Gin, oatcakes, mask - Rhona McLeod on the practicalities of covering the Olympics

While sports journalism is all too often still male-dominated, former BBC Scotland presenter Rhona McLeod is one of the reporters who is in Tokyo for the Olympic Games.

Here, in what was originally sent as a Facebook post for family and friends, she gives an insider’s guide into what life is like covering the major sporting event - from endless temperature checks to interviews in nine languages and ensuring supplies of gin and oatcakes.

Some of the kit needed to cover the Olympics

When I go to these big sporting events there are always lovely offers from friends to carry my bags or do my make-up, so I decided to show the story of what it’s like with a little bit of Olympic reporter lifestyle info.

I am not here with the BBC, I am with Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS). We provide all the TV pictures you see and send these pictures out to the world - over 200 countries and an audience of kazillions.

Rights holders like the BBC receive our sport action pictures but may send their own reporters to do interviews and features. There are many countries who do not have this luxury and so we do unbiased reports for all countries and report all the medallists and featured athlete stories for all nations. In my first night doing interviews at taekwondo I conducted nine interviews in nine languages. 

A great deal of time in my day is spent making friends from foreign places to help me ask questions and translate answers. We also have cards provided with sports questions in loads of languages - these are our last resort.

My home at the hotel when I am away from all the excitement of the sport is a very small bedroom with a super comfortable bed for me and another for all my technical stuff - phones (UK and Japan), laptop, iPad, archiving tablet for interviews, cables, converters, the foreign language cards, my mask supply and some clothes. OBS provide us with uniforms ( trousers, shorts, t shirts, rain jacket, hat) so there is very little clothes packing required which I love.

My bag was packed with mainly food, and a few home comforts like gin and chocolate. Oatcakes and peanut butter are my energy snacks for long days at work with lots of walking.

There is no wardrobe, so the room is a mess with only four hooks for hanging space. At the door is my most important stuff - I cannot leave the room without my accreditation and a mask. We also have our temperature taken at the venue to gain entry. If it’s 37.5C you are turned away. My scariest moment was 37.2C, but it was an incredibly hot day.

My bathroom is tiny but quite cute. The bath is a wee egg shaped thing which looks terrible but actually is very comfortable and ecologically sound. The toilets everywhere have a number of suggestions for spraying water into every orifice! Too scared to try anything so far.

Having been here for a while now, we are tested for Covid every four days - it was daily in the beginning. I am very fortunate to have a great pal and cameraman in Grega Kos from Slovenia. He is learning lots of Scottish words and has a fantastic accent especially when he says words like bahoochie. Last night he learned ‘ma heid‘s nippin’ after a particularly challenging day.

There will be more from the sport another time, or possibly on my return. Everyone is very sensitive to the Games and their presence in Japan, so social media content featuring athletes and venues is strictly controlled.

Sayonara!