Hula’s Talks: Veteran Australian journalist Jacquelin Magnay reports “these Games are very different behind the scenes”

Australian journalist Jacquelin Magnay, present at every Olympics since 1996, reveals how the stringent COVID mitigations rules for journalists have hampered their ability to cover events and athletes at the Games.

As part of Around the Rings founder Ed Hula’s ‘Tokyo Report’ podcast, Magnay detailed the various obstacles journalists face in doing their jobs in Tokyo, stating that while the Games look glossy and professional on TV, “they are very different behind the scenes”.

“For everyone behind the scenes, it’s very frustrating”, Magnay told Hula. “You’ve got to book in advance, for instance, to go to a venue, so you have to decide where you want to be more than 24 hours in advance. And as you know, as a journalist you usually tend to follow the story and not decide that until the very last moment, so that’s something new”.

“They’ve also introduced mixed zone tickets, so they are restricting the number of journalists that can be in these mixed zone areas, and that can be quite frustrating because you have to apply for those tickets. There’s a queuing system, and in some venues you have to turn up two or three hours before the session starts, just in order to be able to get a ticket to then go and ask someone a question”.

“So there are all these extra layers of requirements now in our job, but I think that the organizers have tried very hard to manage that, they’re doing their very best to allow as many people as possible”, Magnay continued, also touching on difficulties she experienced with public transport and WiFi availability at venues.

The strict rules on athlete movement, whereby they can’t leave the Olympic Village outside of events and can only be interviewed in mixed zones, has also made journalists’ coverage of the Games quite different than in years past, according to Magnay.

“You don’t get [athletes] outside in the warmup track, you cannot see them in the Olympic Village, you can’t see them outside. And you know that at many Olympic Games once athletes finish their competition, you can often head down to a local bar or district where you’ll know that you’ll find quite a lot of the athletes partying and enjoying themselves. That’s where you find a lot of the great stories, don’t you? But we haven’t been able to do that at all because the athletes have been restricted to the Olympic Village”.

Notwithstanding the hindrances to her job, Magnay, currently covering track and field events, found the atmosphere to be exciting despite the lack of spectators; and that the performance of athletes has not suffered from the Games’ circumstances as had been feared by some.

“I don’t know whether it’s the sound system or just the environment, but the atmosphere is quite electric. Obviously with spectators it would have been far more interesting and riveting and exciting for the competitors. But I also think the competitors are not that perturbed by not having spectators, because they are really getting themselves up for the competition. It’s a fast track and they’re having to run really fast times to get through the rounds”, she said.

With three world records and four Olympic records already being broken, Magnay offered up a theory that besides technological advances, the heat at the Olympic Stadium that has plagued athletes’ performances at other venues could actually be benefitting track and field athletes.

“A lot of [athlete improvement] is down to the technological advances in the shoes, and also the warm conditions. The cyclists on the velodrome love it being really warm and hot, and that’s similar here in the track and field stadium – the athletes’ muscles are lovely and warm and that always results in fast times. I think that humidity is restrictive for the times, when it’s heavy we see the times drop slightly, but when it’s clearer, when it’s all dry heat, we are seeing those really quick times and I think that will continue for the rest of the week”.

As a prolific sportswriter in Australia, Magnay is also expected to be a major figure in the coverage of the 2032 Summer Olympics held in Brisbane. Looking 11 years ahead, Magnay sees the Games as a boon not just for Australian athletes but also for the region’s infrastructure; a welcome prediction for the IOC, which has made sustainability and ensuring long-term benefits for host countries a priority.

“The Australian Olympic Committee is looking to use [Tokyo] as a base to get more funding for the athletes so that we do have a fantastic home Games. We need a 10-year plan to prepare for Brisbane 2032, but to have a 10-year plan after the Olympics so that an entire generation of athletes will have a new sporting focus”, Magnay explained, alluding to the sustained investment Australia is putting into its future Olympians over the next decade.

“That was the linchpin of the bid, as well as having a long lead-in time enabling fast-tracking of infrastructure and transport in the Brisbane area, that will connect the Sunshine Coast to the Gold Coast with new road and rail. This is the fastest growing area of Australia, so there’s huge population growth here and they need that infrastructure.”

“Having the Games, that’s enabled the government to now have the excuse to fast-track it... they’ve brought forward what could have been a 20-30 year plan into a 10-year plan. So that region of the country will certainly benefit enormously from this. But the athletes across the nation will also benefit.”

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