February 2022 - Broadcast Liaison at Beijing 2022

Every Olympic Games is a unique experience and a privilege to work at, no matter how many years of media operations and broadcast liaison experience you have.
Each Games also presents unique challenges. In February, after a LOT of COVID tests and paperwork, both of us headed to Beijing for the Winter Olympics to work with Olympic Broadcasting Services, which provides host broadcast and services the needs of rightsholders during each event.
Faye was Broadcast Liaison Manager at Figure Skating and Short Track Speed Skating, arguably the busiest and most high profile of all the Winter Olympics venues. Her vast experience came to the fore in helping to manage the Mixed Zone interviews for controversial Russian teenage skater Kamila Valieva. Many of the millions who watched on TV were certainly impressed by Faye’s compassion and composure in what was a febrile situation, involving a teenage girl at the eye of a global media storm. Fans even created a Reddit thread on Valieva’s Mixed Zone journey which briefly turned Faye into an internet sensation!
El was up in the icy cold mountains of Zhangjiakou, where she was Broadcast Liaison Manager at Cross Country Skiing and working outdoors in temperatures as low as -30 centigrade. It was El’s ninth Olympic Games and certainly her coldest!
Delivering media operations during a Pandemic is never straightforward but while the daily testing regime and restrictions on movement due to the strict COVID bubble made life challenging at times, as always the enthusiasm and friendliness of so many of the local staff we worked with really shone through.