Jeff Cable's Blog: February 2022

Monday, February 21, 2022

Beijing Winter Olympics: Watching NBC vs Being There

I am sitting here writing this blog post while watching the Closing Ceremony of the 2022 Winter Olympics on the TV next to me.

I have a range of emotions as this Olympics comes to a close, but most of all I am happy that they are over and I can look forward to Paris 2024.

I have no regrets, and still feel that staying home was the right thing to do. And being here for the birth of my first grandchild was something really special!

It was really different watching the Olympics on television, as opposed to being there. And the funny thing is...I now have a better idea of what you are all feeling when you watch TV and read my blog posts. From what I saw on television, the sports were well covered, but there was so much that was missing. The last time I watched the Olympics on NBC (back in 2006), they had all kinds of back stories on the athletes, and this time I saw almost none of those. Maybe this is due to the pandemic and the fact that the athletes needed to stay in a small bubble. But I was actually looking forward to some of those. I was also surprised how much coverage that curling got on prime time. I had no idea that this sport would be featured as much as it was here in the US.

Most of all, I wanted to see more behind the scenes, more of the inner workings of the Games, and more about the Olympic experience outside of the competition. I think about all of the interesting things that I experience in between the sports, and of course that was all missing this time around.

I had lunch with my good friend from USA Water Polo the other day and we were talking about the Summer Olympics in Tokyo. While I was driving home, I realized that not once did we talk about the amazing competition that we saw, we just reminisced about our time in between the different events. The logistical challenges, the tiny hotel rooms, the weird bus schedules, and the fact that we had to eat the same food almost everyday. But while recounting those memories we were smiling the whole time.

It was nice to watch the Olympics from the comfort of home (with weather in the 60s and 70s here in California) as opposed to being in temperatures well below freezing. But I am already chomping at the bit to get to Paris to cover the next Olympic Games in two and a half years.

I guess I could wrap this up by saying that staying home and watching this Olympics from half a world away was as weird as tuning in to NBC and seeing Johnny Weir's constantly changing outfits and hairdos.

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Monday, February 14, 2022

Beijing Winter Olympics: The escape from solitary confinement!

For all of you who have read the recent blog posts, you know that my friend, Ian. He is the photographer who had been locked up in Beijing for testing Covid positive.

I talked to him a couple of days ago and he was hoping to get out of the 1-star hotel where he was being quarantined. He told me some crazy stories which I thought I would share with all of you.

He told me that in the 12 days he had been holed up in this location, he had yet to be served any hot meals. Not that the food was bad mind you, just not hot. Ian said that he would keep his door open for most of the day, just to hear what was going on outside his 10x12 room. He would also communicate with others this way. This made me think of all those prison movies I have seen. He said that an American guy had just been put into the room across the hall from him, and was trying to order a hamburger and coke. He thought that he could get room service! Later when the guy received his Chinese meal, he asked if they could heat it up. Ian just chuckled and thought "that will not happen". It wasn't that the people were mean, Ian said that they were mostly kids, and that even though they had a hard time communicating, they were friendly.

Another person who tested positive and is entering the quarantine zone. Ian posted this on his Instagram page and said quoted the Eagles' Hotel California lyrics "Relax, said the night man. We are programmed to receive. You can check-out any time you like, but you can never leave!" (Photo credit Ian MacNicol)

When I asked Ian how things were going, he told me that the place was a bit like "One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest". He said that there was an Australian sports reporter who was staying down the hall from him, and the guy was going nuts after 12 days in "captivity". He was yelling down the hallway accusing the Chinese of locking him up for too long and putting Covid in his food." Ian was wondering if this guy was going to start a hunger strike from his room.

Ian was cracking me up. Knowing how much I love walking and getting my steps everyday, he was sending me his step count each day. Even though he was stuck in that crazy small room, he was managing to achieve about 10,000 steps a day. I asked him how he did that, and he said "thank goodness for my little hallway to the hotel room door." He was also doing sit ups and press ups.

The good news is that he is now released, back to his original hotel and shooting the Olympics.

The bad news is that the challenges were still ongoing. Since he had been locked up immediately after entering China, he had yet to get his shooting sleeve (needed to photograph at every Winter Olympics). Since Ian was staying up in the mountain cluster, he had to make the 3 1/2 hour trek to the Main Press Center in Beijing, get his sleeve, and then take the buses and trains back for another 3 1/2 hours.

He said that, since nobody involved with the Olympics is allowed to walk anywhere, they are required to take the press buses. We dealt with this, in a slightly less stringent way, in Tokyo. He told me that he even had to take a bus for less than 1000 feet to get to another bus because of the 0 tolerance rules.

The Olympic Sliding Center (where they have Bobsled, Luge and Skeleton) is almost next door to Ian's hotel. But much like we experienced in Tokyo, there are no official buses which will take people from the hotel to the venue. And they are not allowed to walk. So...(you are not going to believe this)...the only way to get to the venue is a 3 1/2 hour bus ride to Beijing, and then a 3 1/2 bus ride back up the mountain! He said that some of the photographers he had talked to were getting up at 4am to make an 11am event. That is NUTS! At this rate, the press who were located in the mountains would be lucky to cover more than one sport per day.

I am just happy that he has made it through the worst part (we sure hope) and that Ian can get back to doing what he does best, shooting awesome sports photos! I am also happy to be here at home and not dealing with that.

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Tuesday, February 8, 2022

Beijing Winter Olympics: Watching TV but thinking like a photographer

It is so weird to watch the Olympics on television!

For the first time in 16 years, I am not at the Olympics, but sitting at my home watching it like most everyone else. This also means that it has been that long since I have heard the back stories, the commentating, and the spin that NBC puts on the Games. It has also been that long since I have heard the all too familiar Olympic theme song which has been used by NBC forever. I have to admit, I actually have missed hearing that song played before every Olympic segment.

I made sure to tune in to the opening ceremony, and had some really weird mixed feelings as I watched the broadcast.

I realized that when I was watching the ceremony, I was thinking photographically. I was watching each sequence and thinking "Would this part be worth shooting? and How would I shoot this?" Honestly, I watched the opening ceremony (with the luxury of fast forwarding through each country walking in - which is always too long when we are in the stadium), and I thought that the only part that would make great photos was the beginning. Yes, I even took a photo of the screen to show you what I am talking about. After this, most of the ceremony was using the giant LED display on the deck of the stadium, and lacked the energy of having people performing, much like the opening ceremony in Tokyo.

I have also watched many different sports over the last 5 days, way more than I would have seen if I was in Beijing photographing the one or two events per day. And when watching those, I am often torn between watching the athletes and looking at the photo positions and how many photographers are in the venues. It does look like there are far fewer photographers covering each sport, but I have yet to get clarification on how many photographers are actually at the Games.

The toughest sport to watch is hockey, knowing that I would normally be parked against the glass and shooting the action first hand whenever Team USA is on the ice. I get the email updates from the team, and it kills me that they are not able to use my images this time around.

I can assure you that I am not rethinking my decision to stay home, knowing that I would go absolutely nuts being locked in a small room for weeks. And I am still hearing the same horror stories that many of you might have seen or heard, with athletes and journalists being locked up for weeks in poor conditions as they wait anxiously for negative Covid tests. Stories like I shared from my friend Ian. (I talk to him every day and will share an update on his predicament soon.)

The one thing I miss the most, is knowing the back stories. NBC does a good job of showing the sports, but I want to know about the housing, the food, the transportation, the volunteers, and the overall conditions. I have reached out to some of my photographer friends who are there, but as expected, they are working crazy hours every day with little free time to communicate. That I know well!

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Thursday, February 3, 2022

Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics: Good decision to stay home!

It is now Thursday here in the US, and tonight I will be watching Winter Olympics in Beijing on television like most of you. It will be the first time in 16 years that I have done that, and it will be with really mixed emotions.

First of all, I would like to thank the hundreds of people who reached out via email, blog comments, social media...in support of my decision not to go to China for these games. I really appreciate your feedback. Truly!

I spent the better part of two days undoing everything I had been working on for the year. Communicating with my contacts at Team USA, cancelling flights and hotels, cancelling Covid tests, and reaching out to all of my sponsors.

A lot has transpired in the last 5 days, since I wrote the last blog post, both great and bad.

Let's start with the great news!

Saturday night I was at home and getting ready for bed. It was supposed to be my last night at home before heading to China and I definitely had mixed emotions. And then...I got a text message from my son that his wife was in labor, two weeks early, and it was happening fast. I stayed up and waited, excited to hear the news, and at 12:49am my first grandchild was born! She arrived on the same morning that I would have been flying to China. That would have been REALLY hard for me not to see her in person for a month! I guess this was meant to be.

I am currently with my son and his family now and loving the time with them. I promise to post some photos in the future.

And then there is the bad news:

I mentioned in the last blog post that I would reach out to my photographer friends who were going to Beijing, to have them share content for the blog. I had two friends who I was communicating with the most. Kyle (from USA Today) who also decided not to go, and my buddy Ian MacNicol, who is an amazing sports photographer from Glasgow, Scotland. Days before Ian was supposed to fly out from Europe, his charter flight was cancelled (since so many people pulled out) and he had to scramble to get new flights. He ended up flying out earlier than expected.

Then he arrived in Beijing only to find out that he tested POSITIVE for Covid!

When he got to the airport, Ian had to do his Covid test and he said "This lady carried out a PCR test on me today, however I am sure she chose to use a knitting needle rather than a swab, the real killer was it felt like she drove it in with the heel of her hand! I swear I felt it scrape the back of my eyeball." This would put me over the edge!

After the test, he was transported to his hotel. As you can see, almost everyone working the Olympics in Beijing are wearing full PPE. Ian shoots of lot of the skiing events and, unlike me, he usually stays up in the mountain cluster. This was a 3 1/2 hour bus ride for him.

After getting to the hotel, he was notified that he had tested positive for Covid and would now be locked down. They put a guard in front of his room and he was not allowed to leave. Since nobody there speaks English, he is having a hard time communicating with them. They do have small translating devices, but he says that they are not working very well. At least he had a nice room with a good view (at the time).

The following morning Ian was tested again. This time they gave him a choice of a nasal test or a throat swab. As he told me "I was seriously worried that if they did the deep nose test everyday, they may cause brain damage to me." He happily chose the mouth swab. At this point he had symptoms as well, and found out that his son had Covid at home. If he had left on his original flight and not left early, he would have tested positive in Scotland and never left the country,

Later that first day, he told me that he was likely being moved from his hotel room to one of the quarantine hotels. And that is exactly what happened.

It was pretty late at night when they came to transport him to his new living quarters.

He said that his current location "seems like an old hotel that had been abandoned for a while" and the conditions are not so good. His view of the outside consists of a high fence to make sure that nobody gets in or out without permission.

I asked him how the food was and he sent me this photo. He said "there is enough food for three people, but all of it was hot at one point, but delivered cold."

He also told me "good news and bad - numbers are moving in the right direction but also learnt that when I eventually leave this place I have to isolate in my original hotel room for a further 7 days!"

This means that Ian may miss the entire Olympics and stay in a small room the entire time. I hope that is not the case. It is Ian's exact situation that kept me from making the trip to Beijing!

I have to say that Ian has a much better attitude than I would have in this situation. He is taking it all in stride. I check in with him at least a couple of times a day to try and keep his spirits high. He is posting images from his quarantine room on his Instagram account. You can follow him here. Let's make sure to comment on his posts and help him get through all this.

I will keep you all up to date on Ian's journey. I also know other photographers who have made it through the Covid net and are working the Olympics. I will try to share their stories and images as well.

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