So the athletes have finally started to arrive, as you can gather from the two previous posts. It’s been nice to finally get some real practice doing exactly what our job will be once the Games get underway. You wouldn’t think that fencers of all athletes are very intimidating, especially without their weapon in hand. Maybe it’s just the fact that I know they’re going to be competing in a small international gathering called the Olympics in about a week, but I definitely carried some nervousness into my first interview.

The group of fencing volunteers that worked the day before us had already interviewed the Romanian team that recently arrived, so Chris, Drew and I had to pick out an athlete from Switzerland, Venezuela or Ukraine. Chris and Drew interviewed the two Swiss fencers and our Information Specialist made an appearance at the training facility to interview the one Venezuelan that showed up, so I was left to the Ukrainian team. Only their female fencers showed up, along with their coaches. Many of the coaches had the same accent and mustache sported by famed U.S. gymnastics coach Bella Koroli (a Ukrainian native), but I can’t say they had quite the same friendly smile. They were all business.

I apparently missed the memo that female Ukrainian fencers double as supermodels. My gosh, all of a sudden I’m not as upset that I’m covering fencing as opposed to one of the more well-known sports in the Games. There were two Olga’s, a Helena and Yana. After Helena, the Olga’s and one other fencer (who I couldn’t identify without her name on the back of her uniform) I had to track down Yana Shemyakina. She of the 18^th world ranked women’s epee fame. She placed first in a competition in Prague this past April. I’m sure you knew that, unless of course you had that mixed up with her third place finish in Greece in March. That’s all right; it’s a common mix up. I’ll let it slide.

While her teammates practiced on one of the 14 pistes in the training center, Yana was talking with her coach off to the side. Oh, and he was big, wearing a sleeveless shirt, and sporting a mullet and mustache while he sharpened her sword. Nothing calms the nerves before interviewing a gorgeous athlete quite like being in the vicinity of a quiet man sharpening a weapon.

Once the interview got underway I struggled to get any usable quotes from Yana. She spoke very broken English and I had to repeat each question in about four different ways until she understood what I was asking. I finally wrapped up the interview, thanked her for her time, and headed back to the office to enter the quotes into our database. I was happy that I finished my flash quote report within the 10-minute timeframe we’ve been given. However, my quotes weren’t very useful so they weren’t used in the database. I probably should have tried to ask a few more questions after seeing one of my two quotes was “This is my first time in the Olympic Games. I like.”

Regardless, it was a learning experience. Our bosses gave me suggestions on question asking methods to try my next time around. I’m glad the first interview has come and gone. Now I can go into the next one with some confidence and a better strategy, even if my next interviewee has Yana’s good looks… or her intimidating coach.

Sophie Lamon. Ms. Lamon. Sophie. Soph. Swiss Miss. The greetings raced through my head, the latter throwing my focus way off balance just before approaching the individual epee fencer – Ms. Sophie Lamon of Switzerland.

The athletes are arriving by the dozens daily and yesterday was my first opportunity to actually fulfill my role as a flash quote reporter. So when our supervisor, Ms. Chen, told me to take the long walk across the training pistes to interview the unbearably cute blonde after she finished jabbing her coach in the chest with a sword, I was a little nervous.

Pen and pad in hand, ONS bib on over uniform, I tried to walk with confidence and purpose towards Sophie, now stretching on the ground. Smiling and kneeling down next to her I asked, “Ms. Lamon, Drew Appleton from the Olympic News Service, I was hoping I could ask you a few questions?” Wow, where did that come from?

“Of course.” she said in her sweet Swiss accent. Hey, this was actually going well. I ended up asking a few questions about her training, her competition, her rivals, as well as the current state of fencing in Switzerland, all receiving some quality noteworthy quotes. I smiled, thanked her for her time and wished her luck. First ever interview couldn’t have gone any smoother.

Walking back across the piste to the onlooking Dave, Chris and Ms. Chen I looked down at my note pad. Between smiling, her eyes, and my own mind being entirely absorbed with the fact the interview was going well, I had failed to write one legible word from a five-minute interview. An indiscernible scribble here, something that looks like a sailboat on a wave over there, I had no idea what Sophie said to me based on my notes.

The next step in the process was the long run back upstairs to the ONS office to transcribe the interview in a very defined and predetermined format. Working off the scribbles and my average short-term memory, I think I put together an accurate enough report titled “Comments from Sophie LAMON (SUI) following her training session Wednesday”. From the start of the interview to the moment I clicked submit on the INFO database nine minutes had passed. In that time the global media went from entirely clueless as to whom Ms. Lamon was, to having three loosely accurate quotes about the blonde's training regimen. Pretty cool. I felt important.

All inaccuracy aside, I was very satisfied with the way the interview went and I am excited to drastically improve with each and every athlete in our training leading up to the games. Thank you Sophie.

Yesterday (Tuesday), Jules, Brant, and I experienced our first day as real Flash Quote Reporters and let’s just say, it’s harder than it looks. As we prepared general questions to ask the athlete we had been assigned my nerves left me in a state of feeling completely overwhelmed in the situation. It didn’t help much that the five Romanian fencers we were there to flash quote had been practicing almost non-stop during their entire three hour time slot, or that their bus was leaving in five minutes which really only gave us a minute or two to ask them enough questions to get a few decent quotes. 

The pressure to make good questions, my already racing heart from other symptoms beyond nerves, my lack of experience which I've felt through out the entire experience so far and the time constraint upon which we had no control over were just a few of the reasons I stumbled through my first experience, barely making it out alive and with only one real quote worth publishing.

What I learned from that experience is A. find a smaller memo-pad if we're going to have to keep using the legal pads they gave us. B. Remember right now it's just conversation and to not let my nerves get the best of me. And C. Don't let what I believe the lack of training stand in my way of getting great quotes from great questions. Learning to just go along with the conversation instead of skipping around from question to question will give me a much better piece and allow me to aquire much more useful quotes the other journalists will be able to use. Now all of us just need to get on top of memorizing our athletes and practice till we know what we're doing; even if we look like fools a few more times before the Games, it will be well worth the effort.

    So yesterday we traveled once again to our Fencing Hall to partake in our continuous training to prepare for our flash quote reporting.  The handball crew has been talking for the past couple of days about how awesome their flash quote reporting practice was with a women’s handball team and now I am quite excited to start the interviews myself once the athletes arrive.  The team I am most excited about interviewing is Italy which has four of the top twelve men’s fencers, one of which being the number one foil fencer; Andrea Baldini or what many have nicknamed “Dreamy Baldini”.  I remember fellow flash quote reporter Drew Appleton mentioning how a month ago meeting an Olympic fencer would be not that exciting, but after all the research and hype on these athletes over the past weeks, we are bound to be star struck when we meet them.

    As I mentioned in the title, we also met our Sports Information Specialist (SIS) for fencing.  He is an Austrian named Egon and he, as well as our information database, will be an invaluable asset for us to further immerse ourselves into fencing and learn the athletes, techniques, and the game itself.  The athletes are coming next week which means we will have the opportunity to converse, interview, and watch them train. Come game time we will be ready!

With atheletes arriving in town and the Olympic Green on security lock-down it is finally beginning to feel like the Olympics are actually here! We have gotten a chance to see some fencing practice, the training field, and the Olympic Games pistes. Now that I know which teams I have been assigned I have been doing oodles of research. I cannot believe how diverse a group the fencers are! So many different people with different cultural, ethnic, religious and socioeconomic backgrounds. I know it sounds corny but I am starting to think that the Olympics really does bring people together. I guess that is the idealist in me.

It has been nice having a little bit of time off. We have had a chance to explore on our own. I am really starting to feel comfortable in a city that three weeks ago was more than scarily foreign to me. We can now get around on the subway, hail a cab, heck I can even order some of my own food without pointing at a picture (usually on the eigth or ninth try though). 

People are still in shock when they see the IC group walking down the street. The other day at the Forbidden City people continuously asked to have their photo taken with me. And the other day with Katherine on the subway these two guys were so excited to practice their English with us I thought they were never going to stop talking to us. It is interesting to me how much of a melting pot the USA really is. The Chinese people seem shocked to see such a large group of non-Chinese students walking around. We have become quite the celebrities. 

Overall China is shaping up to be a great experience. I am really excited to learn more about fencing and the atheletes as the training continues. It will be great to put faces to names I've seen on paper over and over again. And hopefully they will grow to become more comfortable with me in the days ahead. Until next time....

Jules

    As Chris mentioned we met with our Sports Information Specialist for fencing, which really put me more in the mind set that the countdown really begins, there are 12 days till the Opening Ceremonies!  We recently were assigned our individual teams that we will be flash quoting.  As of right now I have eight teams, one of which being the USA.  We also received or training schedules for this week where we are split up into two groups and we alternate days, I start tomorrow.  That is all to report on fencing so far, but as it picks up this week we will have more to write I’m sure.

    Last night I went to a restaurant where we experienced the Chinese version of fondue.  The menu was all in Chinese and there were no pictures so closing your eyes and pointing was out of the question. A fellow Ithaca student who lives in Beijing brought four of us to this restaurant. She picked out what we were going to eat, we all agreed on a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Some of the food was beef, chicken, seafood, noodles, tofu, and many vegetables.  The waitress brings out a big bowl of broth; you decide whether you want spicy or regular, and we chose regular which was a good call because the vegetables gave it enough flavor. You wait for it to start boiling and then it is every man for themselves. Grab your chopsticks and decide what food you want to cook first, and before you can say, "I wonder if this is ready to eat", there you have it, tender beef right in front of you. Now dip it into one of the four sauces; at our table we had the sesame sauce, and the seafood sauce, and you are all set.  I have never been so full, this style of eating is great for everyone, and there is something for everyone and whether you are walking back to the subway or taking a cab… Beijing Sport University’s security will keep you in line.

 ~Nellie

Not too much news on fencing, but many of us are settling into our new homes at BSU.

After being invited to go see another Beijing Opera most of my fellow westerners would have probably faked the measles or thought of something more creative. Instead, two other IC students and I decided that it would be a good opportunity to see this part of the Chinese culture another time. Our decision turned out to be a great one because we got to enjoy some delicious food and some first class entertainment. The show consisted of at least a dozen different acts ranging from singing and dancing, to spinning glass dishes on top of thin metal rods (which I got to try). The show was different than our first experience because it was performed on a stage looking onto a large open restaurant. The large round tables fit about eight or ten people. Dinner was served during the entertainment which lasted for a least a couple of hours. Dinner was full of dishes I had not seen in China up to his point. Even the tofu was tasty which I did not think I would ever say. We dinned with Dr. Guan, Dean Wigglesworth, and four guests from BSU. Dinner consisted of plate after plate being spun around the lazy Susan and many toasts being made to honor this experience.

The most amusing and baffling part of the night was the art of the face changing. An actor dressed in an intricate headdress and a flowing cape flipped through about fifteen different masks which each signified a different character. This is a very traditional and honorable part to play in the Beijing Opera. The actor flips through masks in a fraction of a second and it is impossible to see how. It is said to be a secret which only he knows.

Another interesting act was a man pierced glass with a pin, to pop a balloon behind the piece of glass. I also got to participate in this act. I got to go up on stage and hold the balloon while he did this. I have to admit I was a little nervous that he was going to but the pin through my hand but I left without any holes in my appendages. Overall the night was very entertaining and we were lucky to get the chance to go.

"Umm hello everyone, my name is (insert Chinese girl's name here). I am a Flash Quote Reporter. My english name Sharon. Umm I just would like to say that, umm, I think all you foreign boys very handsome." Cue high pitched giggling by the Chinese volunteers, and blushing and laughter from Brant, Chris, Drew and myself.

As we were split up into out sport groups for training, we fencing volunteers started our first day with introductions to our Chinese counterparts that will be serving as fellow Flash Quote Reporters, runners or translators from Language Services. We were told to go one by one saying our name, where we’re from and to “tell the group something interesting” about ourselves. Most of us from Ithaca kept to the generic introduction of, “Hi, my name is ___. I’m a ___ major from Ithaca College and I’ll be a Flash Quote Reporter.” Some of us added small snippets about what our interests are, future plans, etc. I played my cards close to the vest and just went as far as saying this will be my first time covering fencing. Exciting stuff, I know. Our Chinese co-workers were a bit more forthcoming with their introductions, as you can tell by the opening quote. After hearing everyone’s real name and English name (which included the likes of Melon, Magic and Haze to name a few) and what Sharon thought of us, another Chinese volunteer went as far as saying she thinks Brant looks like Brad Pitt, which he hasn’t lived down yet. Another one told Drew that he is “the most handsomest of them all.” Chris and I sat around waiting for compliments on our looks, but they never came. It’s cool though. Pshh, it’s not like I’m jealous or anything.

We have since spent time familiarizing ourselves with the computer programs we’ll need to use on the job, and doing research on fencing’s rules and top contenders. Just yesterday we were assigned which country’s fencers each of us will focus on once the Games start. Jules and I were given France, Germany and Canada as our main countries, and Mexico, Cuba, Brazil and Chile as our second-tier countries that will only have one or two fencers apiece. Now would be a good time to be pentalingual, quintilingual, or whatever the word would be for knowing five languages. Instead it’s looking like I’ll be keeping the folks at Language Services busy considering I haven’t spent much time brushing up on my French, German, Spanish and Portuguese since we got here.

The athletes will arrive this weekend. We’ll spend next week meeting them during their training sessions so they’ll hopefully recognize us when they come into the mixed zone after matches to let us interview them. If the athletes’ first impressions of us are half as good as Sharon’s, this could turn out to be an easier job than I first thought.  

We've entered the athlete research stage of our training. The seven of us plus our bubbly and delightful Australian friend Rachel have been assigned 8 countries apiece - me, the not so favored Russia, Romania, Poland, Great Britan, Israel, Ireland, Spain and Austria. None of these include some of the sports most "recognizable" names like Italy's Andrea Baldini (our Chinese supervisors have an enormous crush on the young Italian) and Germany's Peter Joppich, but I'm looking forward to learning more about these fencers. Just glancing through some of the biographies you quickly learn that yes, they are fencers, yes my name sometimes returns more hits on google than theirs (2), but that many of them still have great stories. 

Luan Jujie is perhaps the most interesting of all. Turns out the 50 year old mother fresh out of retirement was born in China and is competing for Canada in the individual foil competition. If her age, ethnicity, and the Canada thing aren't enough, she just so happens to have won China's first ever medal in fencing 24 years ago, in 1984 at the comparatively spry age of 26. This alone made her a legend of sorts in China - they don't take medaling lightly. She was named one of China's top 50 athletes of the 20th century. One last note about Luan, when competing at the World Junior Championships in 1977, her Russian opponents metal foil snapped in two mid reposte, with the sharp barb stabbing her directly in the bicep. This however did not deter the Chinese/Canadian legend as she continued to compete, winning Silver.

So they might not have the global recognition of many of the 10,000+ athletes here in Beijing, but when was the last time Michael Phelps got stabbed in the arm and medaled?

Also, quick side note, the athletes arrive Sunday and we will actually get to watch them train in person which should prove invaluable. 

Today was our first day wearing our official uniforms to work. They are different; I wouldn't say they are ugly, but I wouldn't put them at the top of my list as the most fashionable article of clothing I would ever own or wear either. We are however just friendly reminders that it is Beijing 2008 as it appears about seven times when we are wearing the shorts, golf shirt, shoes, and socks given too us. That does not include the fanny pack (though quite useful when worn over the shoulder) or the jacket or the zip on pant legs and bucket hat that were also included. I must say the seven of us today drew a lot more attention then we usually do in our grey and blue swirls matching uniforms, but only once were we stopped on our long trek to the fencing building from the subway for a picture, which was surprising.

The Olympic Green is almost finished; I am definitely impressed with the architecture and design put into each building. I am not just talking about the Water Cube or the Bird’s Nest, but more about the stores that are found on or rather within the Olympic Green. Many of them are sunk into the ground and fit in with the green landscape. The ones that don’t however have a very modern feel to them and bring a great amount of uniqueness to the whole project, but all in all they all flow together quite nicely.

We fencing flash quote reporters are doing well finding our way amongst the maze of the building we work in and adapting to the new atmosphere of serious training and intensity. After our trek from the subway station (line 10) to our building this morning, I know all of us cannot wait for the Olympic Green (line 8) to open up on August 8^th, 2008, so we can walk less than a hundred yards to our building and into the air conditioning. But until then the line 10 subway to the fencing hall will be good exercise for us in the morning and after work.

With the games fast approaching it is finally time to do some reasearch on the key players in our Olympic sport. After being assigned a heft packet of men's sabre teams to research my head is about to explode with information. France is the heavy favorite with the majority of the team having contributed to France's 2004 Gold medal in the last Olympics. 

The USA isn't too far down though. I thought it was cool that two of the USA men's sabre fencer's are from NYC. I dont think I would have thought NYC to be a hot spot for fencers but I guess it shows you how much of a melting pot our society is.

Looking forward to finally watching some tapes and meeting with our sport expert. Learning a new sport backwards and forwards is extremely complicated and I hope I will be ready by the time the games roll around. 

Jules

    As Brant mentioned in his blog, on Friday we had the opportunity to meet with the foreign language translators for when we are interviewing foreign athletes in what is called the "mixed zone".  These translators really are a great asset to us and I am personally impressed by the fact that all of them can comprehend 3+ languages.  And meeting them before the games really helps us to familiarize their faces and get to know them better and create a smoother, more successful experience.

    After the introductions, we were given a longer than needed break to eat lunch.  Having eaten at our venue, many of us decided to go out and explore for new lunch alternatives.  Since the McDonalds on the Olympic Green is still under construction we really had to assess our options.  A few of us decided that sitting on a bench in the Olympic Green with a jar of Crunchy Skippy peanut butter and Ritz crackers would appease their stomachs, while others (like myself) decided to go to the one establishment that ones stomach can always count on when in need of some American food; Lush.  If you have been reading some of our blogs you can see how passionate we are for both Lush and Pyro Pizza because of the small sense of home we feel from eating its delicious food. 

    After downing my omelet and fries I headed back with the others to the Fencing Hall for our second session of the day which actually turned out to be kind of cool.  We started off by looking at the top fencers for each style (foil, epee, sabre and team) and received materials to look over and research so we can better know and identify not only the athletes, but which sport is which.  We then did a preliminary round of splitting ourselves up into groups of two that will be working together when the games start.  I was partnered up with fellow flash quote reporter and University of New Castle (Australia) native, Rachel Morris.  After being paired up we somewhat "drafted" the countries we would like to cover in fencing.  The four that Rachel and I chose were Italy, Great Britain, Australia, and of course Kazakhstan.  All in all it was a pretty productive day and I look forward to officially working ( addidas uniform and all) on Tuesday.

We fencing specialist have made some progress in the last couple of days. Yesterday we met some of our fellow Chinese flash quote reporters. We also met the translators that will be helping us to get quotes from non-English speaking athletes. The translators speak a variety of languages that they have been studying for quite a few years. We also have been given the assignment to learn some background information about top fencers from some countries that will probably be making a name for themselves at the ‘08 games. Next week we will be learning more about the rules and regulations of fencing. This probably won’t be the most exciting part of this experience but learning this sport is vital to us getting some good flash quotes.

We have explored more of the Olympic green which seems to be endless. Some of the buildings seem to be months away from being finished, but all of them will probably be done by August 8^th. They have already made large amount of progress on the Olympic green since we arrived about two weeks ago.

We are all still enjoying are favorite American restaurants located in an area of the city that almost feels like home.

    After being here about a week and a half I'm finally getting used to the fact that I'm on the other side of the world in China. The time has flown by up to this point. We've enjoyed a healthy dose of both business and pleasure so far - touring some of the popular sites in and around Beijing, as well as taking part in two days of job training sessions with the Olympic News Service. As Drew mentioned previously in his post the training was covered by CCTV, a Chinese news station based here in Beijing. After awkwardly trying to avoid the camera on my way to lunch the first day of training, I was tracked down by a CCTV reporter and did an on-camera interview that was used in the report on Tuesday night's news. It was my first (and probably last) time on national TV. Figures that it would be in China, but I'm proud to say I came out unscathed and didn't completely embarass myself.

    While the training dragged from time to time, it was nice to finally put faces to the email quizzes that have been sent to us by anonymous people working with the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games (BOCOG), and get somewhat of a better sense of exactly what we'll be doing when the Games get underway in a few weeks.

    Today we toured around the Olympic Green and Olympic Cluster (two of the groups of venues that will be used when things get underway) and made our second visit to the Fencing Hall that will be our office over here. While Fencing was a far less desirable sport to cover than the other sports of Handball and Water Polo that fellow Ithaca students are covering, we've made up for it by having access to the Olympic Green throughout the Games because of the Fencing Hall's location. While not on the job, all of us that are covering fencing will have the freedom to roam around what BOCOG envisions as the center of the Olympics with the Bird's Nest, Water Cube,  National Indoor Stadium, and a large park all within eyesight and walking distance of our "office." I still have plenty to learn about fencing before we start out jobs as ONS Flash Quote Reporters, but after today we are in possession of our uniforms and we look the part. Now it's just a matter of putting in the work and anxiously awaiting 8/8/08 to act it, too. 

Not much new to report on in the world of fencing. Although I do think we have finally wrapped our heads around the differences between the three disciplines of the sport; epee, foil, and saber. We have attended a number of informational sessions, more than I think any of would have liked. Clips surfaced on China’s version of CNN, CCTV, showing three half asleep Ithaca students at one of these meetings. I however was lucky enough to have been captured on film attentively chewing on a pen during the two minutes my eyes were open at the two-day ONS informational sessions. It’s not that it was that boring, it just wasn’t necessary. From my two weeks here I’ve come to the conclusion that we all seem to be reasonably intelligent and competent and completely aware of our jobs. So all the buildup and preparation to August 8^th has almost become redundant. We’re ready to go, especially after receiving our uniforms today. Three sets of shirts, a nice jacket, sneakers, fanny pack, ball cap, two pairs of pants, poncho, and water bottle – all courteous of Adidas.

I can’t say that I have made any progress in learning the sport of fencing, but I did get to experience one of China’s most famous landmarks, the Great Wall of China of course. Amazingly enough we woke up to a blue sky and a lot less humidity than our first six days in Beijing. From BSU to the most popular part of the Great Wall was a much different area of Beijing than we have seen so far. It’s the first time we have left the sky scrapers and congested highways and entered into mountain ranges covered with green trees. The wall is probably one of the most spectacular man-made sights that can be found around the world today. As we learned today, the wall was built to keep many foreigners out of China. Today the wall attracts thousands of visitors each day because of its zigzagging structure through a terrain that seems impossible to build on. The Mexican President was also visiting the Great Wall while we were there. This meant half of the wall was blocked off for the few hours that we were there. As you can imagine, half of the wall being blocked off meant twice the amount of people on the other side. Even with the crowd, the experience was incredible! I can’t image leaving China only seeing the Great Wall once.

After a tiring trip up the Great Wall we drove to a well deserved lunch. The restaurant was above a large store full of jade statues and pearl necklaces. The lunch was one of our best meals yet. You can’t go wrong with French fries and dumplings.

With one more day full of traveling we are getting closer to the start of the Olympics. This means that most of us covering fencing probably need to start reading the packet we received from our ONS supervisor. Fencing is actually more complicated than it appears because there are three different disciplines each with their own set of rules. We are going to start our flash quote training on the 15th, which will be interest to see exactly what we are doing.

Brant

Ni Hao and Hello,

My name is Drew Appleton. I am a recent graduate of Ithaca College. I am currently in Beijing working with the Olympic News Service covering fencing alongside fellow alumni, David Bauer (’08) and Katherine McKenna (’08) as well as current Ithaca students Jules Ellison (’09), Brant Gawrys (’09), Chris Lee (’10) and Nellie Cuddy (‘10). We are just seven of the 22 students volunteering from Ithaca at the 2008 Olympics. Of these volunteers, the ONS assigned the Ithaca students to Water Polo, Handball, and Fencing.

I believe it’s fair to say that fencing was nobody’s top choice. We collectively arrived in Beijing knowing little beyond the most basic elements of the sport. Furthermore, my personal enthusiasm for covering fencing was dampened by the thought in the back of my head that some other volunteer was likely going to be interviewing LeBron James or Michael Phelps while I jotted down quotes from a fencer from Bulgaria. But here’s what happened on Day one of our training and exposure to the Olympic Games; I realized the specific sport means absolutely nothing. It’s the simple fact that we are at the Olympics that matters.

The fencing hall is located on the Olympic Green directly adjacent to the National Indoor Stadium where the aforementioned LeBron James will be playing, the “Water Cube” National Aquatics center where Michael Phelps will be in the hunt for a record eight gold medals, and the “Birds Nest” National Stadium where tens of thousands of athletes will march with pride while the world stops to applaud. It was almost comical as the seven of us stood there with our credentials in the middle of the Olympic Green. Only the occasional guard stood out in the thick haze as the entire area is currently fenced off and totally secure. Questions like, “How did we get to do this?” and statements of awestruck disbelief such as “We’re in Beijing…” were commonplace for the day.

It was also reassuring to actually watch some fencing live. A number of members of the Chinese National Team were practicing inside the fencing hall and once we figure out what the difference between the epee, the sabre and the foil are - it seems like it might be entertaining enough. 

We will be incredibly busy over the next seven weeks. First, we will be studying fencing’s background, rules, terminology, strategy, and current athletes, as well as training for the actual interviewing, observation, and database entry for our actual duties as Flash Quote Reporters. Further posts on this blog will be done daily on a rotating basis by all seven of us “fencer’s”. We hope to provide a simple account of our day to day routine as well capture the overall excitement of working at the epicenter of the world’s foremost, and arguably most important event.

- Drew