Press facilities

The Sarajevo 1984 Winter Olympics represented a massive technological leap for Yugoslavia, transforming the city into a global broadcasting hub capable of reaching an estimated two billion viewers. By integrating advanced telecommunications with purpose-built media centers, the organizers ensured that every record-breaking moment was captured, processed, and transmitted across the globe in near real-time.

Fast Facts

Main Press Centre (MPC): Located at the Skenderija Cultural and Sports Centre, covering 7,000 square meters.
International Radio-Television Centre (IRTVC): A 32,000-square-meter facility built for permanent use by RTV Sarajevo.
Total Media Accreditation: 7,852 individuals, including 2,204 journalists and 409 photo-reporters.
Broadcast Reach: Transmissions reached 41 countries and an estimated 2 billion viewers.
Venue Infrastructure: 6 sub-press centres located at Bjelašnica, Jahorina, Igman (Veliko and Malo Polje), Trebević, and Zetra.
Technical Arsenal: 22 OB (Outside Broadcast) vans, 106 cameras, and 30 videotape machines were deployed across the venues.
Commentator Facilities: Over 500 equipped booths were provided for radio and television broadcasters.
Data Systems: The ISOS (Information System of Olympics in Sarajevo) utilized 300 terminals and two IBM mainframe computers.
Telecommunications: Installed infrastructure included 96 phone booths, 50 teleprinters, and 15 facsimile machines at the MPC alone.
Broadcasting Volume: 204 hours of multilateral world-wide TV transmissions were produced by Yugoslav Radio-Television (JRT).

The Global Blueprint: Planning a Media-Centric Olympic City

The transformation of Sarajevo into an Olympic host required a Herculean planning effort that began in earnest in 1978. While the city initially possessed only basic winter sports facilities—a single ice hall and limited trails on Mounts Igman and Jahorina—the requirement for a world-class media infrastructure demanded the construction of 163 major projects. The Sarajevo Olympic Organizing Committee (SOOC) spent two years just assessing these needs, recognizing that the Games' success depended as much on the quality of the "electronic signal" as on the quality of the snow.

The media plan was built around the principle of centralized efficiency. To handle the unprecedented volume of data and imagery, the organizers established a hierarchy of facilities:

A Main Press Centre (MPC) in the city core to serve the written press.
An International Radio-Television Centre (IRTVC) as the technological heart for broadcasters.

Belgrade, Ljubljana, Novi Sad, Priština, Sarajevo, Skopje, Titograd, and Zagreb—pooled their technical personnel and equipment. This collective approach allowed the organizers to guarantee a "technically perfect" coverage of all events, a feat previously unseen in Yugoslav history. By the 1982/83 winter season, five of the eight sub-press centers were already complete and being tested by hundreds of journalists, ensuring the "operational realities" of February 1984 would be met with a seasoned workforce and proven hardware.

The Heart of the Operation: The Main Press Centre at Skenderija

The Main Press Centre (MPC) was the primary base for the written press and news agencies, strategically located in the basement of the newly built Skenderija II hall. Covering an area of 7,000 square meters, the facility was designed for maximum speed; result lists were delivered to journalists’ desks within two minutes of an event's conclusion.

The layout was divided into high-functioning zones to support nearly 1,400 work desks:

Main Work Hall: Featured 350 desks equipped with portable typewriters. The desks were grouped by alphabet and language keyboard to accommodate the international press corps.
Technical Suite: Included 96 telephone cabins, 50 telex machines, and 20 telex-perforators (allowing journalists to prepare their own tapes for transmission).
Agency Offices: 30 world news and photo agencies leased private office spaces within the MPC, equipped with an additional 95 telephones and 64 video-display screens.
Photo-Film Laboratory: A 300-square-meter facility operated by Kodak, which provided free development for both color and black-and-white films.
Support Services: To keep the operation running 24 hours a day, the center included a restaurant with 3,000-meal capacity, a bank, a post office, and a dedicated equipment repair service managed by manufacturers like Nikon.

The MPC also served as the primary briefing hub. The nearby Skenderija Youth Centre (Dom mladih), with its 800-seat amphitheater, hosted twice-daily press conferences where medalists were interviewed immediately following their victory ceremonies on the Skenderija plateau.

The Nerve Centre: Inside the International Radio-Television Centre (IRTVC)

If the MPC was the home of the written word, the International Radio-Television Centre (IRTVC) was the electronic heart of the Games. Housed in a newly constructed 32,000-square-meter building designed for the permanent use of RTV Sarajevo, the facility was a "parallel press centre" dedicated to the needs of the electronic media.

The IRTVC served as the collection point for all video and audio circuits arriving from the mountain and city venues. Here, signals were processed and redistributed into three simultaneous multilateral world programmes, allowing international broadcasters to choose between different live events.

The facility was organized across eight floors of high-tech infrastructure:

Production Hub (7th Floor): Contained the Master Control, VTR (Video Tape Recording) sections with twenty-four 1-inch machines, and control rooms for the three world programmes.
Radio Complex (2nd & 6th Floors): Featured 26 radio studios. Broadcasters like the BBC, ABC, and NHK occupied dedicated studios, while a "Booking Office" managed unequipped facilities for smaller networks.
Commentary Control (8th Floor): Home to the Commentator Switching System, which managed 1,300 circuits to coordinate voice-feeds between the venues and the rest of the world.
Special Services: The building included its own film laboratory, an electronic graphic design unit, and a Teletext editing room where magazines in English and Serbo-Croatian were produced.

To support the 3,600 personnel (1,600 foreign broadcasters and 2,000 Yugoslav experts) working in the building, the IRTVC functioned as a self-contained city, featuring a 400-seat restaurant, a medical dispensary, a bank, and a travel agency.

Reporting from the Peaks: Sub-Press Centres and Venue Infrastructure

To ensure seamless coverage from the often-isolated mountain venues, the organizers established six sub-press centres. These were not merely outposts but fully equipped workspaces that allowed journalists to file reports without returning to the city.

Each venue was assigned to a specific Yugoslav newspaper house to manage operations, ensuring a high level of professional "on-the-ground" expertise:

Venue	Primary Events	Managing Publication	Facility Highlights
Bjelašnica (Babin Do)	Men’s Alpine Skiing	Oslobođenje (Sarajevo)	Purpose-built hexagonal center by Ivan Štraus; 3 floors with 110 desks.
Jahorina	Women’s Alpine Skiing	Politika (Belgrade)	Located in Hotel Jahorina; 70 desks and a dedicated telecom center.
Igman (Veliko Polje)	Cross-Country & Biathlon	Borba (Belgrade)	1,000 sq m space in the new Igman Hotel; 96 desks.
Igman (Malo Polje)	Ski Jumping	Delo (Ljubljana)	600 sq m facility located directly next to the landing area.
Trebević	Bobsleigh & Luge	Dnevnik (Novi Sad)	Situated above Curve 5 of the run; 50 desks and 16 phone booths.
Zetra	Figure/Speed Skating, Hockey	Vjesnik (Zagreb)	100 desks; located 13 km from the Press Village.

Broadcasting from these heights required a massive logistical effort. 22 OB vans were deployed, and over 55 km of special cables were temporarily installed across the rugged terrain to link the 500 commentator booths to the IRTVC. At Bjelašnica, for example, 14 cameras were positioned along the steep Men’s Downhill run to capture every second of the high-speed descent.

Digital Pioneers: The ISOS Network and Telecommunications

The 1984 Games marked a turning point in Olympic history with the introduction of the Information System of Olympics in Sarajevo (ISOS). This modern network, developed by the University Computer Technique Centre (SRCE) in Zagreb, replaced traditional paper-heavy workflows with a wide-scale digital terminal network.

The system relied on two large-capacity IBM computers linked to approximately 300 terminals distributed across venues, press centers, and hotels. This infrastructure served several vital functions:

Instantaneous Results: Data from the measuring instruments (provided by Swiss Timing) was fed directly into the computer memory, allowing results to be printed and distributed in all press centers within seconds.
The Commentator's Edge: Broadcasters were equipped with two monitors; one for the live competition and a second black-and-white screen providing three dedicated channels for start lists, competitor identification, and real-time results tables.
Electronic Mail: For the first time, journalists could utilize an electronic postal service for individual message exchange and official announcements.
Teletext Magazine: A specialized editorial board produced a Teletext magazine in English and Serbo-Croatian, broadcast on three special channels for viewers and media personnel in their lodgings.

The physical telecommunications infrastructure was equally robust. To meet the surge in demand, the PTT (Post, Telegraph, and Telephone) services installed 13,000 telephone and 8,000 telex connections. Specialized equipment from international partners—including Rank Xerox for duplicating, Motorola for radio communications, and Gorenje for TV sets—ensured that the flow of information was both redundant and reliable.

The Daily Workflow: Accreditation, Transport, and Media Logistics

Managing the "largest and most heterogeneous operative group" at the Games required a dedicated residential and logistical ecosystem. The Press Village Dobrinja was constructed specifically to house media personnel, featuring 2,117 housing units with 8,500 beds.

The village functioned as a micro-city with 24-hour services, including:

Centralized Accreditation: An RTV accreditation desk in Dobrinja (Block A II) worked round-the-clock to issue yellow E-RTV cards, which granted media members free access to public transport, ski lifts, and all Olympic workspaces.
The "E" Transport Network: A specialized fleet of 70 buses and 250 cars operated on six dedicated lines (E-1 through E-6). These routes linked the Press Village, the IRTVC, and the mountain venues, with departures timed to coincide with training and competition schedules.
The "First Interview" Workflow: Strict protocols were established for mixed zones. Journalists required special armbands to enter designated zones for the "first interview" with athletes immediately after events.

Operational bottlenecks, such as the need for rapid film transport from the mountains to the city, were solved by special couriers who shuttled unexposed and developed film between the venue sub-centers and the Kodak lab at the MPC. Despite the complexity, the system was noted for its "unique blend of functionality and efficiency" by visiting delegations.

"Everything is Ready": International Press Reactions

The scale and efficiency of the media infrastructure took many international correspondents by surprise. By the eve of the Opening Ceremony, the consensus among the global press corps was that Sarajevo had "surpassed" previous host cities in organizational readiness.

Speed and Connectivity: A correspondent from the Polish newspaper Sztandar Młodych marveled at the technical services, noting, "I got a connection to Poland in just a few seconds."
Organizational Praise: The French publication L’Humanité ran a front-page headline declaring the Games a "record participation" and noted that "everything is excellently organized" to ensure the Olympic holiday proceeded under the best conditions.
Functionality: Visitors from Los Angeles, the hosts of the upcoming 1984 Summer Games, admitted that their "winter friends" had set a high bar for creating a sporting spirit and functional efficiency.
Media Volume: By the end of the Games, the official records showed that journalists had made 20,324 telephone conversations and sent 7,480 telex messages from the various press centers.

Beyond February 1984: The Legacy and Fate of the Media Infrastructure

The organizers intended for every facility to have a "long-lasting life" beyond the closing ceremony. While some buildings fulfilled this promise, others became casualties of the regional conflict in the 1990s.

The IRTVC: The International Radio-Television Centre was designed from the start as the permanent headquarters for Radio-Television Sarajevo. It continues to serve as the hub for public broadcasting in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BHRT) today.
Skenderija: The Main Press Centre space returned to its role as a commercial and cultural hub, hosting fairs, concerts, and sporting events.
The Bjelašnica Press Centre: Architect Ivan Štraus had specifically designed the hexagonal building at Babin Do to transition into a Youth Winter Sports Center. It served this purpose successfully for several years until the Bosnian War. Positioned on a strategic sight-line, the area saw heavy combat; the center was destroyed during the conflict. Its ruins stood for a decade before being demolished in 2005 to make room for new hotel developments.
Press Village Dobrinja: The 2,117 apartments built for journalists were converted into residential housing for the citizens of Sarajevo, fulfilling the city’s long-term urban expansion plan.