Media organization complains about transportation between clusters at Beijing 2022

BEIJING — AIPS, the International Sports Media Association, has sent a formal letter to Beijing 2022 organizers asking for direct media buses between the three venue clusters.

Gianni Merlo, president of AIPS, said his “letter of protest” is in response to transportation being the “weak point” of the organization. “We did not expect it,” he said.

While Merlo said he understands that COVID-19 complicated plans, organizers magnified the difficulties for journalists who want to travel between Beijing, Yanqing and Zhangjiakou.

“They have relied on fast trains, excellent, but there are too many intermediate stops before and after the train stations where you have to make a forced stop, which extends the times in an incredible way,” Merlo said. “Then the times often do not coincide with our needs at the end of the races.”

In his letter to Xu Jicheng, director general of the media operations department (affectionately known as “Big Xu”), Merlo called the plan “a very complicated system, one that now means it will be difficult to find a solution. It looks as if too many hubs have been created and this it is not safe at all.”

He said there were discussions during the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Commission meetings about how to travel between venues, but the plan that emerged is not working for media.

Lee Reaney of the Kyiv Post in Ukraine told Around the Rings that the 20-minute train ride to Yanqing winds up taking four hours because of two bus rides from the hotel to the train station, and then multiple bus changes upon arrival.

“There’s a little bit of a race at the end of the day,” Reaney said. “The last train leaves at around 8 o’clock.”

He said there is a late bus, but as the Games began, the last bus was at about 11:00 p.m., which doesn’t work for events that start at 10:00 p.m. Now the last bus is at 12:20 a.m.

“You have to catch that last bus or you’re trying to find a place to sleep,” Reaney said. “We haven’t even been to the media center. We’re just taking the buses everywhere. And there’s no WiFi, so you can’t work while you’re there. The station is a parking lot, so you’re standing in the cold waiting for the bus.”

“This is not acceptable,” Merlo said in his letter. “I can tell that we have experienced only one situation like this and it was in 1980 in Lake Placid, but after a few days a sufficient number of buses have arrived from New York to save the image of the Games.”

Merlo said it is necessary to provide buses that go directly between the different press centers: Beijing, Yanqing and Zhangjiakou. “Also, there should be no stopping in different hubs (to change vehicles).”

Merlo praised the organizing committee for creating an incredible infrastructure. “It is managing the biggest challenge in the Olympic world,” he said. “Now it risks to lose face because it is not able to solve a problem for which it ought not to be so difficult to find a solution.”