The Organising Authority recruited the help of the China national lottery board today to help make the equipment draw - for RS:X windsurfers for the men and women, and the Laser and the Laser Radial, men and women, which is all supplied by the host city - this morning in the beautiful administration centre here at the Olympic Sailing Venue. Though by the time they got half way through I think they wished they hadn't!
Because there were more boats and boards (as in windsurf boards) to be allocated to the various national teams than there are balls in the normal lottery draw a special set of balls each with numbers on had been provided. However, the specification of these special balls was obviously different from the normal ones, as after a few cycles of ball picking the lottery machine ground to a halt with a broken ball stuck in the exit chute.
Hurriedly a replacement ball was found and the number of its deceased cousin written on it by hand, by the overseeing representative from ISAF (International Sailing Federation). This happened a second time, and the organisers got more and more nervous. They had adopted this new approach of draw replacing the traditional form where each competitor approaches the stage to make their own draw tombola style.
All those present thought that the traditional format should be used in future; none of this fancy lottery machine malarkey. Hope the sole representative, LOCOG - London 2012 - was taking notes!
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