100 words of reflections on the 2012 Olympic Games

We can tolerate the obscene emblem of the London Olympics; we can tolerate the Olympic volunteer uniforms that are said to be designed in a royal style; we can also tolerate the hard work of working as free labor or even paying for 10 or 11 hours I can tolerate it, but at the London Olympics, when the organizers and some Western media belittled and attacked Chinese athletes, and avoided the loopholes and wrong choices in their own work, I couldn't bear it anymore. I felt uncomfortable not speaking out about some things.

Let’s talk about the training first. I was selected into the NOC/NPC Service group and was one of the first people to get the OFFER. Our group was also the first among all Olympic volunteers to receive training - starting in February 2012, there were two trainings per month. , each training lasted 5 hours, and the training lasted until mid-June 2012. Finally, there were two full days of driving training and one day of venue training. All transportation expenses during this period, including subway expenses in London, will not be reimbursed by the Olympic Organizing Committee. Not only that, there were no arrangements for lunch or dinner during the five-hour training. Only the last two times were attended by the media and simple sandwiches, apples, chocolates, etc. were provided. Because the NOC service team is mainly responsible for the reception and accompanying work of the leaders of the national delegation, the training content covers everything from airport pick-up and registration of athletes to the opening ceremony to the competition venue. In this way, our team has a greater understanding of the organization of the entire Olympic Games. Understand that a lot of content in the training is based on the Beijing Olympics. You can often hear a sentence - what was done during the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and how to deal with such problems.

During the second training, the team leader told everyone that the work tasks also included driving, and a British driver's license was required. I thought, since the people we received were all important athletes and officials, who would be responsible if something happened while driving? ——Sure enough, during the driving training in early June (mainly to get familiar with road conditions and dedicated Olympic routes), someone had an accident on the first day. Later, when the second group of people were trained, a coach would conduct a safety assessment with the car, and the brush continued. A group of people. Although I have been driving in the UK for a year and a half, because my parking skills are very poor, I reported it to the team leader. The organization actually arranged a car for me, and said that there would not be many opportunities to park. There are dedicated parking areas for cars. The delegation’s reception vehicle is a BMW 3 Series manual transmission. The weekly rent for each vehicle is 3,000 pounds, which is about 30,000 RMB. This amount of money actually buys passes and parking passes for various venues and the Olympic Village, and does not include London. The parking fees in the city are expensive. Cars in the UK are not expensive to begin with. You can buy a new car for a few weeks. I don’t know what the situation is like in other groups, but the NOC team is basically full of uncles and aunties, and many people are not familiar with manual transmissions. There were a total of ***4 people in the same car with me that day, and each of them drove for an hour. Then I changed people. I only want to describe the experience that day in four words: "thrilling": when turning, I lowered my head and put into gear, and even used 2nd gear on the highway, but the instructor only said "still need to practice" in the end, and it turned out that Still let them pass.

In mid-June, about a month before the opening of the Olympic Games, I went to the Olympic Village and various competition venues for the last driving training. At that time, the greening of the Olympic Village had not yet been completed, and roads were being built around the venues. On July 17, the athletes were about to move in the next day. The beds in the Olympic Village were not yet properly installed. Many people worked overtime to make beds together, working from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. for two consecutive days. After the competition started, most event service volunteers worked more than 11 hours a day. The morning shift had to get up at around 4 a.m. and listen to the team leader’s briefing at the venue at around 7 a.m.; the evening shift had to wait until around 1 a.m. at the latest, exceeding Normal working hours are 2-3 hours. Europeans are very good at arranging working hours. Is this how they use free labor now? The organizing and preparatory work of the Olympic Organizing Committee is progressing slowly. Why should we volunteers work desperately to pay for you? Moreover, many of the volunteers are older uncles and aunts. They are all your own citizens. As an ordinary foreign volunteer, I can’t stand it.

Let’s talk about the treatment of volunteers. The London Olympic Organizing Committee does not provide accommodation, which is normal. Large-scale events rarely provide accommodation for volunteers. The average weekly rent for a house in London is about 150 pounds, or about 1,500 RMB. During the Olympics, the rent basically doubles. Londoners don’t care whether you are a volunteer or a tourist, so some volunteer organizations go to the park to set up collective tents. In terms of transportation, London has issued London public transportation monthly cards to 70,000 volunteers. They can take public transportation in London zones 1-6, but they have to pay for the MRT lines and trains themselves. I deliberately dug out the promotional brochure for recruiting Olympic volunteers in May 2010. It clearly states that the Olympic Organizing Committee will bear the cost of trains from London to Newcastle, Manchester City and other co-host cities. The departure station or If the terminal is one of the above cities, the Olympic Organizing Committee can reimburse it. In June 2012, they said they would not be reimbursed again. Because accommodation in urban London is relatively expensive, many people choose to live in small villages on the outskirts of London. As a result, they have to pay for the train tickets to work for the London Olympics every day out of their own pockets, and they have to get up early to avoid being late. What's even more shameless is that you work less than 5 hours and don't get food. How can it be any more shameless? At least there is no organizer who has participated in the event more cheaply than the London Olympic Organizing Committee.

Volunteer selection was slow and unethical. At that time, the total number of applicants was about 130,000, and about 70,000 people were finally admitted. The online application process ended in October 2010. Around March 2011, interview invitations began to be issued. The interview team divided the UK into more than a dozen regions, and then stayed in each region for half a month to a month. I was originally interviewed in the Manchester City area in April, but later due to personal reasons, I requested to be moved to Northern Ireland in June, where I attended the interview at Queen's College in the capital of Northern Ireland. After the interview, there was a long wait. I received the offer in December 2011. Many people were still under review in December. They would receive emails from the London Olympic Organizing Committee every few months, saying a lot of polite words. I said that I have not forgotten everyone, and asked everyone to wait patiently Bla, Bla, Bla... Later I learned from a friend in the interview group that the Olympic Organizing Committee divided all the people who participated in the interview into two gradients, and they did not get the OFFER in early 2012. The people are actually on the substitute list to prevent someone from finally quitting and there are not enough people to allocate. By the end of May, many people had indeed withdrawn. The main culprit for this result was also the Olympic Organizing Committee. The Olympic Organizing Committee did not provide help materials for foreign volunteers to apply for visas. It also stipulated that volunteers must hold British visas exceeding the 2012 date. November 8th. The Olympic and Paralympic events ended in mid-September, but why are volunteers required to have visas after November 8? Answer: British visas for all foreign athletes are valid until November 8. What is the logic of this? Is there any relationship between a volunteer’s visa and an athlete’s visa? I have been wondering about this issue for a long time... In May, many people completed the training, but were still forced to withdraw, which made those volunteers who flew in from Brazil, South America and other places feel very embarrassed. Then the Olympic Organizing Committee found that there were not enough people, and conducted another round of telephone interviews for the substitute list. There were less than 2 months before the start of the Olympics, and interviews were still being organized... Even in the end, some people were not interviewed. After training, I started working directly... Misjudgments frequently occur in Olympic events, which makes me wonder whether even the referees are amateur referees hired temporarily? Until the official start of the competition, there were still people whose status was under review. They could have booked air tickets early and made other arrangements for the holidays, but they were played with by the Olympic organizing committee again and again.

Except for London, there is almost no publicity for the Olympics in other regions and cities in the UK. Even my British classmates and friends asked me when the Olympic opening ceremony was. Give two real examples. At the end of July, I took the last subway of the day back to my residence. Since it was not long after a game, there were a lot of people on the subway, and there were also a lot of people getting off at one of the stops. There was a blind British girl who was estimated to be about 20 years old. She got out of the car slowly with the support of her family. Her father (guessed based on her age) walked in front and held the girl's hands face to face. The girl was supported by relatives on both sides.

Halfway through, the subway door closed, trapping her father. What was even more embarrassing was that the door did not open automatically. In desperation, the surrounding tourists opened the door together. When the girl realized what had happened, she leaned on her father's shoulder, devastated, and her family comforted her. I had a work permit hanging on me at the time, and a British guy next to me asked me how I thought the Olympics were organized, but I didn’t answer (actually at the time, I was thinking about how to defend the Olympics in this embarrassing situation, so as not to be too embarrassed. After all, I was the same person. (Part of the Olympic Games) Seeing that I didn’t answer, he told me loudly that he and his friends all felt that this Olympics could be described in one word as SHI.T. In addition, during driving training, every time the car GPS was turned on, the latest traffic map had to be downloaded from the command center. The system was not yet designed at that time, which resulted in various detours. In addition, I was not familiar with London's road conditions, so I drove into a residential area. , the coach said nervously, drive out quickly and don’t stay in other people’s residential areas. Many people in London are disgusted with this Olympics. Since the people do not support it and the country’s economy is in recession, why did it apply to host the 2012 Olympics in the first place?

I heard from my friends that in the 200-meter freestyle final, Chinese athletes and Korean athletes tied for silver medals, and the national flags actually went up and down when the awards were presented. The height of the flags raised during the award ceremony represents the ranking. Even if there is a tie, they should be placed on one side and the flags raised side by side. Does the UK, which has hosted three Olympic Games, not even understand this tradition? The explanation given - not enough space side by side. There was a tie for the silver medal but no bronze medal. Even if there was a tie, only three national flags were raised. Why were they let go when there was a tie in the rankings again? The explanation for why the South Korean flag is at the top and the Chinese flag is at the bottom - according to the athletes' initial alphabet ranking, China is at the bottom. Before the start of the competition, representatives of the participating countries met in London, and the flags of two countries that were at war were turned upside down (not South Korea and North Korea). Later, they were discovered before the start of the meeting, and they corrected it, and then arranged a The training is to get to know the national flags and abbreviations of each country, including the athletes, the order of appearance of the national delegations at the opening ceremony, etc. During the training, it was very clear that they were sorted according to the order of the country's initials, but when it came to the actual competition, the awards became They were sorted by the first letter of the athletes, and that training also emphasized that the flags of several countries with tense relations must not be mistaken, including China, Japan, South Korea, North Korea, the Middle East, and Africa. In some countries, it stands to reason that with the current relationship between South Korea and China, the Olympic Organizing Committee should first consider avoiding suspicion. In the past few days, the national flags of South Korea and North Korea have been mistakenly displayed at least twice. Either the British are doing some tricks or the team leader on duty has shit in his head. Could it be that he just ate too many potatoes and went crazy?

Ye Shiwen broke the record and won the gold medal, but the media took the microphone and asked if she had taken doping. I really find it ridiculous that Western developed countries have always prided themselves on paying attention to human rights, but now they are so disrespectful of the face of "gentlemen" and are throwing dirty water on Chinese athletes and damaging the reputation of our athletes. Ye Shiwen passed the doping test, but then changed his story and said that Ye Shiwen was genetically modified. Academic newspapers actually published articles discussing the unreality of Ye Shiwen's record-breaking gold medal.

The next thing that happened was really more than just anger. The news came two days ago that eight players in the badminton women's doubles were disqualified from the competition - China, South Korea's two combinations, and Indonesia, all badminton powers. It is said that in order to increase the viewing pleasure, this London Olympics changed the badminton women's doubles rules to a group stage plus a knockout round. Many children's shoes have posted posts explaining the new competition system in detail. To be honest, maybe, I mean maybe, the International Badminton Federation really does it for the purpose of allowing mediocre players to make more appearances on the international stage. With the new competition system, I just want to ask a question: Do you still think that the new competition system is successful because the results of one group's games cause other groups of players to lose? Does the Badminton Federation treat women’s doubles as a team competition? In the team competition, a country has only one representative team. When two teams from a country participate in the same event, the group stage is held. Apart from the badminton women's doubles in this Olympics, it may be difficult to find other competitions.

In fact, the purpose of writing this diary is really not to belittle or defend anyone. Institutional issues are not the focus of what I want to talk about. Normal Chinese people know that our country has many problems that need to be solved. There are so many things mentioned in the diary, but there are actually two things - 1. The London Olympic Organizing Committee is very confusing. Reliable; 2. Not to mention being tolerant to the country, but should we be more tolerant to our athletes? They have to compete under the pressure of the country and leaders and unfair penalties. Without the support of the Chinese people, what will the Olympic Games mean to China? For people, it really has no meaning or meaning. Regardless of whether they win a medal in the end, they are all heroes for trying their best. Don’t rise to the level of ethnic conflicts and ideological and cultural conflicts between the East and the West...just treat it as a complaint...-.-lll

I have encountered many things before, and many of my opinions may be quite extreme. But if you put yourself in their shoes, how would you feel if you heard foreigners making irresponsible remarks about our country at the stadium...

August 7th Diary: Read some of everyone’s comments , time is limited, so I can’t reply to everyone one by one, so I’ll just find a few replies that ask more questions. Many people said that if volunteers are so hard-working, why do they still participate? I am not a god, and I cannot predict the future. To be honest, if I had known that the London Olympics would be like this a year ago, I would never have signed up to participate. In addition, what I mind is not the poor treatment of volunteers, but the many things promised by the Olympic Organizing Committee in the pre-match training. When the competition officially begins, it becomes another statement. The cost of living in London is already high, and the proportion of train tickets is really small. How much? This is a question of integrity. Will anyone be happy after being let go?

Many people insist on comparing the London Olympics with the Beijing Olympics, saying how much taxpayers' money was wasted in 2008 and what kind of problems there were. Is this a change of topic? I don't deny the problems of China's current system, but these are really not the focus of this diary. It seems that what I am talking about is a fairness issue. So according to your logic, it will cost a lot of money to let the referee make fair penalties? London costs less, so it’s understandable that various problems arise? Please forgive me for my lack of knowledge and talent. I really can't understand it.

Some people also left a message saying that the London Olympics is not aimed at China, and that Chinese people who think it is aimed at China actually reflect their lack of confidence in themselves. I also hope, really hope that the Olympic Games have nothing to do with politics. Maybe some countries still regard sports events as political tasks, but at least as referees, they should treat athletes from any country in the world equally, unify standards, and serve their own profession and all The participating athletes are responsible. People are not saints. One or two misjudgments may be true, but three or four misjudgments happened to athletes from the same country (and some of the penalties are really obvious and far-fetched)? People have to reflect. These reflections are all opinions. Everyone has different experiences and backgrounds. There is no need to insult each other just because of different opinions.

There are also some people who criticize the national system and various social problems in the country. OK, I support you, but can you please stop criticizing everything? Athletes are also our colleagues, to a certain extent. Victims of the national sports system. After all, there are only a few athletes who can win gold medals. When I see athletes from my own country being hurt in foreign competitions, my words have no comfort and even reveal pleasure. People with this mentality, please forgive me. I disagree. I just want to say: You are really seriously ill.

Watching the interview after the ring competition today, Chen Yibing held back his tears and finally cried. It seemed like this was not the first time that he had seen such a scene. He didn’t know what to say, but it was still the same sentence. , Chinese athletes, no matter what your ranking is, you are all heroes