I am acutely aware that some readers may think I live a glamorous life trotting around the globe. I do not always feel the need to dispel this myth and must admit I am incredibly fortunate to have these wonderful opportunities. On the face of it, working at the European Games in Baku sounds like another one of those trips.
The last week I have had the pleasure of commentating on numerous gold medal performances by British athletes in both triathlon and diving. TeamGB ended up dominating in the diving pool, overtaking Russia on the medal table on the closing night and the divers won a total of four European Games titles at this junior event. You can imagine how exciting this has been for a Brit to commentate on. The real challenge has been remaining neutral. The feed is going out at home on BT Sport but I am working for the international host broadcaster and we are very clearly instructed to show no bias at any point.
The sports I am covering are all roughly linked to my background in Modern Pentathlon; triathlon being a multi sport event and diving - well I guess it is water based? For the next five days I'm remaining poolside for a busy programme of swimming; a junior event and hopefully another chance to see the Union flag on the podium.
I do, however, have a small confession to make; this trip couldn’t actually be further from glamorous. It doesn't involve me touring around the lively city of Baku attending all the competition venues. Quite the opposite, I am spending most of the daylight hours in a small windowless box. The broadcast is all being transmitted from the International Broadcast Centre and therefore all commentators are watching and reacting to the feed from a studio doing their best to bring the event to life.
