10th and 11th day in Nanjing

There are two nights of events covered in this report from the Nanjing Youth Olympic Games 2014. My commentary stints ended last night when I worked the weightlifting with a fair-dinkum Aussie broadcaster John Harker.  I had listened to John and Jim Watt from the Glasgow Commonwealth Games a couple of weeks back when they did the boxing together - and I had been mightily impressed. They were a great combination. (I actually thought John was commentating the boxing with Bill Connolly for a while so similar were there Glaswegian accents!)

But it was not daunting to work here with John; he is a straight up guy and he gave me a great go of it at the mike as we covered two weightlifting finals. He'd done all the rest so I was a bit of an interloper really. But we all just follow the roster here.

For the first final we were to do we went out the back to see if we could get a couple of quotes to use from the competitors. Sitting there was a lovely quiet 17-year old school girl from the Solomon Islands called Arina Arina. Of course questioning her about her name was an early priority but once we got it sorted out that she doubled her Christian name with her family's surname (a common thing in the world of Pacifica too) we then asked her a whole lot of other stuff. Between Arina and her coach and the Pidgin language they spoke to each other in we were well briefed about her by the time competition started.

And our hard work paid off because Arina was the first, second and third lifter to come out into the TV glare - and therefore we had lots to say about her life, her hopes and dreams and her Solomon Islands background and family etc. It was great.

The same thing happened after 'halftime' in the event. She went out to lift first in the clean and jerk and once again her lift's totals were so far behind that she did all three lifts in her own solo spotlight once more. That meant that over the two lifts (the snatch and the clean and jerk) our new friend Arina was on screen on her own for nearly 20 minutes. I hope she eventually gets the videotape of her lifting as it was a one-in-a-lifetime opportunity for her to shine on TV.

Ok, Arina came last in the Comp here but she never missed a weight and improved massively across the board. John and I were real proud of her.

Then today I shifted into a studio 'backup' role. This is where commentators (at least one and possibly two) are on stand-by all day in case one of the Outside Broadcasts 'falls over.' In such a case the stand-by guy would then race into the studio and save the day. As it happened I had no saving to do. Everything worked fine all day. So I  sat there from 8am til 3.30pm with, as we say so delicately sometimes, with 'finger up my bum.'

In other words just being paid to do nothing but watch sport on telly. Nice,eh? It was like being at home watch the com Games!.

(By the way I can use terms like 'finger up the bum'  in this website, as A) its my bloody website and B) you know you understand what I'm talking about!')

At 3.30pm it was quickly out of the studio and out into the scorching, humid day and into a cab back to the Nanjing Hilton. When you get into a cab the language could be a problem but we have been given a series of cards to show the drivers and off they go - nodding and smiling. They're nice, though I'm not at all sure about their driving rules !

Back at the glorious Hilton I found Iulai Sau, the Operations Manager, (remember? I wrote about him here a couple of days back? he is an old boy of De La Salle College in South Auckland) and with him was Harry Schuster, the vice-President of the Samoa National Olympic Committee. Iulai had set up the TV in the sports bar to show the All Blacks game from Eden Park. I've known Harry for a while and he is a charming man. I really enjoyed is wise counsel as the test unfolded.

We sat there with cool drinks and were enthralled and occasionally cheering at the awesomeness of the All Blacks in their 51-20 victory. I must tell Grant Nisbett sometime that his test commentary voice from Auckland was booing out in the Nanjing Hilton and he sounded great!

Of course the result made a potentially quiet night afterwards turn into one which had a fair bit of celebrating to do in the end. So, thanks for the beers you bought - you Aussies!

[PS: A final word here in this report; on the 22nd of August it was my dear wife Anne's birthday. So I composed her a 12-line email and sent it back to her to Wellington, New Zealand - and if I do say so myself there was some good romantic stuff in it - BUT settle down dear readers; YOU are NOT going to see it published here. No way - you see, I'd quite like the marriage to continue!!]

 I'll talk to you here tomorrow - on Sunday here!

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