To make the recently concluded Paris Olympics special for 51 Lithuanian athletes, the mission leaders had to do a lot of invisible, arduous work. Arduous in every sense of the word. Agnė Vanagienė, Deputy Director of Olympic Sports at the National Olympic Committee of Lithuania, and the Head of Mission, as well as their colleagues will remember for a long time the challenges and adventures that awaited them in the French capital.
What did you start your work with in Olympic Paris?
With the Head of Mission, LNOC Director of Olympic Sports Einius Petkus, we were the first to arrive in the Olympic Village. The team registration procesudre took about three hours, after which we received the keys to the house assigned to us. The national team registration procedure is necessary to identify accreditation changes ‒ athletes' accreditations are unique, but coaches rotate. It also allows to determine the exact number of beds, purchase bed extensions and food vouchers as needed.
A day later, a colleague arrived from Lithuania with all the necessary medical equipment and supplies to decorate the facilities. We spent three days intensively furnishing the mission office and the house where we were staying, until the arrival of the first team ‒ the rowers' team. We found dirty plasterboard walls and murky windows, there was no furniture. We ourselves had to clean and furnish our temporary home to prepare it for the athletes and coaches. The result of three days’ work was delightful. The athletes were happy that we brought part of their home from Lithuania to Paris.
Did you create the cosiness yourselves? Did you roll up your sleeves and took to cleaning the windows?
Yes. We arranged the furniture, the medical equipment, allocated the rooms among the participants. The beds had to be made for those arrivng first. The athletes received souvenir blankets with the inscription "Paris 2024" as a gift, and we had to buy more for the coaches. In other words, we had to manage the whole household in three days, working hard from 6 a.m. in the morning until midnight. We wallpapered the walls with pre-made Olympic wallpaper with images of fifty athletes. Unfortunately, wrestler Mantas Knystautas was not among them, as he joined the Games after they had started. We also had a special sticker on the wall – a symbolic T-shirt, on which we collected the signatures of all our Olympians, 51 athletes. After the Games, we cut out the T-shirt and took it home with us. We will try to resurrect it to another life by reproducing it: to give out copies to partners, to keep it for us as a memory.
In the Olympic Village, we had a unique opportunity to watch live competitions in all sports without commentary. Therefore, we rented two TV sets, placed them in a common lounge area, where there was a coffee machine and a kettle. Not everyone could go and watch their colleagues compete live, some were competing and others were resting, therefore athletes would often put on their lymphatic drainage socks and watch competitions on television. We brought 80 spit cakes (Lith. šakotis) from Lithuania, but even that was not enough.
Did you give out the spit cakes as gifts or where they a treat to your guests ?
Every morning I would replenish our stock in the lounge area, both with spit cakes and sweets and chocolates made by our partner Pergalė. The modern pentathlon team, which arrived last, did not even have the chance to taste the spit cake as we ran out of it. This product was very popular. We had brought a huge loaf of black bread and a pallet of bacon from Lithuania as a treat. The athletes savoured them with great pleasure. We kept hearing: "Well, where is that bacon?" Everyone could take some from the fridge and slice a piece for themselves. These are small things, but they added some home cosiness to the place.
The preparation days were intense, but were they smooth?
Not quite. We had arranged for permits for trucks to drive right up to our house in the Olympic Village, but that didn't help. The volunteers of the Games spoke English, but the security, for example, spoke only French. We showed them the permit, we tried to communicate via google translate, but it was in vain. The driver had been trying to reach us since 9 a.m., but after three hours of explanations, we decided that the situation was hopeless, and that it would be easier to carry everything by hand or by wheelbarrows. After all, every hour is as valuable as gold.
Talking to the French must have been one of the challenges? Did volunteers help?
We had three volunteers assigned to us. One of them, the so-called personal volunteer of our delegation, Laura Čeponytė, an employee of the Embassy of Lithuania, was indeed very helpful. Especially in diplomatic matters, when coordinating things before the visit of President Gitanas Nauseda. While the other volunteer, Vaida, who had worked with us at several Games, could only stay in Paris half of the time. The third volunteer, a man from Denmark, did not even show up. We needed more volunteers. They started working when we had already set up the village, at the time assigned to them.
Laura helped us with communication when needed, she would ask for help from the volunteers passing by who were hunting for Olympic badges. We would give the badges to the volunteers in gratitude for their help.
President of the country, Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė and the Minister of Education, Science and Sport Radvilė Morkūnaitė-Mikulėnienė visited the Olympic Village. Such visits must also mean additional work for the mission leaders?
Such visits require invisible preparation ‒ logistical, household solutions. Let's say, apart from athletes and coaches, a limited number of individuals can enter the Olympic Village. Even heads of state cannot enter it without a special pass. It can be obtained after filling out certain forms. The number of guest passes is limited, the Lithuanian Olympic team was allocated nine per day. We would often use and even exceed this number on some days, because the relatives of the athletes and their guests wanted to visit the Olympic Village; we would also make it possible for the psychologists of some athletes living outside the Village to enter it.
Visits by national leaders are important for athletes. They are delighted to represent Lithuania, therefore the visits of important people of the state give them additional motivation and an impulse to be proud of what they are doing. We took both the President and the Prime Minister to our national team's house and had asked the athletes to gather there in advance. We chated, took a family photo, showed the office, the lounge area, the President wanted to see the notorious cardboard beds. Then we took them on a tour of the Olympic Village: we saw how the other teams decorated their houses, looked around the canteen, the Olympic rings, the souvenir shop, i.e. we made the traditional tour.
Were the beds really that uncomfortable as the Olympians from other countries complained?
I actually found them comfortable. We had already tested these beds at the Tokyo Olympics. Our athletes did not complain about them either then or now. In the Olympic Village, volunteers demonstrated how to change the hardness of the mattress, and we had bought bed extensions. However, the only people who used the extentions were the rowers; the basketball players, for whom we bought these extensions, did not need them.
I saw an athlete put a bottle of water on the bed, which tipped over and spilled, deforming the cardboard, and we had to pay for the damage. That must have been the biggest drawback of these beds (smiles).
Were there cases when several athletes had to share a room?
We were given 18 apartments of different sizes. The smallest was two rooms, the biggest was five rooms. As a standard, there were two people in each room, but ideally or on the eve of the competition, we tried to make it possible for one person to stay in the room, so that they could concentrate and rest.
There were also mixed feedback about the catering.
The beginning, as in many Olympic Games, was a bit difficult. The same can be said about transport and catering. There were days when there was simply not enough food. Those who arrived in the first few days experienced that to the greatest extent. The first three or four days were critical, they were really difficult. Every morning, my colleague and I would go to the meetings of the Heads of Mission, where representatives of all the Olympic Committees would complain about the catering. The situation improved with each passing day. And after the first week of the Games, the choice and quantity of food was sufficient. Others tried to compare several Olympic Games, how it was in one place or another. That should not be done. Paris did what they could. We had a huge canteen that offered dishes of four cuisines: French, Asian, halal and world cuisine.
Was there entertainment available for the athletes in the village? How did they spend their leisure time when they were not competing themselves and were not watching their colleagues’ competitions?
Traditionally, entertainment areas were equipped with various games machines, table football, basketball, PlayStation, Xbox and the like, various lounge areas offered refreshments, yoga and petanque. Our athletes used that with pleasure.
You also mentioned transport problems. What were they?
The beginning was chaotic and complicated. The buses would often take us to the wrong place. Or the trip would take an extremely long time. The biggest problem we faced, which the organisers were unable to solve for probably objective reasons, was that the buses did not have air conditioning. Public transport buses from all over France were brought in for the Olympic Games. Not only did they lack air conditioning systems, but in the first few days we were not allowed to open the windows for security reasons, while it was really hot during those days. After our concerns that unconditioned buses could cause health problems, we were at least allowed to open the windows. Even though the windows were small, the trips became a little easier. However, this did not solve the problem to the full extent. Using the public transport buses from all over France was the decision of the Olympic Games organisers, and it was approved by the International Olympic Committee, therefore no one considered other options. We had to find a way out of this situation, and sometimes we would send athletes to competitions by taxis. Especially if the competition took place very early or at midday, when it was the hottest time of the day.
My colleagues and I talked between us that the 2021 Tokyo Summer Games and the 2022 Beijing Winter Games were held in COVID-19 conditions, where the biggest concern was to avoid falling ill. In Paris, the challenges were greater, everything was much more complicated, with more guests, more movement, more organisational decisions.
In Tokyo and Beijing, nobody left the Olympic Village, everyone spent time quietly, in one place. While in Paris people had total freedom, there were crowds of spectators. The athletes would come back from the competitions overwhelmed with most wonderful emotions, with stadiums full everywhere, with crowds of people around the village asking for signatures and badges. The atmosphere was outstanding this time. Let alone the bases near the city's most important landmarks ‒ the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre!
Cyclist Rasa Leleivytė came back from the race with her eyes shining. She said it was amazing to cycle on a track with so many spectators, a feeling she had never experienced before. Other athletes said the same ‒ this was due to the choice of competition and race venues, and the support of the spectators was something incredible and impressive for them. While we, the mission, had a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff, lots of problem-solving. But it has always been like that, and probably always will be, because so many people come to the Games for a short period of time.
How did you manage to take care of those who lived outside the Olympic Village?
I had to travel 800 kilometres to Marseille to open the Olympic Village, meet our sailors, accommodate them and then go back to Paris. Both sailors came to us after their finish to enjoy the Olympic spirit, to stay in the village. It may have been strange for them to settle down in a student hostel in Paris after staying at a hotel in Marseille, but the atmosphere, the togetherness, the Lithuanian spirit cannot be spoiled by living conditions. They claimed that the feeling of unity was indescribable, they would have gladly lived with the whole team all the time.
The rowers and canoeists had also moved to live elsewhere?
The rowers and the canoe and kayak team were strategically accommodated at the hotel, a decision they were very happy about. It had to be taken because the rowing base was at a 90-minute ride from the Olympic Village by an unconditioned bus. With two races a day, which was the case many times, it would have been impossible for them to go home at lunch time to rest. We had booked the hotel, which was a five-minute walk from the rowing canal, two years ago. It made life much easier for the athletes, because the morning races used to start at 9.30 a.m., and if they had stayed in the village the night before, they would have had to get up at dawn, because they had to do the warm up, have breakfast, then take a long trip, get ready for the competition. They would have had to leave the village at around 4 a.m. They were the only ones to live outside the village on their competition days.
It is good that you foresaw the problem so early and booked a hotel.
All logistical decisions are made well before the Games. We were lucky with this hotel because we chose it when we went to Paris, and booked it while being there, although we had sent emails beforehand, but nobody responded. In the same way, we had to plan things in advance and book hotels for heads of state and the service personnel. We had to do it without knowing whether we would need that or not, because no last-minute accommodation options remained available: there were many delegations arriving at the same time, 206 this time, and they all needed somewhere to stay.
Could the athletes watch the competitions of other sports? Were you able to help them with this or did they have to take care of that themselves? How was it this time with the athletes' relatives who came to support them?
This was another problematic peculiarity and something new. The so-called athletes' family and friends programme in Paris was for the first time available in only electronic form. Each athlete had to download a special app and, after entering their accreditation number, could buy two tickets for their competition. At the London 2012 and Rio 2016 Games, those tickets were free of charge, while in Tokyo, due to the pandemic, they were not available at all. In Paris, athletes had to pay a charge for those tickets and the prices were sometimes really high. They were often staggering, caused discontent and anger, but we couldn't help it, we did not set the prices, they were the same for everyone. For example, a ticket to the swimming semi-finals for an athlete's family member cost 385 euros, to the track cycling race ‒ 270 euros, to the breaking competition ‒ 180 euros. The athletes found the amounts overwhelming.
There were problems with the 3x3 basketball team, many relatives of the team members came to the Games. This sport is specific in that only after one match is over it becomes clear when the next match will take place. The app would be activated only two hours before the match, and we encountered technical difficulties to get in. We tried to act as intermediaries between the athletes and the Games Organising Committee, so that people could buy tickets, and the relatives could watch the matches. We did our best, we looked for ways out, we tried everything which was in our power. Athletes were entitled to one free ticket to a competition in another sport, but the "first come, first served" principle applied here as well ‒ the number of free tickets was limited. As far as I know, our athletes managed to get to the competitions, while many were simply too late to get tickets. Our people acted quickly, got the tickets, and managed to see the competition of women's modern pentathlon and track and field athletes.
Were there any challenges during the opening and closing ceremonies?
The challenge of the opening ceremony was, of course, the rain. Our delegation was pleasantly surprised by this opening ceremony being one of the fastest opening ceremonies. We were given a special bus to get to the boat, which we shared with the Liechtenstein representatives ‒ one athlete and three accompanying people. The boat was practically all ours. We were soaked to the skin. The boat had a hold where we could take shelter from the rain, but it was a completely different emotion on deck, with the crowds cheering at you, and you waving back. Everybody wanted to stand proud in the rain under the flying Lithuanian flag. 2.5 hours later, when we had finished sailing, we could go to Trocadero Square, where the official part of the celebration took place: the lighting of the Olympic flame, the official opening of the Games. We asked the athletes if they wanted to go there, but they didn't. We were so soaked to the skin and freezing that we all just got on the bus and returned to the Olympic Village to warm ourselves up under a hot shower and rest.
The closing ceremony was dry, lasting about the same time as during the previous Games ‒ traditionally, we had to wait for the bus, then for our turn to enter. It took a while, but the athletes enjoyed it, their impressions were good. The event was held at the Stade de France, which had been the competition place of track-and-field athletes. It is the closest sports base to the village, just two kilometres away, so we did not use the organisers' bus after the closing and all walked amicably back.
Another important link was the medical staff who took care of the athletes' health. How many of them were there and what equipment did you bring from Lithuania?
Before the Paris Games, we had to make a decision to bring a relatively large number of medical staff: we brought nine physiotherapists, two sports doctors and a veterinarian. The Latvians and Estonians wondered why we needed such a large medical team, but we saw no other option. After the decentralisation of the whole sports training system, each national team has its own physiotherapist and sports doctor. How do you tell any team that at the Games they are going to be taken care by a physiotherapist they do not know, had not seen before, who is not familiar with the athletes' bodies? We considered it illogical and impossible. We talked to all the federations and decided that our athletes would be accompanied to the Games by their personal physiotherapists, so that during the most important quadrennial sport events the athletes would be taken care of by the people who know them best, the people who accompany them to the camps, to the European and World Championships. We had thirteen sports, and the bigger teams even brought two physiotherapists for each sport.
We brought blood analysers, various equipment to help recover from physical strain, we bought cooling vests, which the athletes used at the competition venues. Our medical room, where we set up three workstations, was buzzing with people in the evenings. The swimming team had the biggest apartment with five rooms, and their physiotherapist worked in the living room. We could not bring in the sports psychologists of all the teams, therefore we recommended remote consultations ‒ the internet connection in the village was excellent. Those psychologists who came to Paris were granted access to the village by using guest cards.
What did the athletes take away from Paris besides memories? Or will it be only the outfits remaining after the Games that will remind the athletes of this event?
Apart from gifts and souvenirs from us and our partners, they each received a Samsung phone with Olympic rings allocated by the IOC. This is a unique, limited-edition gift for athletes only. Athletes, after all, play sports not for the sake of gifts, but because of the unity they experience, the opportunity to represent Lithuania, they experience honour and pride. Any material objects fade in the context of these things.
What made working in Paris special for you and the mission?
For me, it was the first normal (non-pandemic) Olympics, when we could feel the spirit of the Games. It is overwhelming when you get to the stadium at 9 a.m. and it's already full of people ‒ you realise that 80,000 people are already waiting for the track-and-field athletics competition, all of them equally supporting every athlete. You see your country's flag flying, you know that our athletes are here, you contribute in some way to them being here. Of course, although your contribution is the size of an ant, but it is still meaningful. You go to a rowing race, or a canoe and kayak race and you find 20,000 people in the stands. The athletes said they had never seen so many spectators before. And indeed, not a single seat was available anywhere! Then you get overwhelmed by pride and euphoria through realising that you are part of this giant machine, and like never before you feel how meaningful your work is.