat park to see who's around. ONS writers get privileged access which we have to be careful not to abuse, so I'm mostly looking for coaches who are hanging around waiting for their rowers to get off the water to ask if I can speak to the athletes.

Ergos. Ugh.

So far I've been aiming for some of the less well-represented nations. Obviously I want to speak to the handful of defending Olympic champions who are back for another shot at gold, but chances are we'll interview them several times during the competition. My challenge is to hunt out the stories behind some of the other rowers - the Angolan lightweight men's double scull, the first Angolans to row at an Olympic Games; the very sweet and slightly shy scullers from India and Vanuatu, absorbing everything with hopes of achieving their best possible results; the incredibly young Chilean lightweight women's double, who are both just 19; the lovely Polish Wierzbowska sisters who despite being complete opposites are having in a ball in their pair; and former Oxford Blue Michelle Pearson who's made it to the Olympics to row for her native Bermuda and had brilliant things to say about Title IX.

It's great fun, although there's been a fair bit of hanging around, but I've finally got the technology working to take my laptop to the boat park and get online while I wait.

OBS interviewing Phil Rowley, coach of the Angolan LM2x

Once I've got enough quotes, whether through an interview I've done or through listening to an interview done by the Olympic Broadcast Service (who do basically what we do, except for television), I head back to the media centre and file the quotes and maybe a story from them. There's usually some research or admin to do too. Lunch is much like the food we had at the MPC - salad, rice and beans or pasta, a cooked veg, and a choice of a veggie option, chicken/fish, or beef, then something like a chocolate mousse or a bit of fruit.

Later on I tend to head back to the boat park to catch the afternoon training rush, although it's a little quieter then. Currently we have perhaps a third of the nations present and New Zealand is the only big team - they had a few boats training from Sunday and everyone else arrived today (cue a few starstruck people eyeing the nailed-on-for-gold Kiwi pair). France arrived today too and Australia started getting their boats on to racks; we're expecting the USA and GB in the next couple of days and then it'll be really busy.

Next week our press ops volunteers arrive, in time for the media rush, and also my two American 'flash quote reporters' who'll be helping collect reactions from the rowers after they race. It'll be good to be a bigger team ahead of the Games beginning on 6 August - only eight days to go!