A lot of the venues are still major construction sites, which is normal this far out from the Games. However, all were tremendously impressed by the venues and their “enormity”. The geography of the “Olympic Green” the main area for venues, is beginning to appear and for a lot of the Irish sports the venue will be a short distance from the Village in Beijing.
The Irish delegation at the BOCOG meetings were Chef de Mission, Dermot Henihan – Deputy Chef de Mission, Tom Rafter – Chief Executive Officer, Stephen Martin – Olympic Attache, Patrick Parsons – First Secretary for the Embassy, Therese Healy, Boxing Manager, Jim Walsh – Fencing Manager, Nuala McGarrity and Swimming Manager, Keith Bewley.
As is usual, the meetings with BOCOG were very efficient and informative – our meetings were organised and led by Ray (Mengrui Hou) of BOCOG and the heads of the many departments we were required to meet.
The Sports Managers had their individual meetings with their Competition Managers.
Overall, from the information received and requirements of BOCOG we can gladly report that Ireland are fully up to date and intend to remain that way.
While there, we formally made a bid for where we would to reside in the Beijing Olympic Village and we must always hope that we get our requested area.
During our visit we were once entertained to dinner by the Irish Ambassador, Declan Kelleher at the Irish Embassy. A very social evening was had by all those who attended and once again we thank our ambassador for his tremendous support.
The Managers also did the tour of Beijing by Metro – compulsory, as this will be a major mode of transport during the games.
Environmentally the face of Beijing is improving enormously. Not a single moment of “smog” during our visit. Also, the people in all the service industries are learning a little English, however one cannot over emphasise the language difficulties and all travelling to the Beijing Games should learn a few little bits of Chinese.
Overall, a successful visit and at our next Management Meeting we will have a lot to report.
The next visit is in August for the Chef de Missions Seminar which will be attended by Dermot Henihan and Stephen Martin.
