Sunday, February 9, 2014

Finding the groove

I have now been in Russia for 5 days.  Each day sees improvement in every aspect of life here.  We are now able to park at our hotel, drive to the venue, use the washrooms at the venue and have food in our building.  Restrictions on these and other "normal" activities have begun to ease and everyone is finding their groove.  The chain of command is so long here in Russia, it's been most important to recognize that things take time.  Those pulling the strings are far removed from who we deal with day to day, and those that we interact with daily are simply doing exactly what they have been told.  At the same time that means it's important for myself and my colleague to appear to know enough to make decisions.  We have had two competitions so far and after the ladies' event on Saturday we realized the the situation with the photographers at the finish was a disaster.  Their access point was mixed with coaches, athletes and volunteers creating one big traffic jam.
120 photographers accredited to cover cross-country.  About 100 more than World Cup.

After attempting to have changes made we determined it was better to just grab shovels, take some fences and do it ourselves....because to those on site if we are making those changes someone must have given the "ok".
Looking important!

Day two with yesterday's competition the access was seamless for the photographers but an issue arose with coaches' access that now must be fixed for our next competition tomorrow.  Tomorrow is the sprint day which means I probably won't be able to sleep tonight!

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