Moments after the final of a women’s rowing event, English-speaking reporters vainly tried to get their questions across to the Romanian gold medalists.
But the interpreter reacted to every question in English with a puzzled look. Her English appeared limited to politely asking the journalists to repeat their questions.
The charade ended when a Romanian reporter who spoke more fluent English than the interpreter finally interceded. From her seat among the international media, the reporter from Romania relayed questions to the rowers.
As simple as it may seem, trying to get a postgame comment from an Olympic athlete can be jarring and confusing, even for those jaded scribes who call each edition of their newspaper “The Daily Miracle.”
“The athletes give answers in their own language for more than a minute and the translation lasts 10 seconds,” said St. Louis Post-Dispatch sportswriter Vahe Gregorian.
“There is no way to understand what they really mean.”
Reporters use three methods to get the quotes from athletes that end up in newspaper reports.
The first test in this journalistic triathlon is called “the mixed zone” in Olympic parlance. At every venue, organizers set aside a zone where reporters lean across waist-high barriers to conduct interviews with Olympians as they head for the locker room.
The mixed zone inevitably becomes a mosh pit where reporters frantically fire questions at sweaty, breathless athletes in an array of languages. There frequently are so many reporters that only a few can get near enough to the Olympians to hear their comments. After the customary elbowing and jostling, reporters sometimes confer and share notes.
Some athletes walk right through the mixed zone without stopping.
After the women’s marathon ended Sunday, U.S. reporters shouted questions to American bronze medalist Deena Kastor in the mixed zone.
Kastor eagerly obliged them until anti-doping officials swooped in and pulled her out for a drug test.
Hours later, at nearly 1 a.m. Athens time, U.S. Olympic Committee officials arranged for Kastor to address American reporters by calling a scratchy speakerphone at the Main Press Center from her cell phone.
Postcompetition news conferences appear more civilized than mixed-zone interviews. In practice, language barriers sometimes render those sessions equally frustrating.
Interpreters sit next to the athletes. Many scribble on a notepad as they listen to athletes and look at their moving lips to better understand them. An Olympic volunteer takes a microphone to reporters who raise their hands.
The questions and answers usually are translated into English. Another interpreter does the honors in the language of the host nation. Depending on interest in the event, interpreters who speak other languages might also be provided.
“There is no flow to the interviews,” Gregorian said, because it takes too long to translate comments into so many tongues.
Nuance is sacrificed for the sake of efficiency at times.
The Greek-to-English interpreter at the weightlifting venue did not dare try to decipher the metaphors Greek weightlifting star Pyrros Dimas sprinkled throughout his remarks.
Asked about doping scandals in his sport, Dimas replied in Greek: “When you are high up in the tree, it blows hard, so you have to hold on tightly.”
The translation to English rendered the remark into a dull observation that the most successful athletes should expect to receive the closest scrutiny.
At a soccer game involving the Iraqi team, U.S. reporters struggled to understand the English translation of the coach’s comments in Arabic. The English-to-Greek interpreter had the same problem and asked the Arabic-to-English interpreter to repeat himself several times.
“Please,” the English-to-Greek interpreter implored. “I think [what the coach said in Arabic] is something important.”
Reporters who cannot make it to a stadium can feast on “flash quotes” posted by organizers on a computer system. But the translated comments sound so stilted that some reporters question their usefulness.
“You hope [the quotes] accurately portray what the person just said,” said Mark Woods, Olympic reporter for the Florida Times-Union. “The meaning can easily get lost in the translation.”
