Snafus beset Sydney World Masters Games out of the blocks
It’s still early, but first reports out of Sydney suggest organizers aren’t ready for the monster crowds at the World Masters Games. Endless lines for credential pickup. Lack of foreign speakers to help folks not using English. Bad directions to venues. At least the transportation system is getting high marks. One athlete (and not Bubba Sparks) wrote me today: “Overall assessment thus far: poor. Many athletes here who attended the Games in Edmonton said that Edmonton did not seem to have any of these problems. And (one who) attended the Games in Melbourne does not remember any of these problems.” So hang in there, troops! Hope the track meet goes better! Send me your observations, and I’ll pass them along (I’ll withhold your names upon request.)
Here is one athlete’s critique so far:
Thus far, the Games seem quite disorganized — a 2 1/2 hour wait on line to get credentials on October 8 and 3-3 1/2 hour wait in line yesterday, October 9, although some people who came earlier in the day reported that they got their credentials in two hours.
Information booklets are only in English, so when athletes check into the booth for their respective sports (after picking up main credential pass), volunteers and staff take a very long time to give information to each person, because they are dealing with many people who do not speak or read English and who cannot understand the booklets.
No signage — at least not up until now, and coupled with the fact that many staff and volunteers do not really know where the various buildings in the Olympic Park are, they point, sending athletes in the wrong direction, often in the opposite direction from where a venue is . . . and athletes end up needlessly walking long, long distances.
Free transport on entire city transportation system with pass and even getting free-of-charge to the Olympic Park before picking up the Games credentials was not a problem. The transportation system has handled their part very, very well.
Overall assessment thus far: poor. Many athletes here who attended the Games in Edmonton said that Edmonton did not seem to have any of these problems. And one who attended the Games in Melbourne does not remember any of these problems.
I have figured out why athletes here seem much happier than our athletes in WMA –many of them are members of teams which they themselves form and they are truly friends.
6 Responses
As an Australian I am embarrassed with the poor organisation of these games and especially with the athletics side. Another hour and a half wait this morning to sign in for my first event tomorrow after having travelled up to Sydney (1hr 10mins drive) the night before to get my credential and to find out that I was required to attend again the next day. In all my 10 years of competing I have never seen anything like this before. As an Australian I would like to apologise for the lack of organisation and inconvenience caused to everyone.
The fact is that 10 weeks after entries closed, the athletics program is still not finalised. There have been 20 versions of the program at last count. The publised timetable booklet is wrong and competitors are asked, after queueing for 2+ hours, to check their event times against an ‘official’ timetable stuck to a desk.
In Melbourne, competitors got their competition numbers, etc, as part of the initial accreditation process and check-in was 1-2 hours before the event. Obviously,their Sydney counterparts know better. Situation normal.
The World Masters Games (WMG) are not a world masters track and field championship. Neither, for that matter, are the World Masters Athlete (WMA) meets. As far as track and field is concerned, both are just a certified/sanctioned version of an all-comers meet for those who can afford to attend.
But there is a crucial difference. WMA track and field championships are just track and field. Therefore, there is some expectation that track and field will be the focus and organized and officiated in an efficient manner.
With the WMG, track and field is just one of 28 sports that the WMG has to keep “track” of, including “surf lifesavings,” “lawn bowls,” “badminton,” “netball,” “archery,” and “table tennis.” In the WMG world, a gold medal for “touch footfall” carries the same weight as it does for the pentathlon, 5000m, or pole vault.
The WMG used to be held every four years in even number years. In 2005, they switched to odd years, in direct competition with the WMA. With a circus of 28 “sports”, the chances of WMG going back to an even year schedule seems remote.
My daughter entered the womens 35+ tennis singles and doubles.
Due to have her first singles round robin Saturday at 3.00PM. Told she would be playing 2 singles rounds Saturday and semi and final would be on Sunday. Her first event did not start until 7.00PM. The organisers then decided on Saturday afternoon that she would play four matches on what remained of the Saturday. Instead of the promised best of 2 sets (with a tie breaker if necessary) only one set was played. Last set was played by her at 10.30PM.
She came second in her group. Original promise and plan was that the first and second in each of the 2 groups would advance to a semi ffinal and the winners of these to the final. This was confirmed on Sunday morning. Now, Sunday evening she has been told that the semis will be that the two winners of the groups will play off for gold and silver and the second placed in each group will play off for bronze. This happens tomorrow.
The whole thing is a joke. Nobody at the tennis centre seems to know what is going on. The international visitors are not amused.
The toilets at the centre are disgraceful.
These games are reflecting badly on the city. I would be particularly irate if I had travelled all the way from Canada to be treated like this.
Have to say that this is extremely embarassing to an Australian. In support of Athletics in Australia, their organisation, support and officialling is second to none. From the opposite end of the spectrum, I saw the same terrible organisation for the Pacific Schools games last year (multiple sports, many hours to get accreditation for the kids). If Athletics Australia was charged with overall organisation there would not have been any issues!
For many of the locals it was kind of expected.
After 10+ years of the current government, if a train ever turns up we celebrate and if traffic actually moves, …well it just does not get any better than that….
To international visitors sorry..
Overall found that the mood improved during the week, and most everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves,
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