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Please note: The views expressed on this page do not necessarily reflect those of Microsoft and/or the British Olympic Association.
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| Diary - Mike Pallot |
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I manage Microsoft's relationships with Partners who deliver Mobile Solutions in the UK. I work with the major Systems Integrators, Application Vendors and Operators to bring the Microsoft Vision to life.
In my personal time I enjoy ocean and dinghy sailing and helped to organise the Chubb Insurance IT Regatta this year www.itregatta.org.uk as well as golf, ski-ing and regular gym sessions.
To be quite honest with you all I am feeling utterly daunted, but massively excited by the prospect of being surrounded by all these utterly fit people! Bring it on!
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| Thursday 19 August |
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Today I started work by helping an athlete buy a house in Canada! As you do! For those of you who know me this is not exactly run of the mill stuff for my limited capabilities. The chap needed to sign and fax a number of agreements - without a fax in the lodge this became a slight problem. Only when I sat back and saw the handwritten notes from Tony and Cherie Blair staring up at me did I realise I was complicating the matter! Thirty seconds later, the documents were on their way courtesy of OneNote and Tablet PC! Life is stressful enough but when you are coaching athletes at an Olympic games in one country, moving house to another country and your family are in yet another it only gets worse. Thankfully there are things that can help make it happen! Microsoft 1: House Gazumping 0 - Hurray!
There has been much speculation about the security arrangements at the games - I cannot say what they are or who are here, but all of the security I have experienced has been absolutely top notch and beats anything I have ever seen - I certainly feel very safe! One very amusing moment that I have been given permission to recant is an incident with one of the local hounds. In Athens the locals tend to let their dogs run wild in the streets whilst they spend their summers in the islands as there are no kennel facilities here. This obviously means there are some hungry dogs running around. Sadly two of our Scottish Security Squad (nationalities have not been changed to protect the guilty!) were nearly turned into Kebab meat last night - but just at the last minute the dog decided he didn’t fancy the main course! If you can imagine a couple of lads, that nobody would ever act impolitely to, running as if they were in a Benny Hill sketch whilst being chased by a hound, you'll have the right mental picture!
We went to the Olympic Village today and were struck by the awesome amount of odd shaped people as well as the massively intense atmosphere. We went to the TeamGB HQ and met the logistics officer as well - the sheer amount of kit each person brings out with them is awesomely impressive (that's awesome like the universe Jason). For each athlete there is 40KGs of sponsor equipment -that's sunglasses, suits, training kit, shoes, bags etc. For this Olympics, that consisted of over 250 palettes all requiring moving from the UK to Cyprus and then to Athens. The massive sense of teamwork is overpowering, we only ever see one or two people on the TV on a podium, in reality there are entire swathes of people working together in order for those one or two people to succeed. An impressive sight!
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| Wednesday 18 August |
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Today is Steve's last day out here. I have been allowed to remain until Sunday so that Dee (Steve's decidedly more attractive replacement) can have some backup. Churlish not to!
We have been helping out everyone in the normal fashion, but today something really nice happened. Martin Law the Head of the Trampoline Federation in the UK came to thank me for helping to communicate with his family on IM via Webcam, as well as numerous other little tasks. He gave me tickets for the athletics and most impressively final tickets for the Mens trampoline so that I can watch Gary Smith his protégé do his stuff! Wow - totally unnecessary but gratefully accepted!! This only goes to show that just a little help (those of you who know me, will appreciate my extremely limited skills!) goes a long long way.
We are hearing stories of people queuing for hours in the Olympic Village to get PC access - one room in the athletes area of the Village has 40 PCs - they were all being used and there was a maximum usage time. Tough if you have some dedicated work to do for team analysis. Luckily TeamGB don’t have this issue and there is never a wait time for PCs in the lodge :)
Having poked fun at one group it's only fair that I pick on myself! (after all it's so easy to do!!) Yesterday evening I was chatting to a colleague Greg who manages the bar area. A young athlete holding a beer and slice of pizza came up to the bar with a toddler and asked for a fanta. Being friendly, I helped out and casually asked her what she had been up to that day. Much to my embarrassment and her amusement (not to mention that of everyone stood around) she casually said that she had just won Silver in the badminton - doh it was Gail Emms! Thankfully by the time we got round to taking a few snaps she had recovered from her laughing stitch - my red face has only just started to recover however!
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| Tuesday 17 August |
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Today was our first day where we were going to venture offsite and actually see any sport live! The excitement was building and we were jammy enough to convince a lovely expat to give us a lift for the 30 miles to the arena (Kathryn Knox - thanks!) - However before all that was allowed we had to make sure everyone was IT happy in the lodge.
It's amusing as just as you think you have everyone up and running, a whole new bus load of people walk in - cyclists, gymnasts, you name it they're here! But most amazingly I met two of the most gorgeous women on the planet Steph Cooke and Mary Peters - an amazing lady who was victorious in 1972 for TeamGB in the Heptathlon. Wow - now those are photos I'll cherish!
The city is actually quite spaced out and so it can sometimes take 2 hours to get to a venue, we left plenty of time to get to the rowing and I was slightly surprised to see that no cars were allowed within an hour of the stadium - we trotted along on the central reservation of a two lane dual carriageway as their were no pavements!
The excitement at the rowing was absolutely fantastic, the Swiss had their cowbells to ring, the Aussies had their "Aussie, Aussie, Aussie" chant and then we Brits gave it some serious welly and flag waving with "Come on GB" chants! It obviously worked 'cos in one race we went from 3rd to 1st. Hurray!
The day ended well with a cold beer and a chillout by the beach before more IT setup in the Lodge until around 12.20am. What a day!
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| Monday 16 August |
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The VIP cycle is winding down today with Tessa Jowell arriving and then I think we are clear to head on with a more normal routine. The athletics athletes are all starting to arrive and so we have a new round of PC setups to challenge our extremely limited skills…being less than technical. For some reason my battle cry of "nothing ventured nothing gained" and "tally ho - lets see what this one does" does occasionally concern some people…
We also had the Chief Executive of UK Sport come into the lodge. We have been creating an online environment for athletes, trainers, dieticians and their back up teams to all collaborate online. Using some of our own technology (called SharePoint) we have set this up and were able to show this to Liz. She found it a revelation as today the environment for sharing information between athletes is pretty much either photocopying or e-mail. With the SharePoint site the athlete as well as other governing bodies can also log their schedules and diaries, allowing them all to know their locations. This is starting to become mandatory as in October the IOC are going to stipulate that all athletes log their locations for drug testing purposes – a potential organisational headache for any competing team!
The other day I watched some of the boxing on TV, that evening Amir Khan came into the internet café to chill out with his buddies - I find it quite unbelievable that this chap is actually quite slight - totally unfazed by his fame and really very chilled and relaxed. Probably helps that he's a rather good boxer!!
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| Sunday 15 August |
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Wow well after the fantastic diving results of yesterday, today started with a real bonus of Leon Taylor and Pete Waterfield coming into the lodge with their medals! They were absolutely elated and had barely a chance to sleep since winning - they had barrages of press interviews and everyone wanted to shake their hands to congratulate them! The best photo we have taken so far is of Steve and I with the winning Silver medallists… So far it’s been famous people, top notch sporting athletes, enough gadgets to fill Dixons and sunshine to boot - Hurrah!
I also met with Chris Boardman who is on the cyclist training team. Their use of technology is amazing for performance analysis and results analysis - all totally mobilised with PPC and Tablet PCs they can take into account the weather and how that will exactly impact the performance of the individual cyclists as all water loss is critical to individual performance. Some athletes who were competing in the first few days didn’t attend the opening ceremony for this very reason. The time which they are all spending in the stadium means that they cannot rehydrate quick enough in order to get back to maximum performance the next day. To help counter this, the cyclists have developed ice chairs so that they can lower their core body temperatures to the optimum performance level. In the road race on Saturday the riders drank 20 bottles of water each!
Today we also had HRH Princess Anne come and visit - she was utterly amazed with the advances from when she competed and the amount of support the athletes get today. In her day, there would often only be 2 computers for all the athletes (bearing in mind there are about 256 athletes this year) and queues of 10+ were commonplace. Today in the lodge we have about a dozen Tablets all fully set up on wireless for any eventuality and to date nobody has had to queue! There have been so many votes of support for the internet café that it only be growing in the years to come - helping the athletes, trainers and families to communicate with their offspring, friends and supporters around the world!
No pressure on Steve and I to keep it all going - as our MD said "God help them with you muppets as support!"
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| Saturday 14 August |
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We got up bright and early for what was to be a rather special day - firstly Tony and Cherie Blair were visiting and secondly the technical expertise of John and Paul had left! Eek would it all go wrong at the last minute?
Tony and Cherie were totally different to how they are portrayed in the press. Cherie was very warm and interested in the technology - in fact she didn’t let me show her at all - she swiftly ripped the Tablet PC from my arms and started playing! She sent messages of support to the Team and then helped Tony to do the same.
We think that we may get a medal in the men’s synchronised diving and last night I was speaking to Leon Taylor's dad who was telling me all about their training and pre-Olympics build up. Without going into detail we stand a fairly good chance of a medal so let’s hope!!
Sitting down to watch the diving the atmosphere was electric - other athletes and their families all came to the lodge to chill out and enjoy some of the great facilities we have - not to mention the families drinking the free beer!
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