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Beijing Olympic diary: Producing results
Sleepless nights paying off?

By Jeremy Hore

Published: Tuesday 19 August 2008

Despite the nerves and apprehension, all the hard work seems to be paying off, says Jeremy Hore, chief integrator for Olympic worldwide IT partner Atos Origin, in his exclusive silicon.com diary. Follow the link for more on the technology behind the Games.

We're at day 10 of the competition. The month or so before the Games was hectic and although we've been testing and preparing for years there were lots of last-minute implementations at the venue. In fact, it was busy right up to the opening ceremony but once the competition started everything just flowed.

See what happened when silicon.com editor Steve Ranger went to visit the Beijing Olympics venues.

Last Friday was the busiest day and I hope we've now passed the peak. Friday was the first day of athletics and also the first day of cycling and we still had the swimming competition in the morning and in the afternoon.

We were probably handling 27 sports that day and had the most number of results messages so far. Hits on the intranet from the media were close to 1.3 million.

We're now trying to avoid any changes. Sometimes when things are going well someone wants to tune something. We've seen in previous Games that something apparently quite small can have a big impact. So people know any changes must go through an approval process and thorough testing.

The Paralympic Games start on 6 September so we really have only two weeks once the Olympics end. Now we have more time, especially on the night shift, people are working on the preparation of the Paralympics systems and environment and getting ready for the transition.

We work shifts. So, for example, today I'm working a night shift so I'll start at 7pm. We are doing effectively two day shifts, two night shifts and then two days off. But those two days off are not always really free - it depends on the person and the position. They could be spent visiting the venues or on other commitments that come up.

Generally on the night shift we have competitions running until late - there was a tennis match the other night that went on until 3.30am but usually the competition finishes by midnight or 12.30am.

In the technology operations centre a team of about 160 people monitor the competition, the systems and the networks, making sure the data is flowing and press and broadcasters are getting what they need.

Once we reach the end of competition we start different maintenance activities, backing up data, adjusting parameters or restarting some machines between 3am and 6am.

After the maintenance, we begin the start-of-day activities for the next day. Competition mostly starts at about 8.30am but in some of the equestrian events we are starting at 6.30am.

We've moved from working extremely hard and being quite nervous and apprehensive to really enjoying the Games. People are trying to get out and see the competition, getting to meet new people and really also experiencing Beijing.

There have been two main highlights for me. I managed to go to the swimming, so I saw Australia win gold in the 4x100 metre medley relay. I went to the opening ceremony, which was really an amazing experience.

Will my fellow countrymen pip Great Britain in the final medals table? Well, I have my Australian tracksuit ready to wear later this week. But I think team GB has been a bit of a surprise.

They have done really well in the pool, rowing, cycling and sailing - they're just cleaning up the medals so I think it's really good for London.

See photos of silicon.com editor Steve Ranger's visit to the Beijing Olympics' venues.