Spectators puzzled over rescheduled games
Spectators watch the archery recurve events from under umbrellas at the Gwangju International Archery Center, Wednesday. / Courtesy of GUOC
By Nam Hyun-woo
GWANGJU ― Outdoor games are being rescheduled or relocated due to rain at the 2015 Gwangju Universiade, leaving spectators perplexed about when and where to go to.
On Thursday, the men’s tennis singles quarterfinal match between Korea’s Chung Hyeon and Marat Deviatiarov of Ukraine was scheduled for 9 a.m. at the Jinwol International Tennis Court.
However, due to drizzling rain organizers took a lot of time to decide whether to relocate the match. After a fuss, they decided to postpone the match for two hours.
The confusion continued until 8 a.m. and the match eventually started at 10:30 a.m. after the court was drained and dried.
The organizers notified journalists and photographers about the change through KakaoTalk messages, but spectators were not notified and ended up waiting in the rain.
The situation was worse Wednesday. Chung’s fourth-round match against Martin Redlicki was relocated to the Yeomju Indoor Tennis Court from the Jinwol Court, but word of the change did not get circulated and a number of photographers and spectators ended up waiting at the empty Jinwol Court.
The KakaoTalk chat room crowded with more than 140 reporters, photographers and Universiade organizers has been swamped with reporters’ questions about rain-driven rescheduling every day.
“We manage to deliver any changes to the media,” said Gwangju Universiade Organizing Committee (GUOC) press secretary You Ji-hyun. “But there is a problem in notifying spectators directly about rescheduling or relocating. Currently we inform them through our website and through our Facebook page.”
The organizers guarantee 100 percent refunds in cases of relocation or rescheduling. However, spectators say they are disappointed and annoyed about wasting their time.
The organizers said they want to avoid making last-minute changes to the initial games schedule, thus they watch the weather situation and the technical director from the International University Sports Federation, which sanctions the student games, makes the call.
“Since the weather changes are something we cannot control, there isn’t much we can do about the spectators’ inconvenience,” said an official at the GUOC, adding that the organizing committee will try to reschedule events earlier.