6 Dec - Biting bullets

Day 6 saw me too exhausted and drained to visit the gym. Lee Jiawei and Yang Zi have made it to the semi-finals of the mixed doubles competition in table tennis. When this news reached Singapore, they wanted it to go live. This decision was made while we were all soundly asleep in Doha.

By the time I knew about it, it was after lunch time back home. Suddenly realising that although our mixed doubles pair would be playing in the TV court, TVNZ would not be carrying that particular feed. The lengthy explanation would be, there are two TV courts for every event, making a total of 37 feeds available for us in the IBC. But TVNZ would selectively slot the various events into their 6 satellite channels. And this particular table tennis semi-final is not one of them.

I begged Jusri to do something about. The trailers were out running back home. Channel 5 would be carrying this semi-final live. It would have to happen. I was under tremendous pressure from Erquan and ah gong. Biao shu was not around to handle this. I wasn’t even sure if Jusri could conjure some magic to make this happen. The only words he left behind were “Are you going to make an executive decision?” I could only nod. Not sure what he did though, John West of TVNZ came over and passed Jusri a printout of the latest feed available on TVNZ. Jusri was smirking, and not saying anything. I continued to pester him about the feed. I only have an hour left. In the end, he told me to bite the bullet and stick to my executive decision.

Soon, I could see Li Jiawei and Yang Zi warming up. The frown on my forehead was wiped away by the broad grin I gave Jusri. He had somewhat convinced John West to switch from TV Court 1 to 2. They have switched from one semi-final to another. Probably because no one was taking that game from them.

The game was over in less than half an hour. They lost four straight sets to the Korean pair and took the bronze medal for fourth. (Best of seven sets for table tennis, best of five for Badminton). Minister Teo Ser Luck was there to watch this game, and he said though Jiawei was very disappointed to lost this semi-final, she is picking herself up to prepare for her women’s singles semi-final later in the afternoon.

After replying some emails to ah gong and erquan, I checked the grid and found out that, TVNZ was only NOT covering that semi-final to be playback later. There was no way that Singapore could get that live, though we could.

Once again, I pressed the panic button. Ah gong was calling erquan’s mobile and I had to deal with him. Then I handed the mobile over to Jusri and let the two of them sort out the technical details. Apparently we would have to pay a HUGE sum of money to get the feed sent home via another satellite source. Jusri went through the TVNZ grid once more and saw that there was an hour slot from 1600-1700hr on one of the channels. Apparently Ah gong has decided to ask Juris to check if there was any chance that we could send the feed via TVNZ.

For the second time in the last couple of hours, I was told to bite the bullet. Jiawei has to finish in an hour’s time. If not, we are screwed! (Pardon the language). My stress level reached another high for the second time today. I started pacing around the IBC, and only took my position at the panel with Kiok half an hour before the game. Guo Yue of China took the first game. To save my skin, I was cheering on for China. Lo and behold, Jiawei came back to win the second game. Damn! I couldn’t work sitting down. I was standing as they fought for each point until Guo Yue won it at 10-12. It was half an hour before our satellite window closed for football. There was no way to extend the window as some 20 over countries were taking the football feed. GO CHINA! In the end, Jiawei lost 4-1 in 43 minutes. This was certainly some nail-biting experience.

Someone from DAGBS came over with the intention of interviewing the team leader for MediaCorp. Naturally, Biao shu was given the task as we all were or tried to appear busy. After that, Kiok said she has set up his MarComm corner for him – his EP table.

After this nightmarish ordeal, the live belt seemed easier to handle. After three live swimming races, I went straight to the Badminton Women’s Singles Round of 16 matchup between Xing Aiying’s live game and Kaori Mori of Japan. I had to take the commentry from source as JB was held up by the Sepak Takraw Final. Even Vivian had to do her own voice-over. But it was happy time at the IBC as Aiying took down her opponent with two sets.

After badminton, I chose to playback Weightlifting. It was the Women’s +100kg. Shuang Shuang of China had broken the Asian Games record in just the snatch. With not much time left, I could only go with her clean and jerk. Simon commented that I showed the beauty in one day and the beast the next. He even said Shuang Shuang looked like his friend Yao Keong and showed me his photo. They really looked alike. Wendy turned merlion when she heard this. She knew Yao Keong too.

With a punctual handover to conty, I couldn’t help but quote ah gong’s favourite words “just nice” in his funny way of saying it. Everybody laughed!

After this extremely tiring day, I was bringing in my clothes from the hall when Kiok asked was I packing up already. Of course not! It would be another ten days before we could be home and dry. Then Vivian asked why couldn’t we get to stay at P4 where there were washing machines and dryers. She said that we had to work hard at IBC and we had to continue working (laundry) even after we reached our apartment. It was very tough for us!

Remesh’s email dated 6th December, 2006 at 10.59am
Hi, just wanted to say that things are looking from Doha. Hope the food there keeps everyone happy…

Just a couple of things to note.

Always try and look out for the surprise gold medal prospects. I know bowling finishes late so we weren’t there. It would have been great to have pictures and interviews immediately. I thinking bowling will surprise use… so keep a crew there…Ghandi will be ok.

There has been a couple of requests for gymnastics especially women’s gym. Couple of paedophiles want to see young Chinese girls perform acrobatics. Sat’s schedule has rhythmic gym in the afternoon and evening. Can we record the afternoon stuff and playback at 11pm our time.

I notice Prem voicing stuff…not bad but could do with a bit more vigour. Same for John’s voice as well, seems a bit of a read rather than a sports report.

Apologies for yesterdays bowling injection for news. We did it once…but pls check with me because ABU will charge us for these 10 minutes.

Alvin will be arriving there on Fri. Hoping all is well with his dad. That should relief some of the work load. Anyway…hang in there and keep up the good work.

Vivian replied later, at 2.35pm

Hi Remesh,

Thanks, I think the food is the one bright spot in our day. Mr Baskins and Mr. Robbins calls to us every night (well, at least Prem and myself).

Since golds are expected in bowling, I’ve been sending our bowling expert Ghandi there everyday. It’s just that as you know, bowling is a darn long event – e.g. men’s doubles started at 9 and ended at ard 5.30, 6. By that time, Ghandi has to be back with the tapes, otherwise nothing on bowling gets out on the HL show that day. The women’s doubles carried on till 3.30am. But we’ll definitely keep track of it.

Gymnastics – noted. Hopefully the paedophiles will be satisfied with the young and nubile girls (who are they? The paedophiles, not the girls).

Looking forward to alvin’s arrival.

P.S. We aren’t paid enough to do this. Hint. Hint.

To which, Remesh wrote:

Good morning…nice to read cheery news thanks to Mr/Mr Baskins and Robins. Is stuff there generally expensive…like what would a regular meal cost?

Understand about the bowling. Anyway have heard that the tournament is not well organised. Maybe that’s why we won our gold..haha

Hows madam Kiok there…is she chatting up any huge Arabs?

We are going live with table tennis in the afternoon and again later in the night. Pre empting news…some people here wants to make the best of the feeds available.

Looking forward to athletics and maybe some football.

Again, as I said don’t be too clever with the highlight show. Keep the focus on local stories and fill the rest with the multi feeds.