I had the opportunity to visit the Youth Olympic Village (YOV)!
It’s not easy to get access into the YOV because there were a heck load of security surrounding the perimeter of the buildings. There was even a road block where a police officer came up the YOG bus (you know, the purple bus with Lyo and Merly?) to look around and see if we were hiding any criminally dangerous fugitives.
I kid..
...About the fugitives part. But I’m serious about the security! I guess it’s good, ‘cause that means the athletes won’t have to worry about er, assassinations? Er, if that happens
Um… Yeah. They did look that serious. And I even saw a shotgun. Swear I’m not lying!
I was at the YOV as part of my YOG duties. As a video editor I have to travel down with my crew so that I can help tell what I need when I do my editing for the video, so it was awesome that this time we were heading down to the YOV!
(Part of the reason okay, the main reason why I was so excited was because I’d heard there were plenty of cute athletes like him there! So imagine my excitement. Hee hee.)
And I feel so sad. I did not get to meet a cool, cute athlete like Tom Daley, unlike my friend CP. *mopes in a corner*
So yep. Moving on from my moping... Here's the YOV.
Anyway, I had to do my work first before I could play, and our job was to interview Lin Sheng, a fencer from the People’s Republic of China who won the Cadet Female Individual Epee Gold Medal. Her opponent was Alberta Santuccio from Italy, who was the top seed for the event. (That means that during the seeding rounds, she was top and more or less expected to win during the real rounds. I think.)
Lin Sheng in action! (Pic courtesy of Singapore2010)
It was an unexpected win because after nine minutes of regular play, they’d ended at 8-8 and went into extra time. So awesome right!
If you want more info, check out this article here!
I met her and she was super nice. Friendly and quick to warm up, she gave us really good material to make a pretty fun video, which you can see below. Hehe, hope you enjoy it. I kept laughing out loud while editing the video and my fellow colleagues thought I was a little cuckoo. Hehe.
Me and Lin Sheng! I'm on the right.
(Normally I’d leave my sad face in the pic, but I really looked hideous and half asleep in it, so I’m exercising my editorial rights to leave my face out of it by drawing a cartoon! Look! I have bigger eyes and am an inch taller. Hehe!)
And yes, I am shorter than her. She even bent down to try to make the height difference less obvious. She's only 16 and 175 cm, while I'm 18 and only 158 cm. How fail is that!
Anyway, after the interview, my crew and I walked around and we came to the Pin Trading Center. I tried to exchange pins with some athletes, but they ignored me (probably because they couldn’t see me as I’m too short!!!) or were in a hurry to get away from the scary looking dwarf that was approaching them to their venue. Meh!
But it doesn’t matter that much anyway because I got a pin!
The Pin Trader took pity on me and gave me this pin from Atlanta 1996! How cool is that! I was only 5 when that badge was made. I feel so… old. Or young. I don’t know. :/
He has a lot of pins.
But this isn’t all there is to the YOV. There’s a lot of booths:
They have different themes, according to my friends who went there. Athletes can take part in them and gain Cultural Points to redeem stuff. It’s the end of YOG today, and I’m going to miss what I’ve enjoyed of it. Are you going to be tuning in to watch the Closing Ceremony?