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The tripod mix-up that nearly led to police action

It all started with a Winter Olympics press conference...

A late tale has emerged from the Beijing Winter Olympics involving a tripod and an apparent mix-up that nearly triggered police action.

The Australian reports after a group press conference at the so-called “icy knoll” in Zhangjiakou, ABC’s Tracey Holmes sent a message on WhatsApp to a group of Australian journalists.

“If anyone at the doorstop with the medallists finds they have accidentally packed up an extra mic stand, it is probably ours … thanks heaps,” she wrote.

But the next day she wrote, “We have seen the security footage and know who took our tripod by accident. Please bring it back to the media centre so we don’t have to send a screenshot.’’

The article reports a Nine cameraman denied he had stolen the tripod, but picked it up from the press conference, thinking it was part of Nine’s gear.

However the twist in the tale is that Holmes’ cameraman — a local Chinese freelancer — had to work extremely hard to prevent Olympic security officials getting the local police involved.

The story could only be reported once the Aussies had all left China.

4 Responses

  1. You mean Channel 9 actually sent someone over for that lost fortnight? I don’t know why. Public interest in the Winter Olympics is minimal to say the least and nine should have left seven alone to fulfil their contractual obligation to cover it when as we all know they only wanted the summer games, and that the Winter Olympics is a problem child they were forced to take in when they signed the contract with the IOC

      1. Agreed James. Plus seven reportedly (IOC nor Seven commented as far as I recall) only paid $20mill for these games as compensation for the delay of 2020 Summer games.

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