The fourth in the series here about the seven summer Olympics Keith has broadcast from from 1972-2004. In August 2008 Keith will be reporting for TVNZ at his eighth games.

1988 in Seoul was Keith Quinn's fourth Olympics and in part two of a two part series Keith recalls that a lady from Channel 9 in Australia proves to be more than helpful.

Quinn: Memories of Seoul - part one

By 1988 I had relinquished the role of Southern Editor which TVNZ had had for me in Los Angeles four years earlier. I was back fulltime as a reporter/commentator and I relished being back doing what I preferred. Lincoln and I were at the swimming again and we watched in awe as Kristin Otto and Matt Biondi took home great personal hauls (six gold medals for Otto in three stroke events and five gold's, one silver and one bronze for Biondi)

In the diving there was a gasp of horror one day when the great American Greg Louganis cracked his head on the board as he executed one of his dives. The pool ran with blood for a few seconds. Not a good sight.

If there was one light moment I recall from Seoul it came when, as in Montreal years earlier, I wandered into our TV studio one night just to see how things were going for the crew. I had the evening off or something like that. But like all producers at the Olympics I was immediately grasped, this time by Kevin Cameron, and pushed towards an off-tube commentary booth.

Kevin, the overall Games Producer told me told that the fellow who had been originally assigned to do the women's table tennis final was in another booth commentating on a lengthy volleyball five-setter. So I was given the task. Kevin said the commentary was to go to a massive world English-language audience across Asia and the Indian sub-continent. I gulped and despite saying that "I don't know anything about table tennis," the job was mine.

So what was I to do? It was only ten minutes till the game started. I had no knowledge of who was who of the personalities in the final. The two combatants were Chen Jing and Li Huifen.

But every half-good commentator has to have his wits about him at all times. I remembered that our Aussie mates from Channel Nine had their studio next door to ours and they had a fully staffed research office. I knew that because I had noted the smashing looking blonde behind the desk of that office. So I rushed down the hall to see if she was there.

She was and I'll never forget her. She batted her baby-blue eyes at me and said, "Sure Keith, Why you can borrow our whole table tennis file. We're not doing that final, so why don't you take it with you?"

I should have vaulted the desk and hugged her. Instead I uplifted her large, bulging folder of files and papers which was a veritable goldmine of background on the two finalists. There was a swag of background notes, research, profiles and even a glossary of table tennis terms.

Minutes later I spread out the pages in front of me and launched into my very first commentary on world table tennis! And all done with about nine minute's of research time. All thanks to Channel Nine's unwanted research I actually enjoyed the job.

The final touch came months later when I was back home and playing cricket for our local suburban club team. In our team of mates was a man called Merv Allardyce. He mentioned the table tennis commentary I had done from Seoul. "You did a great job Keith, I never knew you had such great knowledge of table tennis." I was really chuffed.

You see, at the time Merv was the CEO of Table Tennis New Zealand.

It was another example of people from the various news media all helping each other for the common good. And part of what made the Seoul Olympics so much fun to do.