If you’re a tourist or journalist and you feel confused at the Olympics, trust me, you’re not alone. Even the bigwigs don’t always know up from down in the harried last days of preparation.
On Tuesday, I shared a car with Timo Lumme, IOC head of television and marketing, and his lieutenant Ben Seeley, rushing from the IOC Session to a Samsung press conference at the Olympic Park. After fighting our way through traffic, we finally arrived at the 3.8 million-square-foot Barra Olympic Park.
We made it in time — or so we thought.
To the total surprise of the IOC guys, access routes were completely different from just one day earlier. (The park is mostly a flat expanse of open concrete, and security checkpoints, pedestrian and vehicle routes are all easily changed by creations of temporary fencing, tents, traffic cones and barricades.)
We called Samsung’s support staff. We checked our maps. The driver spoke in Portuguese to some volunteers. Ten agonizing minutes passed, and finally we figured it out.
Still on time? Sort of. Lumme didn’t miss his speaking slot, but I did miss the English-language portion of the presentation. No hard feelings, though. Security’s top of mind, of course, and that kind of tinkering is common in the final days before the opening ceremony.
