Obscure countries at 2010 Games face hurdles getting press

by Michael Bociurkiw

VANCOUVER (HN, Feb 17) - While the USA Canada, Japan and other industrialized countries receive wall-to-wall media coverage at the 2010 Winter Games, the small, impoverished countries are mostly sidelined by the mainstream press.

Sadly, it is only when an unexpected medal win - or tragedy - occurs when the media spotlight temporarily veers to cover the dozens of unreported countries. On Day One of the Games it took the horrific death of a Georgian luge athlete in the Whistler Sliding Centre to catapult Georgia into the headlines. And a Tajik skier ended up in an AP wire story - for the fact that he ended last in the Men's Downhill races on Monday.

Mongolian journalist Bayar Jargal told HUM News in an interview that his remote country rarely gets major international attention. Though the recent discovery of natural resources has triggered a stampede to major companies to the mountainous country.

For athletes from such countries as Armenia, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, finding the sponsorships and facilities to smooth their way to the medal stand is an enormous challenge. Even when they do get within striking distance of the Olympics, qualifying rounds, a lack of funding and restricted access to practice runs threatens to keep them at home. The Icelandic Olympic Team would not be in Vancouver had a Canadian bio-energy firm not stepped in at the last minute with emergency sponsorship support.

“There’s two groups of people: there’s the haves and the have-nots,” Rubén González, 47, a member of the Argentine luge team who finished in last place in the men’s singles luge competition Sunday told The New York Times.

One major reason for the lack of attention on the smaller countries is that many do not have a permanent presence by western news agencies - such as Reuters, the AP and Bloomberg. There are about a dozen countries at the 2010 Games that find themselves in this so-called geographic gap. They include: Armenia, Andorra, Ghana, Moldova, North Korea and San Marino.

Jargal of Mongolia said that, because of tight budgets, there are only three Mongolian outlets covering the Vancouver Games. The Liechtenstein team said no local TV outlets followed them to Vancouver, so they are filling the news gap back home with Facebook updates and emails to friends and family.

Some countries are relative newcomers to the Winter Olympics. Armenia, which just has four athletes competing, has only been in four previous winter games. Two of the four have already competing and did not come close to any medal wins.