Moment of boredom led Megan to become Olympic volunteer

As many of the best adventures begin, with boredom being the starting point, Megan McGlone found her self staring at the Google symbol on her laptop not knowing that around two years later she would be spending two months in Paris as an official at the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Having been introduced to the sport of Taekwondo by Martin O’Hare, who runs Tyrone TKD, nine years ago, the Aughnacloy woman has reached black belt level and has proved herself to be equally adept on the mats and off them as a volunteer.

And she felt that experience on both sides of the sport would stand her in good stead as she began the lengthy process of applying to volunteer in Paris this past summer.

“I was really bored one evening. I was supposed to be studying and I started thinking ‘I wonder where the next Olympics are going to be?’ It showed up on Google that they were going to be in Paris, so I thought ‘that’s fairly close to me’ and right underneath it it said ‘open for volunteers next week’ or something,” she explained.

“So I thought ‘why not?’ and there was an online application thing you had to do with your name, when you were available and you had to write a personal statement kind of thing, if you had any experience in any sports, so I put down Taekwondo obviously and then you had to put down if you had ever volunteered before and I had.

“ There’s the likes of the Northern Irish and Scottish Opens in Taekwondo and I had helped out in some of those before and honestly, I preferred volunteering to actually competing. It’s really fun having grown-ups referring to you as ma’am and asking permission to use the toilet when you’re 14 [her age when she first officiated].”

After the online portion of her application had been completed, she had to undertake a ‘skills test’ but after nine months she hadn’t heard back from the Games organisers and naturally assumed she hadn’t been successful.

Then, just before boarding her flight home for Christmas in December 2023 she received a notification on her phone, which she decided to ignore until her old friend boredom again intervened.

“I had to do a skills test to see what I would be suited to do at the Games, which department I would be in. That was in March 2023 and the last possible day to hear back was December 21st, 2023 and I was literally coming home from uni and I got a notification on my phone saying I had an email from volunteer@paris,” she explained.

“I immediately thought it was a rejection so I wouldn’t open it. I was sitting there in the duty free area for a couple of hours and then curiosity got the better of me and I was also bored so I thought ‘fine, I’ll read this rejection email’.

“It was quite funny because I had been telling my Mum and Dad about applying for it and as the months went on I stopped mentioning it because I was sure I wasn’t getting it but the email wasn’t rejection, it was that I had earned a place at the Olympics.

“It was funny when I came back because Dad picked me up at the airport and when we got home Mum had made dinner for me and they were chatting, asking about my flight and all. I let them go through all their stories in the months that I was gone [at university in Dundee] and then I mentioned ‘by the way, I’m going to the Olympics!’”

Once she had accepted the offer of a volunteering place in Paris, 23-year-old Megan received another email from the event organisers, which came across like a message in a Mission Impossible movie, requesting her to undertake some training at home and in the French capital prior to the Olympics getting underway.

“The organisers gave me a ‘mission’, which is what they call it. ‘Accept your mission’ was the way they put it and they had put me into the timing and scoring team for Taekwondo and they told me the dates, they told me about the online training that I had to do and complete and then there was going to be on-site training in the July that we had to be available for,” Megan added.

“So, I did all the online training, which was standard stuff about being nice to people and then I went over to Paris in July and by that time I was done with Uni for the year anyway. I had to quickly collect my accreditation so I would be allowed access to the building for training initially.

“I was based in the Grand Palais, which hadn’t been open to the public for years, so we got a tour, got to meet the team and then went back home to wait until August.”

During her time back home, Megan was able to look on as the fencing competition took place in the Grand Palais, which allowed organisers to iron out any issues with the different systems in place before her work began.

And it’s probably a good thing too, given the level of responsibility she ended up handling, which was above and beyond what she was expecting before moving to Paris for the Games.

Initially, Megan thought she would be doing a very basic job in the Grand Palais, but that changed and changed quickly.

“I showed up there thinking I’d be doing pretty simple stuff like holding up signs telling people which way to go,” she explained.

“But whenever we got there, they were like ‘we have a list of people who have done Taekwondo before’ and the lady, my supervisor asked one of the girls if she was comfortable with the rules and scoring in Taekwondo and she was like ‘it’s been a while’ so she went to the next person and they said they did a different style of Taekwondo and then she came to me and before she even finished asking I was like ‘YES!’.”

That decision led to Megan being trained by the Omega specialists from South Korea as she learned how to control the cameras, scoring system and the TV screens in the auditorium

“I was doing the video replays and stuff like that so I had to make sure that on the TV screens that the thousands of spectators could see. I was responsible for changing the scoreboards on it, changing the camera angles – I was given a lot more power than I thought I was going to get!,” she beamed.

“It was very intense and very high paced but I loved it.”

Having decided to learn some Korean during another spell of boredom one evening, Megan ingratiated herself with the Omega team so much that she was given even more responsibility as the Taekwondo tournament went on.

“I was in charge of the semi-finals and beyond but when I was being trained they were like ‘don’t worry, you won’t have too much responsibility. You will have another person there beside you’,” she added.

“But on the first day I showed up the other guy was sick so they said ‘OK, we have 15 minutes, so we’ll train you how to do the harder stuff’.

“There was only 15 minutes before the first semi-final match so it was a case of sink or swim and they asked if I was comfortable looking after the medals ceremonies as well and I was like ‘sure, I might as well when I’m here’.

“It was so insane and then they guy who was sick showed up the next day but the team I was with, which was a Korean team given it’s a Korean sport, and because I was bored one day I decided to learn a bit of Korean.

“They figured that out, so at the start of every session I would have to say ‘let’s begin’ or ‘good luck everyone’ in Korean through the microphone and when the boy came back they told him ‘we’re fine with Megan, you can go downstairs’.”

Megan thoroughly enjoyed her time in Paris, excelling under intense pressure in the process and when the offer came for her to stay for an additional month to help at the Paralympics she didn’t hesitate. In fact, she’s already considering re-applying for the LA Games in four years time!

“I’d definitely recommend volunteering at the Olympics, I don’t regret it one bit,” she beamed.

“I was showing up to work early I was that excited! The LA Games [in 2028], honestly, I loved it so much, who knows.”

Before then, Megan will have completed her mathematics degree in Scotland and her Masters, which she will begin next year, and during her time off from university she will continue to train, coach and volunteer and coach the sport she has embraced since being introduced to it at the age of 14.

“I went to St Ciaran’s College in Ballygawley and I was doing the Duke of Edinburgh Award, which requires you to learn a new skill,” she explained. “I was trying to figure out what to do and then In PE one day, Martin O’Hare came and took a PE class with us but doing Taekwondo and at the end of the class he mentioned that a Ballygawley club was starting up in the school and me and a group of other girls decided to join up.

“I think about seven of us started but I was the only one still standing and I got a black belt.

“I like both sides of it – competing and volunteering. When I’m home for summer, I train in Armagh with Janine Forrest and I sometimes take a couple of classes with the younger ones because I’m a black belt.

“I love Taekwondo and if it wasn’t for starting it way back I wouldn’t be doing half the things I’ve done.”