Sochi Olympics – the world’s largest sport festival – are over, and so are the days of hard work for the interpreters – the School’s trainers and students. From dawn till dark they worked intensively moving from one Olympic venue to another providing linguistic support at numerous press conferences, briefings, team captains’ meetings, IOC consultations. 18 School trainers and graduates (20.5 % of the total number of interpreters assigned to the Sochi Olympics), together with their colleagues from other regions of Russia interpreted simultaneously from English, French, German, Chinese. This is the roll call: trainers Sergei Yakovlev, Alexei Pago, Boris Pogodin, Ekaterina Shutova, Oxana Yakimenko, Ekaterina Trefiliova, Irina Alexeeva, Genady Skvortsov, and graduates Karina Laktionova, Olga Krylova, Elizaveta Myshenkova, Anna Balashova, Grigory Khaustov, Olga Titova, Olga Novikova, Elena Zheltova, Olga Fomicheva.
Slalom, ski-cross, half pipe, ice hockey, ski race, biathlon, figure skating, bobsleigh, skeleton – all these sports have their specific terminology, and the interpreters had to master it all. Some of the interpreters came as real experts: Ekaterina Shutova, a long-time fan of figure skating. Privy to all technicalities of this sport she was able to crack most challenging technical statements of trainers and sportsmen. The School students were assigned to specific sport events as volunteer interpreters. They were also up to the challenge as one of them, Vadim Ermolenko, was offered a contract by the Vice President of Curling Federation to interpret for the Paralympic Games. One trainer, Boris Pogodin, even managed to find time slots to give training sessions and warm-ups to the students
in venue press centers. Overall, the Olympic organizing committee expressed satisfaction at the interpreters’ work.
Now that we have received valuable experience and an energy boost we can get back to routine studies!