Beijing 2022: OBS CEO Yiannis Exarchos on the Challenges and Innovations at the Winter Games By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director
Thursday, February 3, 2022 - 9:42 am
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Yiannis Exarchos has been CEO of Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS) following the Olympic Games London 2012, after having served as a top executive for all Olympic host broadcasting organizations since Athens 2004. He recently gave an interview for the OBS Media Guide laying out his thoughts concerning the unusual planning of the Beijing 2022 Games and the key broadcast innovations.
Yiannis Exarchos, OBS, CEO
Welcome back to China. This will be your second Olympics in Beijing. What first comes to mind when remembering the 2008 Games, from a personal and a broadcast standpoint?
It is great to be back in Beijing and China. I lived here for three and a half years before Beijing 2008, and I am extremely fond of the city. In 2008, I had the pleasure of experiencing the most spectacular change of a city there has ever been. It was fascinating to see, but so was getting to know the Chinese people and their culture.
The Games of 2008 were China's welcoming party to the world, and we all witnessed what China and Beijing were capable of when organizing a worldwide event. Now, China is an established power, and will become the first to host a Summer and a Winter Games.
From a broadcasting perspective, Beijing 2008 was the first time that the Games were distributed in High Definition (HD), and the first time we produced a little bit of digital content, at a time when most of the platforms we now use didn't exist. Now, we have transitioned to Ultra High Definition (UHD) High Dynamic Range (HDR) and are equally focused on traditional television and digital broadcasting.
The preparations for Beijing 2022 haven't been conventional, considering that the past two years encompassed a global pandemic, travel restrictions and the postponement of Tokyo 2020, leaving only six months between Games. How has OBS remained agile in adapting to a constantly changing environment and been able to deliver and plan back-to-back Games?
Obviously, it has been a highly complex environment from a planning and execution point of view. As host broadcaster, OBS had to deal with two Olympic Games and two Paralympic Games happening within seven months of each other. So, it means four huge
Games operations happening in a concentrated period of time. Planning has not been straightforward because our teams couldn't travel to Japan or China for a long time. China has pursued a successful zero COVID-19 policy, but that meant gaining access and entry was difficult. We weren't able to do some of the usual things we do when you can travel, but we were able to get a few people on the ground to work alongside the Beijing 2022 Organizing Committee. We also fast-tracked our remote planning tool, and then it was a case of planning properly for the entire implementation of the Games, both Tokyo 2020 and Beijing 2022. We began work on the fit-out of the Beijing 2022 International Broadcast Centre (IBC) three weeks before the start of Tokyo 2020. Preparing for these Games has been a unique challenge, but I'm happy to say that we are in very good shape ahead of the Beijing 2022 Opening Ceremony.
Tokyo 2020 proved that delivering a safe and successful large-scale event is possible, thanks to the principles laid out in the Playbook. How have the principles in the Beijing 2022 Playbook evolved to meet the zero COVID-19 strategy in China?
We know now that Tokyo 2020 was not just extremely successful, but extremely safe with 33 positive cases among the 11,300 athletes, and 464 among tens of thousands of accredited stakeholders. That success can be attributed to the implementation of the Playbook and the countermeasures that were put in place, notably those introduced by OBS for the Rights Holding Broadcasters (RHBs) activities at the venues. For Beijing 2022, the greater build-up time means that we have refined some of those measures, to provide better working conditions for the broadcasters. However, we have also had to consider the conditions laid out by the Chinese government. It has been a highly complex environment from a planning and execution point of view The Playbooks have been developed jointly by Beijing 2022, the IOC and the IPC, in close collaboration with the Chinese Government and other relevant authorities. They are based on the extensive work of an international working group and collaboration with scientific experts and organizations from across the world. They include sport-specific regulations, which build upon the experience of the International Federations, other sports organizers and the measures implemented during the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. The Chinese have been able to create a loop system which houses all the resources in a very safe Olympic environment. It has been in operation for a few weeks, and it is working very well. It is easy to follow, so everyone can have confidence that they will be able to perform their job while at the Games.
What challenges and opportunities in your planning come from having three competition zones?
We are accustomed to working with numerous competition zones, especially at the Winter Games, and what really helps bridge the distance from Beijing to the Yanqing and Zhangjiakou zones is the new high-speed rail system, which has brought the mountains so much closer to Beijing. Whereas it was a three-to four-hour car journey, now it is a fraction of the time by train. The mountain venues have been built for the Games and have already hosted highly successful test events. I expect the spectacular locations - from the space-age looking ski jumping facility to the beauty of the ski runs to the revitalized industrial Shougang Park - will wow a global audience and create
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Beijing 2022: OBS CEO Yiannis Exarchos on the Challenges and Innovations at the Winter Games By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director 
