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WORLD CUP SOCCER ’94 / THE FIRST ROUND : Spotlight : TALK OF THE TOWN

By HELENE ELLIOTT
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Translators assigned to help teams and reporters in Orlando have earned widespread praise, especially from reporters who have been at other venues and found the service wanting.

Christine van Loon, manager of language services in Orlando, spent four months training 35 people from 18 different countries to work at the five games scheduled for the Florida Citrus Bowl. Together, they speak 12 languages, but none of them is a professional translator.

“We went through a lot of play-acting, a lot of rehearsals,” said van Loon, who speaks German, English and French. “It is one thing to know a language, but you must also know soccer terms. Many people did not. I was working 14-hour days to prepare for this.”

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Helene Elliott

Helene Elliott was with the Los Angeles Times’ Sports department from 1989 to 2024, first as a staff writer and then, starting in 2006, as a columnist. She became the first female journalist to be honored with a plaque in the Hall of Fame of a major professional sport as the 2005 winner of the Hockey Hall of Fame’s Elmer Ferguson Award, awarded to writers “who have brought honor to journalism and to hockey.” A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., and graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, she has covered 18 Olympics.

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