Mixing
it – life in the Mixed Zone
By IAAF Correspondent
24 July 2001 - Tears, cheers, pain,
gain, glory, anger, celebration and realisation. Rarely in sport can so many strains of
emotion be unleashed together than in the area below the main stand of most athletics
stadiums where competitors gather at the end of their event.
It is known as the Mixed Zone, where athletes mix with the media who are desperate for that quick quote or sound bite from the bright star who has just won gold or the unlucky fourth-placed competitor who is left to rue their luck and dream for another day.
Few atmospheres can match the incredible noise, the instant chance to see how an athlete reacts when they come off the track to pick up their kit or whose arms they will fall into...to either cry with delight or despair.
It is like a military operation when an athlete finishes an event because they cannot escape passing first the rows of television crews, then the radio reporters before the assembled written media who are demanding to know how they feel. And every athletics journalist some time in their career has probably been knocked on the head by a camera, perched precariously on the shoulder of a cameraman who is dashing through the zone after missing an athlete coming through.
Athletes do not have to talk—-but if they don’t, then that can be the story. But most do and so often the first reaction to a performance can be the quote that makes the headlines across the world.
Often when an athlete has had time to shower, change, gather their thoughts and then walk into an official press conference, they have had enough time to decide what they are going to say. But not in the mixed zone, where an Olympic champion can be surrounded by 100 people all asking a different question at the same time.
Take Sydney last year when Cathy Freeman had won her gold in the 400m final. You could have sold tickets for the amount of people who dashed from their seats in the press tribune to see what the darling of the Australians had to say about one of the most emotional victories in the history of our sport.
But while one is celebrating, you only have to look a matter of feet away and the athlete who has just lost out is sitting watching the winner as they change their kit. How does that make them feel? Some say they cannot stand it while others know that is the moment they know they will be a champion one day because never do they want to go through that ‘watching’ experience again.
Mixed zones can make headlines.
At the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, Ato Boldon and Linford Christie exchanged words after the controversial 100 metres final.
Christie, the defending champion, had been disqualified and Boldon claimed the wait had cost him a gold medal. What happened was the back pages story across most of Britain’s newspapers the next day.
Often in sport, we see the public face of a competitor but wonder what the private person is all about. The mixed zone can tell us.
You could physically see the pain falling from Hicham El Geurrouj’s face when he returned to collect his kit after losing the 1500m final in Sydney to Noah Ngeny. You did not need words to describe that story.
Paula Radcliffe was in tears as she talked after finishing fourth in Sydney, having led almost all the way in the 10000m while just a few days earlier her British team-mate Kelly Holmes had a smile as wide as Australia itself after winning an 800m bronze.
There are some athletes who only talk after finals or if they have been knocked out, believing they could break their concentration between rounds, while others talk for Trinidad, sorry to mention you again Ato, whether they have run a first round heat or a dramatic semi-final with the final an hour-and-a-half away.
The majority of major athletics competitions have the mixed zone because it firstly saves the athlete being hounded all day for a quick quote and it prevents the unimaginable chaos of chasing a competitor after an event.
Each country has its little corner. The American press over there, the French up there, the Italians are round that way and the Brits along here.
And such can be the hustle and bustle in the mixed zone that rival papers can become friends if one journalist cannot hear a quote but his ‘enemy’ has taken down every word.
And then there are the great celebrations down there, none which better those of the USA 4 x 100m relay girls after a gold medal glory. In Atlanta, at the 1996 Olympic Games, there was so much whooping and hollering led by Gail Devers that you thought they had won the National Lottery!
Athletes have no shame in the ‘zone’, changing from their kit into tracksuit, some stripping and they do not care who is watching, some will only talk to the television cameras from the country they are from—others will talk to anyone.
And then suddenly, amid all the noise, there is silence because another race is taking place and everyone stops to watch it, athletes and media as one, on one of the many monitors that hang from the ceiling or rest on the floor.
The crescendo from the stadium outside is electric, a new champion has been crowned and after the lap of honour, a lap around the mixed zone. Has he come through yet? cries one reporter. I think I can see him, says another.
The process starts again.
Some journalists are assigned just to interviewing and they spend the whole of the championships in the zone, without seeing a single event live.
While others will be there just to watch, to sample the atmosphere, see the body movement and the reaction…whether it be tears, cheers, pain, gain, glory, anger, celebration and realisation.
Edmonton will be no different...but just watch out for those cameras!