The International Olympic Committee is allowing some Olympic events to have public address announcements in German. It’s the first time ever inside a French or English-speaking country that a third language will be used to describe Olympic competition. Utah Olympic park director Craig Lehto persuaded the IOC to include German descriptions at the park, which is home to all three Olympic sliding sports. All three sports, luge, bobsled and skeleton, have German roots. He said, “it was tough to convince them we should have German”. Throughout the years, French and English have been the only languages used in Olympic competition. In years when the host country speaks a language other than English or French, then that country’s language is also used in official competition.
Besides the 168 hours of Olympic coverage on the NBC network, cable channels MSNBC and CNBC are expected to air 131 hours and 76 hours of Olympic programming respectively. The network and the cable channels will feature plenty of live coverage of competitions, different from the coverage of the Sydney Games because of the time difference between the United States and Australia. The network is also relying more on commentators to weave the athletes’ stories into their coverage of the events. There will also be a 90-minute late-night program on NBC featuring Jay Leno. The second half of “The Tonight Show” will kick off with a song from that evening’s performance at the downtown medals plaza. The rest of the NBC show may include footage from the nightly medals award ceremonies at the plaza, interviews, and possibly even some of that day’s competition.
Visitors to the Salt Lake Games will be seeing red. But it’s a good thing. Volunteers will wear red Games uniforms, parkas and vests signifying that help and safety are nearby. The red gear identifies medical team members, who will also wear an arm patch showing Aesculapius’ staff with a snake curled around it – the universal symbol of medicine. Thirty-five temporary medical clinics set up in trailers or cordoned-off areas will be up and running at each venue site and other locations by the Opening Ceremony. Most venues will have two clinics, one for athletes and one for spectators, said Salt Lake City-based IHC according to Games rules and security plans. There will also be roving medical teams inside the venue fences to check for on-the-spot accidents or treat critical patients in the moments before they are taken to a clinic or moved to a waiting ambulance. Each competition site has its own medical management team headed by a volunteer “medical officer”, usually a licensed doctor, and a “medical supervisor’, usually a nurse or nurse practitioner. Also, five of IHC’s medical centres are designated as Olympic hospitals. And there will be air support for the Games. Five helicopters will be placed around the Wasatch Front and at specific venues, and three AirMed copters will be on call.
A test run of the Olympic transportation network during New Year’s Eve celebrations in downtown Salt Lake City ran into problems early Tuesday when crowds leaving midnight fireworks waited in long lines for TRAX trains in freezing weather, endured a chaotic boarding and then were packed like sardines into overcrowded cars. Utah Transit Authority officials had prepared a light-rail and bus transportation plan for the estimated 50,000 people attending First Night as a way to see how the system might run during the Winter Games, when 70,000 people are expected to be in the downtown area for Olympic activities. The system seemed to function well early Monday in transporting people to the downtown celebrations, but after the stroke of midnight the crowd that had crammed into the Gallivan Center surged onto Main Street to catch outgoing TRAX trains. A block-long line of around 15 people wide formed to wait for trains that were supposed to run 20 minutes apart but could not keep up with demand. Officials will be evaluating how a shuttle bus system worked Monday night. Though ridership did not appear high, operating the system gave UTA drivers a chance to practice taking people from designated parking lots to downtown drop-off points.
And finally, animal rights activists are offering Olympic organizers a deal. They promise not to picket the 2002 Winter Games if the Salt Lake Organizing Committee drops its sponsorship of a rodeo planned to showcase culture and lifestyle of the American West. SLOC president Mitt Romney and Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson will sit down today with representatives of the Utah Animal Rights Coalition to discuss the deal. SLOC spokeswoman Caroline Shaw said Wednesday that SLOC has engaged in a dialogue with the activists but that no decision have been made. Officials of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association have heard rumours of SLOC cutting ties with the rodeo but are proceeding as planned.
