| Salt Lake City |
 |
 |
| GER |
12 |
16 |
7 |
35 |
 |
| USA |
10 |
13 |
11 |
34 |
|
| NOR |
11 |
7 |
6 |
24 |
|
| CAN |
6 |
3 |
8 |
17 |
|
| RUS |
6 |
6 |
4 |
16 |
|
| AUT |
2 |
4 |
10 |
16 |
|
| ITA |
4 |
4 |
4 |
12 |
|
| FRA |
4 |
5 |
2 |
11 |
|
| SUI |
3 |
2 |
6 |
11 |
|
| NED |
3 |
5 |
0 |
8 |
|
|
|
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Newsies hard to please but are pampered here
CORRECTION published Feb. 21: Carolyn Rouse is a licensed massage therapist working to give massages at the Main Media Center's free massage stations.
By Jeff Oliver
Deseret News staff writer
Want to know what a baby feels like when she is finally forced from the womb?
Ask any one of the 9,000 Olympic journalists housed in the Main Media Center after the carpeted metropolis officially dies at noon on Feb. 27.
"Everything you could want is here," said Kevin Dale, the Denver Post sports editor.
Indeed, at any given location inside the 430,000-square-foot biosphere one is within a few steps of 259 masseuses, a half-priced salon/day spa and a host of volunteers who spend most of their time looking for ways to make a journalist's life easier.
Which, in this situation, can prove somewhat difficult, considering the center also boasts a bar, a mail system, fine Italian dining, a deli, its own 27-volunteer nine-language concierge crew, a hospital, a pharmacy, a bank, a market, a museum, dry cleaning and an Internet cafe.
Dale said the only thing wrong with the Media Center is that it doesn't offer its occupants an excuse to leave.
"Sometimes I look up at the clock and I realize I've been here for 16 hours," he said. "It's like Vegas. You don't know what time it is."
Home to more than 100 news and Olympics agencies, each compartmentalized by some 5 miles of temporary sheet rock, the center has spoiled its benefactors.
"It's 80 percent necessity and 20 percent creature comforts," said Beth White, MMC general manager.
White's focus on satisfying needs first and then "adding the pretty later" has helped the MMC receive high marks from a traditionally hard-to-please crowd.
Roy Hewitt, a reporter for the Ohio Plain Dealer, ranks Salt Lake's MMC "at the top" of the seven other Olympic media centers out of which he has worked.
The center's results distribution/intranet system, dubbed "Info 2002," receives the highest praise. "It's detailed, easy to use. It's wonderful," he said.
Aside from results, the intranet includes summaries of the the numerous daily press conferences, press releases from the MMC's own staff of reporters, biographies of each athlete, medal counts, event rules, weather reports, transportation schedules and Olympic history lessons.
With the help of 12 copy machines and some 3.8 million pieces of paper, the center also provides reporters with print versions of results and schedules.
"We are fast," boasts Andrea Folkman, supervisor of print distribution. Once the crew receives the results from any given event, Folkman said, they can produce the 201 copies needed to satisfy the center's demands in less than five minutes.
Upstairs the Canadians are the most consistent customers of Tavern 2002, one of the few places in Salt Lake City that sells a more potent version of Utah's 3.2 percent beer, says bar manager Gary Graham.
And the customers know to ask for it. The bar burned through 20 cases of the strong stuff in the first week of the Games.
Which may have something to do with the popularity of the center's two message stations. Carolyn Rouse, a licenced message therapist stationed at the MMC and the Olympic Village, says the free messages are most popular among the American photographers.
For the most part, life at the center revolves around the several daily press conferences hosted by the Salt Lake Organizing Committee, the International Olympic Committee and just about every other Olympic organization.
Indeed, by the end of the Games every resident of the MMC will know exactly how to say "May I have your attention please" in both French and English, the two languages used to announce the 200-plus scheduled press conferences over the center's public address system.
White said she is not looking forward to Feb. 27. "It's like holding sand out to the wind, the people will just go," she said.
She estimates it will take about two weeks to dismantle what took 3 1/2 years to plan and six months to set up.
E-mail: joliver@desnews.com
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February 20, 2002
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