This year, the Year of the Dragon, is considered the
luckiest Chinese year, which bodes well for the Chinese athletes who are
training in Leeds ahead of the London 2012 Olympic Games. Not that they
seem to need much luck, as they topped the medal tables at the last Games in
Beijing.
Seven years of work came good late last year when Leeds was
finally announced as the training base for this “superteam”, but that’s when
the really hard work begins!
Think about it – nearly 300 Chinese people, with us for
almost a month, many of whom will never have visited the UK, or eaten European
food, don’t speak English and are, well, Olympians! These boys and
girls are at the highest possible level of their sport. This will be
their last training camp before the Games, so stress levels will be high.
This is set to be an interesting year full of challenges for the events
department, catering services and Sport.
Bev Kenny has accepted the considerable menu challenge, and
as I write this is in the midst of organising some pretty exotic offerings
which will be delivered by our own chefs aided by some of the Chinese team’s
chefs. Residences are gearing up to
welcome around 10 disciplines to Storm Jameson Court, all of whom come and go
on different dates during July. Sport and Physical Activity (SPA) is
planning to install specialised equipment for such sports as fencing, taekwondo
and table tennis. And these are just some of the issues to be
covered.
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| BBC cameras broadcast the show live to China. |
At the beginning of February, the BBC broadcast a variety show from the Refectory, live to China in celebration of the Leeds training
camp. The show was presented by one of our own students, Marie Tulloch, speaking in
fluent Mandarin Chinese. This was incredibly impressive but did nothing
to ease my own worries about my own challenge to learn basic Mandarin so that I
can at least greet our guests, and maybe even answer simple questions.
The one thing I’ve learnt so far, after just two lessons, is that there is no
such thing as a simple question in Chinese. Just one small
two-letter word can have six meanings depending on how it is pronounced, and
many of these will probably be offensive!
So, this is going to be a great year to be in Leeds, with
the University playing a valuable part in the Olympics – Bev can be happy in
the knowledge that she has helped fuel every medal won by the Chinese.
Residences and SPA will know that they have played an important part in
preparing the athletes for every gold, silver and bronze they take back to
China. And I’ll probably have insulted everyone in every possible
way, as I stumble thorough the Mandarin minefield. But it will be a year
we will remember forever…
Find out more about the event at the Refectory:
