So after we were able to cure our Opening Ceremonies hangover, water polo matches finally began yesterday with the men followed by the women today.  As expected, things got pretty hectic after the first whistle went off when Canada squared off against Spain.  

We flash quote reporters went up to the press tribune to watch the match while taking notes and formulating questions to ask to the athletes and coaches after the game.  Then as the match ended...it was showtime!!!  We walked quickly downstairs to the mixed zone where we did our interviews and gathered our first quotes.  I was one of three in charge of the taking notes during the press conference (which nevevr accumulated to much due to the media's lack of interest in non-medal matches) so I didn't get my first quotes until later that day.

It all happens so quickly.  From the time your interview begins to the time you are finished it a total of about 10-15 minutes.  This means the questions and answers have to be short and sweet while maintaining 100% accuracy on everything that will be published.  The 10 minute deadline from the end of the match until it has to be sent to our editors makes it highly stressfull, but almost as much fun.  It is a pretty cool feeling to see your quote you got on your own be published in the Olympic database for all journalists to see and possibly use in their articles.

After the first two days, almost all of the athletes and coaches have been very kind by giving up their to speak with us because they are not required to.  They can easily say "no thank you" and continue walking right by us and there would be nothing we can do, it is a simply the nature of the business.  Ironically enough, I got the feeling that a few athletes wanted to be interviewed more than we actually wanted to interview them.