Beijing Olympics: By the Numbers
To officially wrap up my posts about my Beijing Olympic experience, I've got a little "By the Numbers" post for you all:
- Days in Beijing: 20
- Images shot: 23,126+
- Images filed: 1,136+
- Avg hours of sleep/night: 6
- Cab fares paid: 22
- Gigs worth of free memory received: 12
- Press pins exchanged: 4
- USA gold medals shot: 16
- Phelps gold medals shot: 6
- Energy Bars eaten: 33
- Times I ate at Main Press Center (MPC): 24
- Peking ducks eaten: 5
- McDonald's meals eaten: 5
- Times offered to be featured on TODAY show: 1
- Times actually featured on TODAY show: 0
- George W. Bush sightings: 2
I've got to explain some of these numbers for you. There is a plus sign after number of images shot and filed for two reasons, because the number of images shot is probably quite a bit higher than the 23,126 I wrote. I tallied that number by simply counting the number of original files on my portable harddrive. However, this does not take into account the number of pictures I deleted in the camera while at the events, nor does it take into the account that I mistakenly deleted all of my images from Day 7 before backing them up (don't worry, I still was able to retrieve edited files from our website).
And YES, I was actually asked to be on NBC's TODAY Show. So the day Phelps won his 7th gold medal (the 100 butterfly), I was sitting in a photo position that happened to be right in front of Matt Lauer. He thought it was just so fascinating that after big events, photographers would pull out their computers and immediately start filing images. I explained to him that now that Phelps' race is over, it is now my race... my race to get pictures out before the other agencies like AP, Getty, Reuters, etc. Especially since a 10am race in China meant that it was 10pm in the States... getting close to newspaper deadlines!!! So in getting my pictures out as fast as possible, it would be more likely that my pictures get used. I guess they were looking for new story ideas, instead of the boring athlete or parent interviews, so he offered to stick a camera crew with me to follow me around and do a feature. So none of this happened in the end... I suspect that the producers all nixed the idea because there was only one day of swimming left when I met Lauer, and that simply was not enough time to throw this together. If only I met him in Day 3 or 4, I think this might have actually worked out!!!
Well, even without a TODAY show appearance, this was hands down one of the best experiences I have ever had in my entire life. Although the hours were long and the eating/showering schedule was not exactly ideal, there hasn't been a day in the past week or so that I have not wished that I was still out there and the games are still going on. It will be hard to image any future Olympic Games ever matching not only the achievements of these games (Phelps and Bolt and everyone else just smashing world records), but also the production that the Chinese put on. Many veteran journalists agree that the facilities, volunteers, and just overall operations was the best out of any Olympics they had been to.
In any case, it has been mentioned in passing to me that I need to get ready for the Vancouver Winter Games in 2010. I think the things I learned and experienced in covering my first Olympics in Beijing will no doubt me prepare me for what lies ahead in Canada. Although I know there will be new challenges (sitting in the cold and snow as ski racers blast down a mountain at 70 mph!), and that it will be truly impossible to compare experiences, I am already very much looking forward to this potential great opportunity.
- Days in Beijing: 20
- Images shot: 23,126+
- Images filed: 1,136+
- Avg hours of sleep/night: 6
- Cab fares paid: 22
- Gigs worth of free memory received: 12
- Press pins exchanged: 4
- USA gold medals shot: 16
- Phelps gold medals shot: 6
- Energy Bars eaten: 33
- Times I ate at Main Press Center (MPC): 24
- Peking ducks eaten: 5
- McDonald's meals eaten: 5
- Times offered to be featured on TODAY show: 1
- Times actually featured on TODAY show: 0
- George W. Bush sightings: 2
I've got to explain some of these numbers for you. There is a plus sign after number of images shot and filed for two reasons, because the number of images shot is probably quite a bit higher than the 23,126 I wrote. I tallied that number by simply counting the number of original files on my portable harddrive. However, this does not take into account the number of pictures I deleted in the camera while at the events, nor does it take into the account that I mistakenly deleted all of my images from Day 7 before backing them up (don't worry, I still was able to retrieve edited files from our website).
And YES, I was actually asked to be on NBC's TODAY Show. So the day Phelps won his 7th gold medal (the 100 butterfly), I was sitting in a photo position that happened to be right in front of Matt Lauer. He thought it was just so fascinating that after big events, photographers would pull out their computers and immediately start filing images. I explained to him that now that Phelps' race is over, it is now my race... my race to get pictures out before the other agencies like AP, Getty, Reuters, etc. Especially since a 10am race in China meant that it was 10pm in the States... getting close to newspaper deadlines!!! So in getting my pictures out as fast as possible, it would be more likely that my pictures get used. I guess they were looking for new story ideas, instead of the boring athlete or parent interviews, so he offered to stick a camera crew with me to follow me around and do a feature. So none of this happened in the end... I suspect that the producers all nixed the idea because there was only one day of swimming left when I met Lauer, and that simply was not enough time to throw this together. If only I met him in Day 3 or 4, I think this might have actually worked out!!!
Well, even without a TODAY show appearance, this was hands down one of the best experiences I have ever had in my entire life. Although the hours were long and the eating/showering schedule was not exactly ideal, there hasn't been a day in the past week or so that I have not wished that I was still out there and the games are still going on. It will be hard to image any future Olympic Games ever matching not only the achievements of these games (Phelps and Bolt and everyone else just smashing world records), but also the production that the Chinese put on. Many veteran journalists agree that the facilities, volunteers, and just overall operations was the best out of any Olympics they had been to.
In any case, it has been mentioned in passing to me that I need to get ready for the Vancouver Winter Games in 2010. I think the things I learned and experienced in covering my first Olympics in Beijing will no doubt me prepare me for what lies ahead in Canada. Although I know there will be new challenges (sitting in the cold and snow as ski racers blast down a mountain at 70 mph!), and that it will be truly impossible to compare experiences, I am already very much looking forward to this potential great opportunity.
posted by Jerry at 3:33 AM
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