The press offices at the Men's World Championship have catered to journalists from around the world
Łódź, Poland, September 08, 2014 - The end of the first round of the FIVB Volleyball Men’s World Championship Poland 2014 is a time of summaries. Coaches analyse their players’ performances, journalists sum up the achievements of different teams, fans share their impressions from the venues. In this article, we take a look behind the scenes at the tournament's busy press offices, which have catered for journalists from around the world.
Each of the seven Press Teams at the World Championship has a Press Officer, a Deputy Press Officer and an Assistant-Translator, and at least ten volunteers. On Sunday, with the end of Round 1, the Gdansk and Krakow teams finished their jobs at the tournament, but from Monday Katowice and Wroclaw will be joined by Bydgoszcz and Lodz. Together, 21 employees and around 80 volunteers will be working at these venues. Press Officers in every city exchange over a dozen emails and phone calls every day, all under the watchful eye of the tournament's Press Director.
The role of each Press Office is to make work easier for the journalists working at the Men's World Championship. In Gdansk, 13 reams of paper were used to print out team roasters, statistics and other informational material for the media. In Wroclaw, each member of the Press Team drank an average of four cups of coffee a day, while the journalists ate over a metre-long loaf of bread every day. The Press Officer in Gdansk calculated that he had covered a distance of over 30 kilometres in eight days, even if the Press Tribune was only 30 metres away from the Press Working Room. In Warsaw, the size of the National Stadium and the park surrounding it was of course very impressive, but it also left staff and volunteers with sore leg muscles at the end of the weekend.
Press Centres are very popular with journalists also because they provide access to televisions showing matches from other venues. A few days into the tournament, nobody in Gdansk was surprised by the sight of Andrea Anastasi, former head coach of Poland, and Andrea Zorzi – his friend from the 1990 world champion team – discussing every rally. Wroclaw had another star, Raul Lozano. He patiently responded to numerous interviews on site.
Poland has welcomed many foreign media representatives and the Press Offices have had very long and flexible opening hours – from around 10am to “the last client”. Midnight in Europe is an early morning in Asia, so Chinese journalists sometimes took the term “to the last client” quite literally. And the highlight of the menu was traditional Polish bread with lard and pickles...