12th IAAF World Track & Field Championships Berlin, Germany August 15 - 23rd, 2009 John Nepolitan on site
Day 3 – Time to be a tourist and then to business
The meet starts tomorrow morning with the opening session which will include heats in the men’s 100 and women’s 400, so we dive right into the action. Since most of the days are taken up from the time I get up in the morning till I crash yesterday (Friday August 14th) was the last day I would really have to play tourist.
First thing in the morning I did have to run out to the stadium (5 train stops away so about 10 -15 minutes door to door) to see the people from Canon camera. At major events like these World Championships and the Olympics Canon and Nikon, the two major forces in photography, have booths set up where you can borrow equipment or they will clean and fix your cameras free of charge. I needed a new eye piece on one of my cameras so they replaced that easy and then I left 1 camera with them for an hour so they can clean and give it a general check up. Since I change lenses constantly it leaves the inner workings of the camera open to getting dust in there so a good professional cleaning is needed every year or so. When at home I could drive 1 hour south to a Canon facility in New Jersey, but then it would be unsure how long I would have to wait. Here they get it back to you in 1 hour which was great so I could hit the town.
So once I got the one camera back I was off to get a better look at the city of Berlin. This is not the first time I was here, back in 1989 I was here when I worked for the track equipment company UCS. On that trip I landed in Oslo went to the meet there, then took the train to Stockholm for another meet. Then took a long train ride through Denmark and then overnight through Communist East Germany with the goal of reaching West Berlin.
History lesson time – For those who are not sure what I am talking about when I say East and West Germany or East and West Berlin – following World War II Germany and Berlin were split into 4 sections – UK, France, USA and the Soviet Union (USSR). The UK, USA and France combined their zones to form the democracy of West Germany and West Berlin. The section controlled by the USSR was turned into Communist East Germany and East Berlin. The one small problem was that the city of Berlin was totally inside East Germany, so an democratic island in the middle of hostile communist territory. In the early 1960’s the USSR to stop the flow of people from East to West put up the Berlin Wall which stayed up until the nation was re-unified in the early 1990’s.
Now back to the action – So the train I was on would to go through communist East Germany. I had a small cabin on the train that slept two – the train company would sell the other bed in there to anybody. The person that bought the other ticket never showed so I had a cabin to myself. Once we crossed into East Germany a conductor came around and collected our passports – going into a communist nation hostile to the USA was not a place I wanted to be without my passport, but the people in the next cabin told me that they would bring it back after they copied all the info out of it. They also said that it would happen in the middle of the night. Sure enough the same conductor knocked on my door at 2 am and threw my passport at me then moved on. Next thing I know it is 8am and we are rolling to a stop. Looking outside my window I saw 100’s of solders with machine guns. Soon after there was another knock on the door and in walked two soldiers with guns. As one searched the cabin high and low for somebody trying to slip across to the West the other soldier, about 17 years old, stood stone faced with the gun pointed at me. After a few minutes they walked out and onto the next cabin. Meanwhile outside the train soldiers and dogs were searching below and on top of the train for stowaways. After about a one hour search of the train we were slowly moving over the border into the West. A few days later I would go back over to the East for a meet, and would see the stark difference between the two sides. The best way to describe it is if you ever saw the movie “The Wizard of Oz” – the West was like Oz all bright and colorful while the west was like the showed Kansas in the movie – black and white dull and depressed.
Photos of the wall from the west looking east from my 1989 trip
Ok I have gotten off track, something boys in my history classes at Don Bosco Prep in NJ will tell you I do from time to time – wait I am doing it again, So after getting back one of my cameras I was off to the city to play tourist. Since my time was limited and I wanted to see a lot, I jumped on a city circle tour bus. For a little more than $20 you jump on a double decker bus that goes around town and makes 15 stops, You can jump on and off as often as you want all day long. Also as the bus goes a tape (in one of 8 languages) tells you all about what you are going by and what is coming up. I planned to jump off at a few places and the first stop was Potsdamer Platz which is right about where the wall crossed through the city. A short walk around for a few photos and it was back on the bus as it passed into the old Eastern half of the city. It was not long we were at Check Point Charlie – one of the main crossing points during the Cold War years when the city was split. They have kept the old guardhouse and the rest of the area is a bit commercial, it was still fun to visit. Back on the bus as we go past all the new building going on in the city, remember this city was almost completely leveled 60 years ago so it is still building and with the nation be re-unified it had another boost in building. The next stop would be back near the Brandenburg Gate was and a chance to pick up some meet souvenirs and a walk over to the new Reichstag or Parliament building. It was then back on the bus to ride past other great sights I did need to get back to the stadium since I had to attend the photographers briefing and pick up my bib.
The briefing was uneventful they just tell us where we can and cannot go. Meets like the USATF, Olympic Trials and World Champs are not like your average meet in the USA where I can wonder where ever I want. Here there are two levels of photographers and even us 2nd level folk are still limited there where we can and cannot go If you watch on TV and see the red bibs – they can go pretty much anywhere and there are a very limited number of those. The rest of us(the black bibs - I am #99 fi you happen to see some of us), over 200, can shoot from any seat in the stadium as long as nobody is in it. They do have a small area head on in the final straightaway but they gets crowded very fast. The front row all the way around the stadium is also set aside for us black vests. Some people here are upset. Me, I feel hey I get to watch the greatest meet from the front row. I never get to sit and take photos. It is usually hours of standing, squatting, kneeling at meets, so for me this is great. Also I can only get what they allow me so why get all upset.
Following the briefing it was off to a special BBQ hosted by the Frankfurt Marathon for a small select group, Besides the meet director and director of promotions there was also a few other USA media people and the elite athlete coordinator of the Vienna Marathon, a rep from the Frankfurt Marathon sponsor Asics, Pat Butcher author of “The Perfect Distance” the story of two of the greatest milers of all time Seb Coe and Steve Ovett, and Jim O’Brien from the NYAC.
After a long day and a great meal it was time for bed – the long days start tomorrow.
History lesson time
