Thursday, August 19, 2004

Disgraceful

San Francisco Chronicle | Olympic Journal: Press corps' wretched behavior
An ugly international incident occurred Monday in Athens and received no media play because the perpetrators were members of the U.S. and Dutch press, who strangely chose not to write about it.
...It happened in the chaotic interview room at the swimming venue and the occasion was, ostensibly, a news conference featuring the gold medalist in the women's 100-meter breaststroke, Xuejuan Luo of China. She was joined on the dais by a translator.
Members of the U.S. press were waiting for Michael Phelps or Natalie Coughlin to come into the room. The Dutch were there for Pieter van den Hoogenband, silver medalist in the men's 200 freestyle.
The problems were concurrent. The Americans (none from this newspaper, thankfully) were yakking it up in smug little coteries while the soft-spoken Luo and her soft-spoken translator were trying to answer questions. Meanwhile, van den Hoogenband came into the interview room, walked behind Luo on the dais and sat down at the end, totally out of turn, and conducted his own interview for the Dutch media.

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