it leaves me speechless.

I was speechless. I stood there and I watched the chaos that was the mixed zone. I was helpless; I was speechless. They had practiced the medal ceremonies a hundred times, but they forgot one thing. You know, that large group of people that let the rest of the world know what is happening. No one knew what was going on or how to fix it. There was a mad rush at the gates and the once-organized journalists flooded into the mixed zone only to be herded behind another fence. It probably didn't help that the competing teams in the gold-medal game were China and the Netherlands...Let me start at the beginning.

There are three things that happen after the gold-medal match: the mixed zone, the medal ceremony and the press conference. At the last minute, 15 seconds before the end of the game, the competition manager decides that the medal ceremony should happen first. The journalists, unaware of this split-second change in plans, think someone is holding them up at the gates that would normally open when the game was over. A few volunteers help to create a human gate, but it doesn't last for long. The journalists break through and are herded into a square corral. They can tell by now that the medal ceremony has taken the place of the mixed zone. A calm starts to settle... until the competition manager changes his mind again. Mixed zone is ON! We remove the gates barring the "press" and "broadcast" sections. Normally the journalists aren't supposed to mix, but there is no way to avoid it this time. People scatter. We, as volunteers, try to organize them and piss many off in the process. Well, I do. The Chinese volunteers don't do much because of their passive attitude. The mixed zone proceeds, but is cut sort because the medal ceremony has to start. Another "oh shit" moment occurs as the host broadcasters realize that the journalists in the mixed zone are in the way of the camera view of the flagpoles where the winning team's flag was going to be risen. The journalists are herded (angrily, on their part) away from the camera's reach. We move the mini fences too. When the ceremony is over, we give the journalists another shot at their desired athletes in the mixed zone, but people are so mixed together now that no one really cares. Uncredentialed volunteers are running around taking pictures, climbing on the podiums and creating all kinds of unprofessional havoc, the journalists are pissed about the disorganization and our supervisors are nowhere to be seen. We have two medal ceremony nights in Olympic Field Hockey. This was one of them, and I hope that the last shot at it is 5 million times better.