By Graeme Cameron
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Part 2: Encounters
One of the great things about volunteering at the Sydney Olympics was the people. From day to day you just never knew who you would meet.
I was partnered with Maya, a 66 year old lady from Belarus to handle the foyer scoreboards. Maya had been assigned to this job because the chief draw officials weren’t confident her English was good enough. Their loss.
She told me she had once administered the draw at the Soviet championships herself, twenty mats running at the same time, without assistance.
I’m sure this Olympic competition wouldn’t have been a problem for her but it wasn’t my decision. In any event we had a great time together. She had an engaging personality and regaled me with many stories, Maya has passed away now but I will always remember her.
Her language skills actually came in handy. A Bulgarian man who spoke no English sheepishly approached us, asking for information. He broke into a big smile when she answered him in a language he could understand. Amusingly, she once marched up to two Russian coaches who were passing by and admonished them for swearing in public. I had to suppress my amusement. That’s Maya
The next encounter was on the train on the way to the venue. Some youths saw my uniform and asked me what sports I was involved in. When I told them, they brought up the TV show, “The Dream” with comic character actors H.G. Nelson and “Rampaging Roy Slaven, (actor/writers Greg Pickhaiver and John Doyle) who had made great sport of sending up Greco-Roman wrestling (wrestling was far from their only victim I told these youngsters that it was in fact a very demanding sport but we have a sense of humour and don’t mind being sent up if it gets us attention. I pointed out that we were discussing Greco-Roman wrestling on the train, which wouldn’t have happened two weeks earlier. They took my point.
I had some memorable encounters of my own while posting results.
Some Americans who were clearly involved in the sport back home asked to me to explain the new draw system to them which I duly did. One of them then facetiously congratulated the international federation for finally making the draw system completely incomprehensible (Same format at the UEFA Champions' League, group stage, followed by knockout). I asked them if they'd be willing to bet against Russian legend Alexandre Karelin winning the gold medal. They declined. I saw them most days. This story doesn't finish here but that's for the next part. .
Next, the mother of one of the Japanese wrestlers was brought to me, wanting to know if her son would be competing in the next session. I checked, he wasn't, so she went shopping. Another satisfied customer.
I was approached by an American man who looked familiar. He wore horn-rimmed glasses and had an official visitor's pass. We chatted while I worked. I couldn't put my finger on it but I knew I'd seen him somewhere before. I introduced myself and he responded by telling me he was Ben Peterson. Well, I'd only been talking to a 1972 Olympic gold medallist, hadn't I?. I had seen him on a coaching video years earlier. He was older now and had cut his hair shorter but it was him.
There's some interesting trivia here. Ben Peterson won the gold medal in the light heavyweight division in Munich. His brother, John was the silver medallist in the middleweight division. in that same Olympics. In Montreal, 1976, John won the gold and Ben had to be satisfied with silver. Both brothers were denied their second gold medal by Levan "Teddy" Tediashvili of the Soviet Union who had moved up a weight for Montreal. A legend of the sport, Teddy was undefeated from 1971-76 and was quite the character, apparently winking at pretty girls in the audience just before he pinned his opponent. In different times, he would have been a natural pro.
Ben Peterson wasn't the only gold medallist I met. I came out to the foyer to post results for the freestyle competition and chatted with a short, stocky man who was wearing an NBC uniform. He introduced himself as Kendall Cross, who had won the gold medal in the bantamweight division in 1996 in Atlanta. He had since retired and had been hired as a commentator for these Games
Finally, with the finals came the drug testing team and who should I meet but Steve Smith, one of my fellow students from my university days. We had a brief chat but he had his duties and I had mine and we never got the chance to sit down and catch up
You just never know who you'll meet when you volunteer at an Olympics
The story continues …
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