Olympics Reflections #7: Transport
by Ross Fletcher, Director
Herd Freed Hartz – Executive Search
Olympic Reflections and lessons learned for recruiting
I was fortunate to work at seven Olympic Games (and a few Youth Olympics) during my time in broadcasting. For the duration of Paris 2024 I’m sharing a reflection a day.
Transport headaches.
At any Olympic event, they’re inevitable.
Beijing in 2008 was, shall we say, a challenge. Figuring out the subway system (entirely in Mandarin) from the fifth-ring road business district to Tiananmen Square was fun. Less so the return three-hour bus ride at 10mph from the main press center to the Canoe Slalom venue (‘it is for your safety’).
Rio was an altogether different beast. If our local driver had to use the main city freeway at rush hour they would deliberately turn off early just to keep moving, even if it added an extra 40 minutes to our journey. They explained it was to avoid the risk of carjacking, as we would be sitting ducks in a brand new, brightly marked ‘Olympics 2016’ car along with our $50k camera equipment.
But my favorite was Buenos Aires and the 2018 Youth Olympics. We drove ourselves, getting used to the chronic traffic around toll booths. We figured out that if enough impatient drivers honked their horns as loudly as possible, the toll operators would give in and lift the barriers, letting us through for free! We later learned they actually did it for safety reasons but it didn’t burst our bubble, and I prefer my version of the story anyway 😊
#olympics #honkyourhorn
If you liked this, you can also check out:
Olympic Reflections #1: The People
Olympic Reflections #2: Interviewing
Olympic Reflections #3: Across Sectors
Olympic Reflections #4: Resilience
Olympic Reflections #5: Fun
Olympic Reflections #6: Meeting Matthew