8 Dec - Welcoming Alvin back
I woke up feeling the pressure of handling the Live belt seeping out of me slowly, but surely. Erquan would be back today. We were arguing last night that who would do the lineup for the live belt today. In the end, I had to do it as the put in his words, “I’ll be too tired to do it, and it’s a long flight.”
Kiok said there was a certain glow on my face. Haha…of course! All the responsibilities would be lifted from my shoulders. No more phone calls from home, no more ad hocs to do and I can finally go back to being AP again. There were problems with getting the correct players and countries assignment over at the badminton hall. Apparently TV Court 1 was leaking and there were some major reshuffling of the courts this morning.
Walking happily to the IBC, Kiok made sure that one of the drivers picked Erquan up front he airport. The moment he landed, he texted me. “The Dog is back! Woof”. Simon welcomed him back with open arms and Wendy told him that Biao Shu “You Hun” everyday. Asking me what’s that, Simon demonstrated.
He announced his arrival at the IBC, and I returned his position by the door to him. “Guard Dog’s back”. Kiok was certainly getting smarter. Not only his position by the door, I surrendered his mobile and money.
Erquan, being Erquan (hungry dog), he complained of being hungry. So Kiok and I accompanied him to the MMP canteen where he had BK. The three of us sat down, talked about Biao Shu and how things were here. We asked him about his father.
Back at the IBC, news arrived that Valerie Teo won an individual bronze medal in the Women’s All-events Final while the team bagged bronze in the Women’s team event. Ghandi was there to cover the story. I was not the only one who was glad that Alvin’s back. A sense of relief was written all over Vivian’s face. She would be lining TAG for the last time here.
I got an email from Junior asking where’s Ah Mee in the photo. Sigh… I replied in hokkien. Ah Mee go bang sai!.
Bodybuilding would be the main item for the Live Belt. Prem was at the Al-Dana Banquet Hall to get some soundbites from our bodybuilders. When he came back, his first words were “Half the people in the hall were on steroids!”
I was pretty relaxed the whole day. Perhaps a little too relaxed. The 75kg category for bodybuilding was scheduled at 1805hr. This was the last event for the day and would coincide with our telecast time exactly. I would then playback the rest of the earlier events. But the organisers started the final event ten minutes earlier.
Panicking, I searched for the tapes for the first event of the day, the 60kg category and chucked the tape into the machine – three minutes before we go on-air. The entire lineup has to be re-worked on the spot. We were going from segment to segment as I updated the crew about the next item.
As Simon did not edit the triathlon event into one segment, I had to throw that item in the lineup, leaving a huge gap to fill. I had to make it on time for the Steeplechase event at 2000hr. I was keeping an eye on the Athletics while trying to re-organise my lineup.
Ibrahim Silhat took the bronze medal, and the medal ceremony did buy some time for me. After the first commercial break, it was time to roll the tape for the 65kg category even though there wasn’t any Singaporean taking part. It was to fill the gap left by the triathlon as I continued to calculate the durations. One good thing about playback, was the ability to control the duration and buy time.
After combining a few commercial breaks, I playback Simon Chua’s gold medal feat in the 70kg category. The medal presentation for bodybuilding has yet to start. It was a long wait, and Wendy said she would try and clip the medal presentation for me on EVS.
Next to go was my backup item of the Mixed Doubles Semi-final between Xie Zhongbo/Zhang Yawen of China and Prapakamol Sudket/Thoungthongkam Saralee of Thailand. This lasted for about half and hour and I was just in time for the men’s 3000m steeplechase at 2000hr. But this was over in 15 minutes. I had 15 minutes more to fill. And thank God for Wendy and EVS. She clipped Simon Chua’s medal ceremony and I was done for the day, leaving Ismail’s bronze medal to TAG.
Not only did the Live Belt had a bad day, TAG too, was running into trouble. With a lot of late stories, TAG was not compiled on time. Luckily, JB managed to make it back on time and was there to talk over an empty stadium as we stayed for about five minutes on the beauty shot of the Khalifa stadium. It was the final of the sepak takraw and he rushed over. Vivian had to voice the bowling story. Later at night, Kiok actually told me that Biao Shu was lost at a point and when JB asked him where were we going next? He told JB to wait as he needed to check with me. Hahahah!
Kiok was talking to conty as erquan came over and take charge. His instruction was to get conty to put fillers as Wendy compiled the first segment for TAG. It’s nice to have you back erquan!
After a short post-mortem, Alvin gave the rest of us assignments for the next day. I was to go bowling with Ghandi. It will be the first block of masters tomorrow. Next was dinner and Alvin was taking his 5th meal of the day. Hahaha!
The stress in me was already building up…for my debut as field reporter tomorrow.
