The 2014 Winter Olympics

AKA “The Hunt for Bob Wholeness”

Four years after my last foray into the world of winter sports, I returned for the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympic Games. Thankfully, it turns out gravity still works in much the same way, and very little has changed in the field of sliding down a tube at high speeds, so it was more a case of dusting off my temporarily-mothballed ice knowledge and cracking on with it.

As anyone who followed the news and viral stories will know, Sochi wasn’t quite finished when the Olympics started. To retain consistency, it remained unfinished by the time the Games were over, with accommodation issues high on the list of gripes from attendees. An early bout of food poisoning left me a shivering wreck for the first few days, so my planned coverage of the Opening Ceremony was handed over to another photographer. The issues weren’t confined to the hotels and food, with my second home, the Sanki sliding centre, still featuring workmen on the finish line, even as official competition events took place.

As tradition dictates, the sliding centre schedule began with luge, then skeleton, followed by two-man (and women) bob and ending with four-man bobsleigh. This is so that that the heavyweight juggernauts don’t tear up the track for the solo guys risking their lives on tea-trays. Another tradition for me is the rush to get a nice set of frames of the more unusual helmet designs. In my opinion, Canada’s John Fairbairn took the gold, at least in striking visuals. The story goes that commentators and websites often misread his name as “Fairbrain” so he decided to just go for it with a neon noggin. Bravo, Brainyboy!

Russia wasn’t just dealing with contractor issues, but also was claiming the more significant headaches of terrorism threats, Pussy Riot and the justifiably angry LGBT community, the last of which had recently essentially been outlawed. Due to this, cameras were always at hand, whether shooting on track or heading out for a last minute meal before bed at night. No-one knew what they were looking out for and thankfully, in the end, there were no major incidents. Whether this was down to tight security or no actual threat in the first place *dons Orwell hat*, I don’t know but all went smoothly with no nasty bangs. On the subject of gay rights though, it was bizarre to see that the Russian Olympic committee chose the rainbow flag colours for part of their volunteer costume.

For the three weeks that I was in Sanki, life was reasonably consistent, with long days of training, heats and finals in men’s and women’s versions of the disciplines. The exception being four-man bob sleigh, which unlike the two-“man” events, really is only for the chaps. Maybe someone with a bigger brain than I could enlighten me as to why the ladies aren’t let out with the big toys? Training sessions, both unofficial and official, generally fill the first half of the the day with a brief break before the afternoon/evening sessions of official runs and flower ceremonies began.

At events such as this, photographers generally need to “locate” their picture as, without the branding and rings, it could be taking place anywhere. This is why the two or three corners of the track that feature either the Olympic rings or the location name become prime real estate. The situation was exacerbated this time due to tighter controls by the television broadcast management, resulting in only one corner being officially available to photographers during official runs. Unlike the 2010 Olympics in Whistler, if we decided that we didn’t want to shoot either the start, finish or designated corner number 5, it was a case of covert movements, blending in and hiding under camera scaffolding to get something different. Out of a potential twenty corners, it was pretty frustrating to be constantly guided back to our official play area like naughty puppies.

Fortunately for us, Richard Lam’s photo management team did everything they could to help us out, so sometimes new possibilities were opened, albeit briefly. At the starting line, it was possible to get quite close to the athletes as they prepared, so it made for slightly different production, being able to catch the moments before a run when concentration was at a peak and all thoughts were on moving up the rankings.

Some athletes chose to just stare down the track, deep in thought, while others ran through the course in their minds, imagining every twist and turn. As they visualised it, they would twist and turn with the corners, creating what looked like a hypnotised dance before leaping on to their chosen plank and sliding off into corner #1.

As I explained in my post from the 2010 Winter Olympics in Canada, the photographers at the Olympics work on different levels of access, depending on whether you are shooting for “the pool”. This can be a little misleading as “pool” suggests that the images are pooled between those photographers, but what it actually refers to is the larger news agencies and publications. Along with the other usual large agencies, Agence France-Presse is thankfully included, so we get a priority over non-pool photographers. However, this doesn’t mean it’s all soft cushions and peeled grapes. Well, not all the time, anyway. The picture below shows the finish line position with top chap and fellow AFP shooter Lionel Bonaventure (centre), painting with light in the middle of what could be seen as a scrum, but is in fact a highly organised photography position. You may think I’m joking, but that level of chaos takes planning to make it work.

Speaking of the finish line, Sanki offered two options, both of which became decidedly repetitive by day 18; head on down the track to capture post-run discussions and celebration (see below) or side on for celebration towards the crowd (working area shown above). I found that the best way to sail through a five hour stint, sat on solid ice, was with 90% cocoa dark chocolate and a torn up strip of fake grass to sit on.

Winter sports are generally quite “big” events in that they involve travelling large distances, jumping long distances or travelling at high speeds, so looking for details is always a good way to break out of any photo-rut that comes with shooting the same sports on a daily basis. The start line always provided the best access to this, through the facial expressions that I mentioned above, or even aspects of the clothing that may not be that obvious to the casual observer. The luge gloves below are a perfect example. You really wouldn’t want to get that little bit of grit out of your eye while wearing those bad boys…

Being the shy and self-deprecating figure that I am, it pains me to admit that Team GB’s only gold medal from Sochi was not only due to Lizzy Yarnold, but also to myself. You see, back in 2010, a young Amy Williams took to the Skeleton track for her final two runs and obviously took great strength from my presence, going on to take the gold medal. Four years later, and Lizzy Yarnold felt that same burst of drive and success from someone she has neither met or knows exists. Again, Team GB takes the gold. Now, I’m no scientist but I think it can safely be recorded as fact that I’m at least 60% responsible for Team GB’s last two Winter Olympic medals. I await the Pyeongchang Games of 2018 to prove my point, once and for all.

Aside from Sanki and all it’s slide-based goodness, I was called in to assist the Alpine team (sounds impressive, huh?) in their coverage of both the “Super G” and Woman’s Downhill finals. Yes, that’s right. I had to look online to find out what Super G is. It’s apparently a combination of the speed of Downhill and the addition of wide gates that the athlete must pass through, so the best of both worlds, hence the “Super” part. Another thing that was super was the super early start needed to get the right coach up into the mountains for a crash course in each discipline ahead of the race start time. All grumbles about fatigue soon evaporated on both days when the sun came up over the mountains and lit up the most incredible location. Having been assigned to the sliding centre for the last two Winter Games which are quite big on the whole fresh concrete chic, it proved a massive recharge to flagging reserves to be up on the top of the world surrounded by such beauty.

On the day of the Women’s Downhill final, Slovenia’s Tina Maze made the early start even more worthwhile, with a well-chosen location to drop to the floor and kiss the snow after taking joint first position with Switzerland’s Dominique Gisin.

Back at the ranch, things remained less than perfect. Tap water was still yellow, with one guest being told not to put it “anywhere near face as it dangerous”. Fire alarms went off randomly, but not randomly enough to mean it wasn’t in the early hours of the morning every time. Rather than a ringing bell that stopped after a few seconds, this was a klaxon, installed in each bedroom that screamed for a while then explained, in five different pre-recorded languages, that you were about to die a flaming death. The first time caused concern and nervous checks into the corridor. The final one caused much swearing and burying of my head under the pillows. Still, things were slowly improving. Returning to my room one night, I found a carrier bag waiting for me. Hoping it may contain vitally needed supplies, I was overjoyed to discover it was my room’s shoehorn.

Now that the solo events were pretty much complete, it was time for the big guns.

As I mentioned above, during quieter sessions, the head of photo management was able to sneak a few of us into positions such as the one featured below, looking down on the start line in an area usually reserved for the athletes. As I have delicately alluded, one of the hardest things when shooting the sliding centre is trying to keep a fresh eye on what you’re doing as, aside from the combination of genders, numbers and modes of transport, it is essentially a case of taking a photo of something going quickly down a pipe. A few moments in a new position or location, or a day covering a different discipline does wonders for the soul.

One question that still remains unanswered is why bobsleigh teams have such tediously boring paint-jobs? Apart from Belgium’s golden sex toy (see second picture below) which was the highlight of every photographer’s pictures, due to it’s awesome shininess, the only other bit of decent colour was on the Team GB helmets. Aside from wanting to stand to attention and salute every time it came past, it really did make pictures *pop*. So many of the other teams had white or black sleds. Seriously. They spend all that money on researching the most efficient and streamlined designs and then, in the final meetings, say “how about we do it in in white, like everyone else?” I throw praise at Team GB (and even then, only to one of the two teams) for their fantastic crash helmets, but why wasn’t Team GB hurtling down the mountainside in a bobsleigh entirely covered in the Union flag? It would have been like Austin Powers in Ice! Come on, people, break the mould!

As the workload eased off a little at the Sanki centre, a few gaps appeared in the day, but these were rapidly filled as other disciplines needed assistance in their coverage. In addition to my two days on the slopes, myself and wunderbar AFP photographer John MacDougall were drafted in for the final of the Men’s Curling, at the coastal cluster. While John had at least shot curling a couple of years ago, it was a whole new thing for me. Unlike my other events that were simply based on a “fastest wins” system, curling is essentially bowls + ice + maths. From my experience, most jobs have “the shot”. Whether it’s fashion, news or, in this case, sport, there will be a shape that works. It will be an iconic shape or traditional pose that pleases the eye. As the match progressed, I battled to work out what “the shot” actually was, going through slow panning shots, tight crops of hands and faces and wider atmosphere before settling on what everyone else had already decided; head-on from above.

As it happened, I realised just in time, as a few minutes after picking my spot, somehow it was decided that Canada had won. I’ve still no idea how it works. Back at the Sanki centre, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev reinforced the stereotype that Russians aren’t really that comfortable with displays of emotion as he smirked at a sobbing coach after Latvia won a medal.

After twenty days, it was all over and time to head home.

The journey back home lived up to the usual post-Olympic standard with thousands of people desperately trying to get out of a country on the same day, all with huge amounts of baggage. I had to pay a few thousand roubles for my extra bag but this was soon put into perspective when I spoke to someone from one of the Canadian teams. They had paid $25,000 in excess baggage to get their equipment home. Combined with the sold-out seating, that was one heavy aeroplane. Due to delays getting out of Sochi, we missed the connecting flight from Frankfurt to London, but thanks to the exceptional service of British Airways, they found us another flight within a short time, leaving picture desk editor Mona, fellow AFP photographer Adrian and myself a chance for some quiet airport time before making the final leg home.

Once I finally made it home, I slept, or rather passed into a coma for 16 hours solidly. It had been an exceptionally hard few weeks, but the team had managed to get the job done. I got the chance to catch up with many faces at AFP that I rarely get to see and got to meet a whole new batch of top people. I genuinely hope that I don’t have to wait another four years to catch up with them again on the next big thing!