The layers of the Olympic Games

I'm discovering that the Olympic Games - summer and winter - are all about layers.

In the summer, you put on layers of clothes when you go inside to what is invariably a freezing cold air-conditioned room. In the winter, you put on layers of clothes when you go outside, and extra layers when you head out to a venue.

It's also a world of tribes, divided by brightly-coloured jackets. The Dutch in vibrant orange, the Aussies in yellow and green, the Brits in blue. Then there's the organising committee staff and volunteers, this time in grey with lots of orange and pink highlights. Those of us who are working for the International Olympic Committee are in red and navy. The Olympic Broadcast Service are, as ever, looking classy in dark green and grey. Some of the big press agencies have matching jackets too; it's a veritable rainbow of colours out there.

As I found in Rio, and to a lesser extent in London, the Olympic bubble is fairly all-encompassing. Even though here in PyeongChang we are mostly eating in the restaurants which normally form part of the ski resorts where the Games are being held, instead of in workforce canteens, I spend my days surrounded by people wearing Olympic uniforms and Olympic accreditation, and going from venue to press centre to accommodation on the official media transport buses.

I've been here four days now, arriving on Sunday from Seoul on the very efficient fast KTX train, being shuttled to my accommodation on a bus on which I was the only passenger. I then visited the IOC uniform centre to be kitted out in several layers of uniform, packed in a suitcase, all designed to keep us toasty warm throughout the Games. So far the toastiness level has been sufficient, although the gear hasn't yet been tested properly and I'm worried my toes will get cold! I'm told that the ski jump venue is the coldest place here and we're there this evening (Thursday) as the qualification rounds get underway so I guess I'll find out how many layers I really need to wear.

It's interesting comparing the winter games to the summer ones. Of course from the British perspective there's less awareness of the winter Olympics, mainly because we're just better at the summer sports - although Team GB has a good chance in several sports.

The snowboard and freestyle skiing venue

From my own personal point of view I know far less about winter sports. I attribute this a) to growing up as a swimmer, and then becoming a rower; b) to the aforementioned lack of coverage of winter sport in the UK apart from that great BBC programme Ski Sunday; c) to never going skiing as a kid (thanks Mum and Dad). So everything is a learning curve as I find out how various sports are judged, the jargon used and so on. Despite this, I'm not too worried about my ability to do the job as the basics of being a journalist and asking decent questions are the same as ever.

From a practical angle, so far PyeongChang isn't that different from Rio or London. Same signs and Olympic and sponsor logos everywhere, same buzz as people greet old friends, same rules on security, same helpful volunteers everywhere. The major difference here is that much of the infrastructure is existing, with extensive use of hotels and conference centres which normally welcome the Korean skiing public at this time of year. Obviously that's a really good thing from a legacy and cost perspective.

Anyway, it's time to head off to the ski jump venue again (after a recce this morning to watch the men training). My Games are about to properly begin!