Anne's blog travel 06-07

Tuesday December 5th 2006

After three full days of competition China-surprise surprise- leads the medal tally with 69 medals; Japan follows with 46 and South Korea with 40. The rest are quite far away. 4th position is held by Kazakhstan with 14, 5th is Thailand with 8, Mongolia is 6th with 3 and the list goes on. I don't understand yet why Hong Kong is not counted with China as it was given back to China by the UK in 1997. It figures here in 13th position with 4 medals.

The Work Room is busier than we all anticipated at this stage. Big Press agencies are sending journalists to the venues to cover the competition live but for smaller agencies with only one or a couple of journalists, the task of covering all sports is impossible to do from competition venues. The Main Press Centre and the International Broadcast Centre are the only Venues where competition taking place at all venues is available on our screens through the internal TV system. It is therefore possible to stay in the work room and keep an eye on it all and try to report on it all.

I'm going to try to take tomorrow morning off. Kisane will come and set things up here in the Help desk for me and either stay or be available in case she is needed. I can then get a bit more sleep in tomorrow and do my washing and have a leisurely morning.

I see Shelley, a New Zealander, from Transportation on the Corniche this morning. "How did you get through the barricades?" she asks me. The Corniche has been blocked around the plaza where Orry stands since the 1st December. The first day I tried going under the barricades and four security guards ended up running after me. I wondered for a minute if I should give them a run for it and accelerate but I just tried arguing that I was almost there. I also remembered Patsy telling me "Never argue with the police here." even if they weren't the police. I ended up having to go right around the whole place. So since then, I divert around there and run in the street until the area is clear to get back on the Corniche.

Bye for now.