Whine Time

My posts of yesterday may have given the impression that it’s all sunshine, lollipops and rainbows here at the Caledon Equestrian Park. Let me set the record straight. NO ONE is having a glitch-free time at TO2015 – not riders, spectators, media, and definitely not the staff and volunteers who are undertrained and in many cases misinformed. If I sounded like it was all smooth sailing, I apologize for badly misleading you.

This morning a Canadian spectator posted the following on my Facebook page: “An hour and a half to park, two lanes to enter parking and shuttle bus uses the lane! no tote bags allowed. Hot metal seats, no shade, where is the announcing of riders and rides, results? Come on.”

I’m not sure where the complaint about lack of announcements is coming from, because I’m hearing them loud and clear, and in fact the scoring is both prompt and up on the the website very quickly. They’ve also managed to add a team results list, which was missing yesterday. But I’m not surprised about the spectator experience. Here is a photo from yesterday showing the long line to the one lonely sandwich stand that isn’t a good ten minute hike from the stadium:

Imagine what it would be like if there were actually more than a handful of spectators

It’s a mystery why they decided to place the other fine dining options (hotdogs and hamburgers) so far from the stadium in a no-man’s-land on the way to nowhere. There are acres of unused space behind the long side of the stadium, where there is also some much needed shade provided by the trees. Spectators, you are not alone. We the media are suffering the same culinary options and line ups as you.

The media centre had a fridge with bottled water. HAD. For a about an hour at the end of the day of the horse inspection, before it was ‘requisitioned’ for more needy persons elsewhere, as was a bank of toilets outside the media centre. We now have a water cooler and plastic cups. Despite our tantalizing proximity to the wining and dining in the VIP right beside us (I can smell the hot buffet right this minute) we have nothing in the tribune seating, so we have to walk our plastic cups ever so carefully from the media centre in order to keep ourselves hydrated. Maybe they decided not to water us in the stadium since it’s such a long hike to the port-a-potties from here.

I’ve been here three days, and each day I’ve been treated completely differently by the parking people. I had to get a bit screechy with them today, after I was sent by one parking person in one direction, then turned back by the next one, so that I was stuck between two people who didn’t agree on where I was to park. “This is a different Games day today. We actually have officials here today,” was one ludicrous argument that was tried out on me – correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe we had officials here yesterday too. But instead of attempting to bash her over the head with the obvious flaws in her thesis, I replied that if the staff and volunteers would do things the same way every day, we’d all be trained – them and us – and all be better off for it.

But really, the biggest beef of all has to be the missed opportunities to promote equestrian sport generally, and dressage specifically. If today’s competition was sold out except for a few seats in a corner back at the A end, why do the stands look like this?

If I ever manage to drill down through the layers of TO2015 to an answer about how an event could be sold out and the stadium half empty, I promise to share. But I’m not holding my breath. If the TO2015 people can’t even spell ‘workforce’ on their signage, who are we to expect them to organize anything effectively?

There has been a landslide of criticism from all sides on the complete lack of live streaming, TV coverage – anything resembling what is possible in today’s world of communications. What everyone fails to understand is that this is the Pan Am Games, not the Global Dressage Festival in Florida. The Pan Am Games is an Olympic ‘family’ event, which means it runs by the same dictatorial rules regarding broadcasting. ONLY Pan Am media partners are allowed to take video of any kind (and yes, I have seen family members of riders told they aren’t allowed to use their iPads to film their daughter riding at the biggest competition of her life). CBC is the official media partner in Toronto.

I don’t know if EC could have lobbied successfully to get the dressage on TV. I need to ask that question at some point, but as Eva Havaris is sitting at the VIP tables and the drill sergeant* volunteer policing the invisible fence between the media tribune and VIP will let me cross only over her dead body, I can’t ask that question right now.

If you are one of the many, many unhappy campers who expected online access to the dressage competition, my advice is two fold: don’t even bother trying to contact the TO2015 people. Send an email to [email protected]. Before you get all bargy on her about the state of affairs, begin by asking if there was any opportunity at all to try and convince TO2015 and CBC that equestrian deserves at least a teensy bit of air time. I can tell you that the extensive space and tents dedicated to broadcasting at this venue are a ghost town. I know – I was sent to the broadcasting entrance by an eager, misguided volunteer yesterday. The beginning of my long, fruitless journey around the outside of the venue looking for a way into the media tribune began – as you might guess – in the empty broadcast area.

Yes, it is a disgrace that an event of this size in a country as technologically advanced as Canada has failed 100% to bring even one minute of action to TV and internet viewers. But I suspect that the blame lies entirely with TO2015 – and possibly the CBC (which is no doubt planning to turn up for the jumping next week). And trying to hold them to account is a pointless endeavor along the lines of trying to make Donald Rumsfeld accountable for the fact that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction.

In happier news, it’s now lunch break and once again Canada is on top of the day so far. Chris and Zilverstar laid down another top notch performance in the I-1 test just now. 76.210%, another personal best, and another exciting start for our team. Canada may not knock the Americans off the gold medal podium, but they sure are doing their darndest.

I’ll be back with you at the end of the day.