Start lists, rankings and coffee, everything was yet again put into place by the volunteers at the Media Center on the morning of the sixth and final day of the 14th World Swimming Championships - a home away from home for all the accredited journalists.
Plenty of touching and inspiring success stories have been written throughout the competition as a total of 32 seat desks provided print journalists with an ideal position to carry out their work.
Photographers meanwhile had their own dedicated working room and a set number of camera positions, located next to the athlete’s entrance and the aisle opposite to the podium. On the stands and around the pool areas, more than 20 photographers were able to capture all the memorable moments at the World Swimming Championships.
Registered media representatives could make use of the shuttle bus service from the media hotels to the competition and training venues, providing comfortable and safe transport for journalists and photographers attending the events throughout the day.
Having made the short walk from the parking lot to the media workspace, the Media Center provided space to close to 150 journalists to work. TV screens were installed in the area as well to render real-time broadcast. A network interface was also in place so that journalists could access a cloud drive in which the Information Service dropped flash quotes in both English and Chinese.
With the swimmers shuttling through a series of fences to be greeted by the media in the mixed zone, all appeared to be very well organised. Located next to the media workspace area, local reporters would however occasionally turn the place upside down as Chinese swimmers like Liu Xiang, Wang Jianjiahe and Wang Shun were making their way through.
Overall, the 14th FINA World Swimming Championships proved to a beautiful platform for swimmers to excel and display their skills to the media and the world. Hangzhou is set to be the ideal host, again, in 2022 during the 19th Asian Games - for athletes and media alike.