During the ISF XI Women's World Championship in Beijing in August-September 2006, people often saw a person, carrying a heavy PC in his hand, hurrying to and fro between the two competition fields and press rooms at Beijing's Fengtai Softball Field. Whenever he was free he would sit down and sort out the information and data he had collected. He was Bruce Wawrzyniak, Director of Communications of the International Softball Federation. When the World Championship was about to conclude Mr Wawrzyniak gave an interview to this reporter, offering his comments on the media service rendered by the event organizing committee in the hope that work in various respects will improve by the time of the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008.

Wawrzyniak regarded the media publicity given to the ISF event as generally satisfactory. However, as regards the preparation for the 2008 Olympic Games, he thought much remained to be done, including the facilities inside the media centre. For instance, he suggested the mixed zone, the press conference rooms and the media passage at the competition fields need to be enlarged to allow many more media people at the Olympic Games-time.

Talking about the screen that was broken by a flying ball in front of the TV camera, Wawrzyniak thought installing the camera at that position was not a problem, but the screen there should be made of a high-strength material to avoid such things happen. Besides, he found that on their way to Competition Field Two journalists had to climb up a very high ladder, which was not appropriate.

Moreover, the ISF official suggested more results boxes be set up, rather than one during this tournament, to provide the media with more information about all the previous games.

He also suggested effective measures be taken to keep different groups of people in their own boxes during the competition. He said during this tournament he often saw some players sat on the press seats, while some written press stood on the photographers' seats or some photographers took pictures in the written press zone. 

To sum up, Wawrzyniak spoke highly of the large number of journalists covering this ISF event and the great enthusiasm they had shown throughout the tournament. He said he had never expected the tournament would attract more than 600 journalists from both Chinese and international media organizations. He was also moved by some Chinese journalists, who were unfamiliar with the softball rules at first but were quick at learning and worked conscientiously and earnestly from early morning till midnight to provide the public with a variety of stories and pictures about the event. As the programme was packed this time, he added, the journalists seldom had the time to relax during the day. So here he would like to take this opportunity to express his appreciation of those media friends' hard work and as well as their contributions to the global development of the sport of softball. (Photo Li Lei)