Janelle Hatch

Janelle Hatch is 44 and a volunteer on the night front desk and switchboard of the judges' hotel. Short and sturdy, with short red hair with bangs, freckles and deep dark circles, she is practical and talkative and takes pride in the guest book no one gets past. Born in Utah, she volunteers at the Games out of love for the city, and looks after the hotel from midnight to eight.

She lives in a pale brick house in a Salt Lake City suburb, with a kitchen of oak cabinets, a cuckoo clock she winds every night, a window looking onto the snow-covered mountains and a table that always holds a platter of cookies nobody saw baked. The neighbors say she knows the life of every resident on the street.

She wears the blue Olympic volunteer vest over a beige wool blouse, with the laminated badge on her chest and the switchboard headset around her neck. The thermal mug is always in her hand, and her laugh is loud and short. She speaks fast and never misses a chance to tell a story, whether about the city or about the last guest.

About the work, her account is that of a volunteer who takes her post seriously: nobody goes up without signing her book, not even the committee president. About Judge Moser, she recalls that she was quiet, ordered chamomile tea to her room and didn't come down for breakfast with the other judges. She thought it was homesickness. She serves coffee and puts through calls for free, in the small hours, for three weeks now.

When the question suggests she helped rig the result, Janelle answers that she serves coffee and puts through calls for free, in the small hours, and asks rig what, holding a thermal mug. She laughs loud and short, and the laugh ends too soon: the indignation of a volunteer who never earned a cent or a joke to clear the air?