Sydney Morning Herald among papers covering the WMG
Sydney had practice. Nine years ago, they had a little event called the Olympic Games. But the numbers at the World Masters Games dwarf those of the Summer Games — about 28,000 are showing up this month. The Sydney Morning Herald already has a bunch of stories posted and a video report. A French wire service has a story on the obligatory anti-doping warning. It’s also mentioned in this article. But like WMA, it’s more for fear factor. Only a tiny fraction face the urine-bottle treatment. The Brisbane Times says the Olympic torch was re-lit, and 200 Olympians are entered. Lemme know how it goes Down There. Best of luck, mates!
Medals are world-class in design; hope they have enough to go around!
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An update from one of my masters moles in Sydney:
A German tour operator told me that it took some of her athletes 4 1/4 hours to register and I think it took one of the American athletes five hours. As a result, the organizers have abandoned their attempts to take photos for the ID cards and from now on the ID credentials do not have photos.
But it really was not the photography that was solely responsible for the long lines. The organizers claim that the printers did not work and that that was holding up the process, but even that is not acceptable, because they should have tried out the printers the day before…or even the week before…to make sure that everything was running smoothly.
And things were not much better today. It took almost two hours to pick up one’s number and declare. Part of this problem is that (1) they did not hand out the bib numbers at the same time that they handed out credential passes — don’t ask me why — and (2) all track events, including road and field events, are declaring in the same place in one line. Well, actually two lines — one for men and one for women.
The women’s line was on the left and the men’s line was on the right, even though inside the TIC the women had to go to the left-side of the table and the men had to go to the right side of the table. Go figure!
One also has to get transponders EACH time there is an event requiring them, so those athletes have to stand in line each and every time they have a race requiring a transponder.
The actual competition portion of the track program starts Sunday, October 11 and hopefully things will go better. They certainly cannot get worse!
As an observer I had the opportunity to speak to other athletes at the games and one athlete in particular said she only waited 20 minutes to pick up her numbers today. There are many explanations for the long lines including handing out 1000 chips to the 10K runners yesterday. I think that we should not be so quick to criticise without getting the full details about what is really going on here. Additionally, the drug testing is taking place for real because I know first hand that there was drug testing today. So Ken the drug testing is not just listed on the program as a protocol that may be implemented, it is a reality.
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