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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 - Paul McAdam |
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Hi, I'm Paul McAdam. I'm a Business Productivity Advisor in the Small and Medium Solutions and Partners division at Microsoft UK. My job has me travelling across the UK working with business partners. I'm based in the Manchester office and live in Cheshire with my wife Rachel.
I love sport. These days I watch more of it than I play, but I have played a couple of sports to a reasonable standard... though never an Olympic standard. I'm really excited about being in Athens in the run-up to the games, meeting people at the top of their sports and helping out... even if it is just helping them email their mum!
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| 15:00 on Friday 13 August |
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Last day today. We couldn’t decide last night if we were celebrating the successful execution of our contribution to TeamGB or commiserating our heading home before the games began. Either way, it’s going to take a lot of Weetabix and Powerade this morning to get some people’s heads on track. Needless to say those competing, stuck to water and have already headed off to training. Anyway, if you are ever in Athens, Pame stou Giorgou is the place to eat. We were treated like long lost friends. We were certainly lost – the streets in Athens are a complex nightmare, but the restaurant is at 27 P. Tsaldari, Melissia.
Busy morning this morning, getting rid of spyware, removing unsigned drivers from people’s machines, installing devices and setting up the audio / video in the main area all before my morning Chunkyfruit Bar.
The mossies have been eating us alive. I have a bite on my eye which makes me look like I’ve been 2 rounds with one of the Judo guys who turned up yesterday. They are all average height but well built and very softly spoken, nice people, but you just know that they could put you through a wall with their left pinkie. They got excellent service in the IT suite and I let them win at Xbox.
Some of the guys here are the sparring partners for the competitors – what a job! Come all the way out to Athens so that someone else can beat you up as practise.
From people who have been to the dress rehearsals, I understand the opening ceremony will be excellent. Water, gods and the Acropolis are going to feature quite highly I would guess.
So we are going to hand everyone over to Mike and Steve. I’ll be watching the Olympic coverage avidly to see if the people we have met win and put it all down to the confidence boost they got from thrashing me at Fifa 2004.
I’ll be straight to Tesco to buy some humus.
(Good luck Sarah – from John).
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| 20:20 on Thursday 12 August |
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Lost at Fifa 2004 again, this time to a 12 year old volunteer (well done Liam) – clearly I was never meant to be an athlete.
I was asking one of the guys here what sport I should have trained for given my body shape. Judo apparently.. or maybe boxing (but I’d have to lose about half my body weight), but definitely something which involved getting beaten up on a regular basis. A career at Microsoft isn’t a bad bet then.
Service pack 2 hit the computers here at the MSN internet zone – all installed… no problems. We also took OneNote to SP2 yesterday – again a flawless display. 6.0 – 6.0 – 6.0 – 6.0. One of the laptops got too hot while it was being used outside and the clever little devil just went into hibernate mode. It was like a little cyber nap in the morning sun.
Apparently, the news at home has been reporting that the athletes are not flying out until 24 hours before competing and Britain will be poorly represented at the opening ceremony. So, the inside scoop is this…. Britain has a similar sized squad to recent games, see www.olympics.org.uk/teamgb. Numbers are ever so slightly down due to the restrictions on qualifying numbers and a couple of the team sports not being represented – football, women’s hockey etc. Also, the schedule has some of the bigger representation sports like cycling, rowing, sailing etc starting on Day 1. To attend the opening ceremony takes about 6-8 hours out of the athlete’s schedule and they would have to sit around in a suit in the heat for a few hours. Not the preparation advised by the EIS. Rest assured that John and I have noticed that there are plenty of incredibly fit looking bodies hanging around wearing “the brand with the three stripes” looking eager to get going.
Something I didn’t know is that in Equestrian, the rider and horse qualify together. If the horse gets injured that’s the rider out. 4 years of hard work and you miss out because your equine buddy takes a knock. Unfortunately, it’s happened to one of the British girls. It’s not dampened the spirits of anyone around here, but everybody feels for her. Perhaps I could offer to play her at Fifa 2004?
Just tomorrow left for us and then we hand over. What will life be like without humus?
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| 23:07 on Wednesday 11 August |
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It’s about 0830 and I’m sitting in the courtyard. It’s about 25 degrees already (wirelessly connected of course) and it’s very pleasant. Drinking coffee and writing a web log doesn’t seem to be that bad a deal. But a quick look at http://www.weather.com/outlook/travel/local/GRXX0004?from=search_city and the temperatures are set to hit 36 (43 is the highest recorded at this time of year).
A couple of the hockey guys were telling me about the training sessions. The matches they are playing will be in the morning so they have been training at the corresponding time of day. Training isn’t too bad because when they stop they can take fluids on board. However, during a recent training match in Spain they were losing 1-2kg of fluid during the match. I haven’t found this during my 10 lengths in the pool at 8am, but I’ll take their word for it.
In preparation, they have been working out in a heat chamber – I guess it’s like a server room with broken air conditioning. The room gives them the opportunity to monitor heart rates and hydration levels while the athletes exercise. During one session, the heat was cranked up to 38C and they had to do treadmill work for just under an hour. The guys were telling me it was “just exhausting” as we were lounging by the pool.
Dr Greg Whyte, the Luton Town supporting head of Science and Research who beat my mighty Rangers on penalties at Fifa 2004 last night, has written an article on acclimatisation which you can read at http://www.eis2win.com/gen/news_heat100804.aspx?page=1629&folder=14& They’ve done a bunch of research and made recommendations in a number of areas from training times, what to wear, reducing the warm up time so as not to overheat and how to cool down after the event with cold showers etc. I thought the cold showers were for…
The other problem is air quality. Athens has that famous pollution control system whereby an identifier on the car number plate permits you into the city on certain days of the week. It’s been phenomenally successful at encouraging people to buy two cars and establishing a black market in number plates. To avoid the pollution which can have the effect of shortness of breath and a nasty burning sensation (a bit like flying to Paris), athletes are being advised to exercise in the morning and avoid busy streets. Giving them plenty of time to play Xbox and email mum.
The women’s marathon (or Paula’s stroll as we will hopefully be calling it) from Marathon to the Panathinaiko Stadium on the 22nd August has been scheduled for 6pm to 10pm – hopefully it won’t take her that long. So, it will have cooled down a little by that time, but while we are all at home in the UK, probably with the fire on, she will be losing up to 3 litres an hour.
You can find a full schedule here: www.athens2004.com/en/.
Greek salad for dinner. Oh, for a piece of lettuce.
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| 20:55 on Tuesday 10 August |
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Today started with an 8am swim – this athletic thing is really getting to me. It must be some kind of infection – maybe the pool needs more chlorine. The teams are beginning to arrive and make use of the facilities. It’s just a quick sprint to the MSN internet area and there is a well trodden track. The kit we have on display is the Motion Computing M1400 www.motioncomputing.com/products/tablet_pc.asp - and everybody loves them. More accurately, everybody wants to take one home. Gold, Silver, Bronze, Motion M1400.
Chatting to one of the swim coaches, he was telling me about the preparation for the games. The team have been working for weeks in Cyprus and every care has been taken to replicate the swimming environment in Athens. One of the TeamGB swimmers has had even more to consider. She’s been training for the Olympics and studying for her A-levels at the same time. 200 lengths of a 50 metre pool everyday (that’s 70k per week! That’s like swimming the entire length of the Manchester ship canal and halfway back!), plus gym work, plus as much studying as she can cram into waking hours. The coach had even taken her from the pool to one of her exams, sat outside while she completed the exam, and then taken her back to the pool!
Thinking back to my exams – it makes me remember that all of the athletes have training and competition to do on top of their everyday lives. One of the sports psychologists working with the team was telling me that motivation is rarely the issue. In most cases, the psychologist’s work revolves around clearing out the everyday clutter and getting focus back into achieving the athletic objectives. I could have done with some of that getting up for my 8am swim.
For the athletes, the key thing is getting to village and getting a routine going. No complexity, distractions or variety – comfort comes in a routine. Miriam, who has masterminded the TeamGB lodge, rowed to a silver medal in the Sydney games. She was telling me how they got up at 4:30am every day, got transport to the river and were then on the water until 7am. Obviously you can’t train while the competition is on, so if you want to get on the river then it’s an early start or you don’t practice. Speaking of early starts, I’m on breakfast duty tomorrow – I’ll bet those swimmers get up early.
We spent the day getting people on the network, helping with Word documents and providing general advice. We are busiest in the morning before training starts and in the evening after training ends. Er that’s not our training obviously. We might be PC troubleshooting at 8am and midnight, but the tan is coming along nicely – what else is a wireless network for?
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| 22:37 on Monday 09 August |
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The priority for the day was clearly our workout. With so many fine tuned bodies around it was important that we didn’t let the side down. John and I took the lead in the heavy lifting activities – helping to unload the 150 cases of Heineken and hundreds of boxes of Weetabix, Alpen and crunch bars. The bottle arm-wrestling comes later.
The lodge is a real haven for the athletes and coaches. I hadn’t really fully appreciated how important it was until we went to the Athletes village. It’s like being back on campus at Uni but with everyone jogging everywhere. Every building has a different flag outside – many of which I’ve had to look up on www.cia.gov since.
The athletes’ village is just amazing Firstly, the security is top notch. I’m not going to give details for obvious reasons, but considering we were in one of the highest profile places on the planet, I felt trouble free.
The other immediate thought is just how poorly our press have portrayed the Greek preparation. The landscaping might not be finished, but if anyone has bought a new house, you’ll know that is really the last of concerns. The athlete accommodation is immaculate, very modern and incredibly comfortable. Over 10,000 athletes and 5,000 officials have to be housed in a single location for 4 weeks. All of the athletes and TeamGB support staff are really impressed and feel at home. With the temperature at about 32C during the day – it must just be like Manchester to them.
Our first customers turned up last night. A very technical savvy cycling coach with a laptop and iPaq, both with wireless cards. 5 minutes later he was up and running on www.cycling.com and was happy. A couple of hockey guys also wandered in and were racing around PGR2 a few hours later. One of the guys is Scottish and he was telling me that he lost the first race because he was too busy sightseeing round Edinburgh!
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| 20.45 on Sunday 08 August |
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I managed to get into Athens today to look at the Acropolis. The city is just an amazing sprawl of white buildings set among hills. The Acropolis and temples on the top are just stunning and were well worth the travel down town and hot hike upwards for a look. As for that trip down town – it was dead easy. Jump on a train – low level in the suburbs and underground in the city centre. Granted, I haven’t travelled much round the city, but getting around isn’t difficult at all. It cost €0.70 to travel for ½ an hour – in London the only thing in the underground you can get for that price is a paper to take with you. The new rail system is excellent, the taxi was fine and the roads, well, some of the driving activities are a bit unique, but the key locations for the games have excellent connections.
On the way down town, we travelled past the stadium. It’s a massive complex which just looks amazing. It’s like 20 giant sized Reebok Stadiums (Bolton) all sitting next to each other in a massive open park. Clearly I haven’t inspected every brick, but apart from the Just-In-Time landscaping, the area is simply awe inspiring.
We saw the old Panathinaikon stadium near the city centre. The last games to be held in Athens were in 1896. With its marble seats and elongated running track, it is the impressive birthplace of the modern Olympic Games. For some of the BOA guys I was with, this was a Mecca and they were moved to be there. The excitement was building.
I chatted with some of them over lunch about different athlete support aspects you just wouldn’t think about. Studies have been carried out on how the horses acclimatise and how they rehydrate so they can recover to compete the next day. The swimmers have been testing out how the water “feels” at different times of the day. One of my companions Greg White who is the Director of Sport Science for Sport England has 8 different PhD students all researching areas like athlete recovery over training syndrome and cardio impacts. Watching the games on TV this year will be different for me because I’ll know a lot more about this massive support network and the precision science which works behind the individual medals. Take a look at www.eis2win.co.uk for further details of what is involved.
(Greg is one of those 8am swimmers and a former world medallist in Modern Pentathlon, but revenge belonged to Microsoft as his beloved Luton Town went down 3-0 to Birmingham City on Xbox Fifa 2004).
Late in the afternoon we managed to find a couple of minutes outside and the security blimp passed overhead. The Greek authorities have sunk millions into security for the games. One tool at their disposal is hi-tech blimp which can stay in the air for over 8 hours and has all sorts of cameras and devices on board to look into people’s activities.
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| 23:00 on Saturday 07 August |
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We have two rooms here at the lodge - the Xbox games room and the MSN internet room. They are starting to look fantastic. The guys from Javelin Europe (Rebecca and Nathan) have done a brilliant job. I heard one of the staff showing someone round and said “this is the best bit” as they were shown into the Xbox room.
With the lodge starting to look Red, white and Blue, the thoughts of the BOA support team turned naturally to email. We got all of them up and running. They’ve got Windows XP on the laptops which makes the configuration easy, but they use an alien life form of an email system.
It’s a bit disconcerting with all of these finely tuned bodies hanging around. They keep doing unnatural activities like swimming at 8am and not drinking beer. Clearly the daily exposure to Groupwise has damaged them.
With everyone working away we managed to grab just another few minutes in the sun – obviously wirelessly connected to email.
Talking with the support guys here in the lodge is fascinating. For some of them this is also their Olympics. They are naturally perfectionists who want to do everything they possibly can to contribute to the success of TeamGB. Allowing the athletes to relax and meet their coaches or family and friends is important. If the coach or athlete wants water then that should be right at hand, if the coach needs internet access then that should also be right there and available. Every ounce of effort seems to go into thinking through and removing every single possible negative distraction so they can focus on winning. One or two of the others are experienced athletes and they just love being part of it.
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| 22:30 on Friday 06 August |
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It was more of a crash than a landing on the runway in Athens. The oxygen masks dropped down and the cover for the TV monitor ended up on the floor. Not the best of starts. We already had a security alert at Heathrow and were running a couple of hours late. My taxi broke down on the way to the airport and John had been driving since 2am after finishing a game of Halo. He claimed it was training for the Olympics.
The taxi driver didn’t know where we were going – which made us feel better about spending the forthcoming week in the company of athletes with high security ratings.
Finally we got to the team lodge and we spent the rest of Friday setting up and locking down the wireless network. The new firewall features of Windows XP SP2 made it really easy to secure – so it was a good test of that. We documented everything using OneNote – these computers come in handy!
Apart from that, carrying boxes, moving furniture and trying to be useful. We managed maybe just 30 mins in the sun with the Tablets while we made notes and created some of the documents.
Friday night – bread, humus, cheese and Rioja for dinner – it looked suspiciously similar to lunch.
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