My Olympic Volunteer Story part 1 - by Bryan

  Barra Olympic Park, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Friday, August 5, 2016

Our journey all started about three years before the Rio 2016 Olympic games. Both Jody and I signed up as volunteers with the intention to travel towards Rio De Janeiro in time for the Olympics and hope we were selected. It had been a slow process with many volunteers from England not receiving any information from the Rio 2016 organisers even early into January 2016. Then, as the new year started, I finally got the email I had been waiting for and received my offer. I would be in the aquatic centre, right on the Field of Play. FOP placement means I would be on the poolside with the swimmers during the lead-up to and in the actual Olympics.  WOW! Jody had received an offer for the transport team, and she was hoping to get to drive a car. We arrived in Rio about six weeks early, as we not only needed somewhere to stay, but we wanted to slow down.  We finally found a small apartment (small being the appropriate word here) it was like a square box with the kitchen the size of a broom cupboard (yes quite literally a broom cupboard).  Anyhow it was only 100-paces from Copacabana beach which has something to say about it.  Also if you stuck your head out of the window you could see the beach at the end of our street, the location was perfect. After a short break in beautiful Buzios, it was time to head back to Rio and pick up our uniforms and accreditation from the UAC, which was at the Samba workshops. They were not near any public transport but we could get the metro and then a cable car, which was not always running, but would get us closer to the UAC if it was. After a few visits to the UAC, both Jody and I had our uniforms and our jobs.  Jody was now going to work at the Velodrome helping the public. My dear friend Lorraine had also joined us all the way from England, to share our shoebox for three weeks and enjoy the Olympics as a volunteer too. Unfortunately her placement at this stage was way out by the airport and not part of the Olympic venues at all but we were optimistic we could get this changed for her. My first shift was to start two weeks before the Olympics officially started; this was to allow for the swimmers to practice in the warm-up pool and the main Olympic pool before all the excitement began. Day 1 I turned up for my first shift at about 3 pm one afternoon, Lorraine also came along as we wanted to see if they could offer her a volunteers job in the pool which was her preferred job (up until now they had only offered her a few shifts at the golf). I checked in at the swimming pool workforce entrance I was given my first gift; a Swatch watch made especially for the volunteers. Nice one! I kept it in the box, as I was a little unsure what I wanted to do with it. Lorraine got lucky too. they were very glad to have an extra volunteer at the pool snapped her upthere and then. I meet the rest of the team in the warm-up pool, and they said there was nothing to do today so we just waited around. The training pool opened officially at 4 pm, so we were hoping that the swimmers would be keen and eager to get into the new pool which was built especially for them and that we would finally get to see some world-class swimmers in action.  Both the warm-up and main Olympic pools were temporary buildings and once the Olympics were over they would be dismantled. The side of the warm-up pool was large enough for all the teams to have plenty of space to set up their spots for massage and preparation areas but only if they marked their regions out sensibly. Each country was supposed to mark out its own area and the first team managers to arrive to do this were USA, Brasil, France, Netherlands, and Japan - and they all took the best spots and the biggest areas! For the last teams to arrive it became quite a battle to get any decent sized space and some small countries ended up squashed in-between the larger countries. Well they would all have to work it out for themselves though. But we could see trouble looming when countries started to crossing over other team's boundaries. It wasn't just a battle in the pool for sure! Amongst the other jobs I had to do, was to set up the two big stop watches for the training pool and sync the timings on them.  Such an important job I know - somebody has to do it! I visited the main Olympic Pool in preparation and I got to see the fitting of the lane ropes. These lane lines were made in Switzerland especially for the Olympics - why Switzerland I don’t know - perhaps because they were a neutral country or maybe just because they enjoyed making lane ropes. Nothing much was happening after 8 pm this first day, so we were dismissed at around 9 pm to go home, the only way home was to catch the local buses INT01, INT02 or INT03, all three passed favelas on the way back to Copacabana where we lived. Many of Lorraine's shifts were the same as mine and was now working full time with me. She was a jubilant bunny. Day 2 My shift started at 4 pm today, but the same as yesterday, I turned up, and there was nothing to do. So I went to the Olympic Pool and watched Brasileiro the pool cleaning machine. He was called Brasileiro because he did the job of four Brazilians apparently! Every night he would be set off on the bottom of the pool, and he would clean it up. Fascinating! Brasileiro’s job was put work that night as the air-conditioning in warm-up pool kicked out so much dust into the training pool that it worried the leading team members.  But Brasileiro took it all in his stride, and by the morning everything was cleared up and sparkling clean again. I got word today that the full dress rehearsal of the Olympics will be on Sunday 31st July so I asked for my shifts to be changed just in case I was lucky enough to get tickets then at least I would be available. Guess what later that day I received an email inviting me to the dress rehearsal of the Olympics. Perfect! I was free now and able to go. Day 3 Today I found out our most outstanding volunteer team leader was the 1984 Olympic silver medalist 400 IM, Ricardo Prado, so I got a short video with him spinning around. Brilliant! More action at the pool today as the first team of swimmers arrived arrived - Japan. This is the only day they will be here as they are staying in Sao Palo - quite a long way away. Lots of media came in the pool too. The TV crews all behaved themselves however it was the press we needed to control as they wanted to go out of their zones and be up close with the swimmers. Don’t blame them really but it wasn’t allowed. Team Japan got the best position on the pool side as they were away from all the other leading teams and had sectioned off a large area to themselves. In this area, they had their little coffee station and a lovely sweet shop too which was quite sweet pardon the pun! The pool got busy with team Japan in the water, and they were fast, very fast! You’d have the coaches running down the side of the pool trying to keep up with their swimmers.  A very impressive team I must say. Jamaica and Egypt came to the pool later. Two Jamaicans and about 5 Egyptians.   Jamaica brought their ice pool, which was a small children’s playing pool, which was very cute.  The other teams had inflatable pools made just for the job.  But I still think Jamaica had the right idea. Not all the teams were using ice pools though and I’d only really associated using these with more physical sports such as running. It was new to me that swimmers would use them too.  Team GB did not have any ice pools though. Sensible Team GB! It was now the 1st August, and I got to meet Jon Watson team GB masseur. A lovely guy who used to live in Elgin and now resides in Bath, working at the University. Team GB had moved their warm-up position on the poolside and swapped theirs and Germany’s positions around.  I could just see what was going to happen, and I notified my team leader.  The team leaders reaction was to leave them be and only get involved if they needed assistance. Ummmm! So it’s okay to let a war break out rather than try and prevent it? I didn’t think so, so I spoke with Jon and asked if Team GB had agreed with the Germans about swapping, he said no…! Oh dear - I mentioned it might be worth speaking to them before they come on poolside but as I walked away a number of the German team were already walking down the poolside. Oh, buggers it was too late. As you can well imagine the Germans were not very pleased that Team GB had moved their area, in fact, some of the team leaders were furious with this.  Poor Jon he was one against 10 Germans.I stood and watched to be on-hand should he need any help but I looked on as an outsider, it was wrong what Team GB had done and they should have made enough space in the first instance when they first arrived. So how does it stand now? Well…  Germany and Team GB are talking and trying to resolve the situation.  They have come up with a possible solution, but it would upset Spain.  You see the Germans had taken a lot of room to start and the Spanish had moved into their space, squashing the Germans up into a smaller space.  So what happened next was that Team GB picked up Spain’s kit and move it over to the old Team GB slot, moved Germany back to their original position and Team GB moved in alongside the Germans.  Compromise but had they told Spain what they had done, nope! Oh no not again? As nobody could get hold of the Spain managers, they would have to deal with it when they arrived in the morning. Let us hope WW3 doesn’t break out because of it! Oh well, I was not on the morning shift, so not my problem. You can’t believe what goes on behind the scenes I can tell you. Day 4 I arrived the next day to find Team Spain had not come in yet, oh no…!  Please don’t let them turn up on my shift I wished. I still had this issue to resolve but now Team GB and Team Germany had taken on the full residency of their spaces, and they were not moving!  Jon was now on a security patrol, with his book in hand and relaxing on the massage tables he held his ground.  Jon was by far the best security guard, as he was a big guy and calm and mellow to go with it.  You know the type of guy easy going, but big enough that you didn’t want to disagree with if should things change. I was at lunch when the Spanish turned up. I’d heard that Spain were not very happy, but they seemed to accept their new position and understood what had happened.  Phew, all right in the land of the warm-up pool. Nobody told me it was going to be like this! It was the 2nd August today, and I was asked to make sure nobody goes into the main Olympic Pool. It had been open for the last two days to allow swimmers to swim in the pool but they didn’t want anyone in there today.  The reason, we got told, was that the TV cameras were being set up. Why on earth would they be setting up the TV cameras during the swimmer’s training time? Many of the team managers were not very happy about it either.  Then about an hour later the Olympic Pool was closed for security reasons.  This reason the team managers would accept - there was a bomb scare, WHAT…? Surely if there were a bomb scare, everyone would be moved away from the building? The volunteers would now be stopping people entering the main Olympic Pool along with the armed security guards. We had three levels of people stopping people going in now - I was the first level, and very effective I was too – no way I was going to let anyone in for sure! The press were getting very annoyed as they did not realise what was going on and a number of the media were stuck in the main Olympic Pool area and were not allowed to come out.  Now the press started saying that they will have to go public and report that a bomb has been found in the Olympic Pool (well this is what we were telling them after all). The team leaders suddenly reopened the main pool.  But wait - the armed security guards still wouldn’t let anyone in.  Another 15 minutes went by, and finally, they let us all in, and the swimmers could go swimming again. What utter confusion. And the bomb? Well, that just turned out to be a bag of old cables some tv engineer had left lying around. Plonker! Later on that evening Michael Phelps arrived. You would expect a lot of fuss from him, but he kept himself to himself, not even talking to his teammates.  I watched him warming up in the main Olympic pool. Wow, he can move through the water, his body shape is all out of proportion though. If you take him out of the swimming environment, he will look a like a very weird shaped person as he also has very long arms and huge hands.  All the better to make him swim faster of course. The only animal which he looks like in the water was a dolphin (although dolphins don’t have long arms and huge hands obviously!) graceful and making it look so easy, not that I was jealous at all. While many Team USA swimmers were swimming, Team GB arrived. They were just struck and amazed by the Olympic Pool and in a bit of a daze when they saw it. Day 5 Today is the 4th August; my dad’s birthday so I tried to call him only to find out he wasn’t home. It turns out he was in the hospital as he had fallen in the shower and dislocated his shoulder. Ouch! But he said he had a very nice doctor to sort him out and put it back in place. You just know this is going to hurt for quite some time afterwards. Happy Birthday Dad! On the way to the Olympic Park, I helped athlete Alexander Philip Hiler, from Austria with directions to the athlete's village. He is a Beach Volleyball player. Wait up - Austria is landlocked and they don’t have many beaches.  But he did say Beach Volleyball is huge in Austria and they have excellent players. I will have to look out for him. Over the past few nights, the journey home on the local bus was getting worse and worse. There were now four of us travelling home to Copacabana each night, and we were feeling more anxious about it each day. Last night Lorraine was going back home with one other (I was on a different shift) and a dangerous situation arose.  We all know Rio is a dangerous city and they had promised security would be travelling with volunteers on late night buses so we would be safe. However, this situation was getting out of hand, and even the local people on the bus were very concerned as this crowd were getting worse. Eventually, the police were called on to the bus to sort things out but only after a lot of argy-bargies.  For Lorraine to get worried about travelling on the local buses said something as her job is a harbour authority Police Woman at Dover and she is usually the one sorting things out!  This made me feel very uneasy about my own safety when travelling back on the buses late at night. Our shifts were usually ending around 1am and no personal transport or assistance was laid on for us – we just had to jump on local buses at this time as the new Metro Line 4 wouldn’t open until the Olympics actually started. Of course, this wouldn’t be a problem in many cities, but here in Rio, your safety should not be taken for granted – especially at that time of night. So far, on almost every bus home, there has been a stressful incident. So today I entered the office for the workforce to try and talk to my team leader about travelling on the buses in the early hours of the morning. I asked Rogerio if he had some free time as I needed to talk to him about my concerns. I said to him that over the past week I have been getting increasingly nervous about travelling on the buses home, and that last night (Thursday) a massive fight had broken out on the bus Lorraine was on, amongst men who had been drinking. Rogerio then started laughing at me! Eh? What was so funny Rogerio? He replied, "this happens all the time on the buses, you are in Rio". I was shocked at his response and said this was not funny and I was getting increasing anxious over the situation. Rogerio then spoke to Lucy, another team leader in Portuguese. Then they both started laughing! I said again why are you laughing? The reply was "this is funny Bryan as it is always like this in Rio". I was already nervous about my trip home tonight, and I felt I needed some support in this matter, so I asked them again “can you please help me find a safe way to get home?” I just stood there shocked as they continued to laugh at me. I waited patiently and then asked again, “would you please help me find a safe way home tonight, if not, can I leave early?” They just continued to laugh in my face. I was really upset now and I had to leave the room. I stood up and said to Rogerio “Someone could have died last night on the buses and you are laughing”  I then left the room as my anxiety was building and I could not be in the same room as these two arrogant and apathetic people. I saw Lorraine and said how angry I was and told her about what had just happened. She sent me off for a walk and to calm down. Over and over in my mind, I wondered what did I do wrong, did they not understand what I was saying.  But I knew both understood 100%.  With a team like this who do not take the welfare of the volunteers seriously, it concerns me greatly, and I’m not happy working with them.  Working in the pool might be a dream job for me, but to be with such arrogant people who are not prepared to listen to their volunteers and try and resolve something, is just not worth it. When we travel, we always look after our personal safety and just because we're staying in Rio a bit longer than we would normally stay somewhere, it doesn’t mean we should stop applying our usual safety rules. I didn't go back the next day and took the next few days to reflect on what had happened and to try and decide what I wanted to do. My dream job but I don’t want to put myself at such a risk to do it. I decided it was not worth my own personal safety to work the late nights at the Aquatic centre and went back to the volunteer's headquarters to request a new role.  I got a role in transportation and I could start whenever I want too. No the best role but it did allow me timeout to take in the whole Olympics atmosphere and see some events. Every cloud - silver lining as they say.