Someone else's tournament

The Under 16 Olympiad, and a couple of comments concerning it, got me thinking about the motivation for playing is such events. Obviously for events like the Olympiad (the big one), where selection is competitive and the places restricted, being considered one of your countries best players is motivation enough. But for other events (such as the World Age Championships) there must be other reasons.
For me there are a number of reasons why I play Olympiad chess. Being able to is a good reason, as is representing the country of my birth (even if it isn't the country of my citizenship). But one of the big reasons is simply to play in a high quality event organised by someone else. Over the last 25 years I'm pretty sure I've organised/directed more Australian weekend tournaments than I've actually played in. Of course that is the choice I make, but it has got to the stage where playing a chess tournament seems unusual to me.
So one of the reasons why playing in the Olympiad is so enjoyable is that I don't have the worries an organiser has. I simply travel half way around the world, arrive semi-conscious at the registration desk, and spend 3 weeks playing chess. Indeed, when Andrew Greenwood and Lee Forace (both young event organisers) were part of the Australian National University team that played in an event in Singapore a few years back I said to them "just enjoy playing in someone else's tournament".
Of course in the case of a Chess Olympiad there is the feeling that you are treading the same stage as the chess greats of history. So much so that in one of those work-newsletter interviews that everyone does at some stage or another I listed my proudest achievement as playing 1.e4 in my first Olympiad game in 2000. This to the annoyance of my wife who wondered where our marriage or the birth of our 2 children were ranked.

Press,S - Bagheri,A (2409) [B16]
Istanbul ol (Men) Istanbul (1), 28.10.2000

1.e4 The proudest moment of my life! 1. ... c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Nf6 5.Nxf6+ gxf6 6.Bc4 Bf5 7.Nf3 e6 8.Be3 Nd7 9.Qe2 Nb6 10.Bb3 a5 11.c3 a4 12.Bc2 Qd5 13.Bxf5 Qxf5 14.h3 Rg8 15.g4 Qd5 16.Rg1 Nc4 17.g5 fxg5 18.Rxg5 Rxg5 19.Bxg5 h6 20.Bh4 Nd6 21.a3 Be7 22.Bxe7 Kxe7 23.0-0-0 Rg8 24.Ne5 Qe4 25.Re1 Qxe2 26.Rxe2 Rg1+ 27.Kc2 Nf5 28.Nd3 Rh1 29.Nf4 Kf6 30.Kd3 Kg5 31.Ke4 Nd6+ 32.Kf3 Nc4 33.Kg2 Rd1 34.Kg3 Kf5 35.Ng2 Rb1 36.Ne3+ Nxe3 37.fxe3 Ke4 38.Kg4 f5+ 39.Kh5 Rh1 40.Kxh6 Kf3 41.Rc2 Rxh3+ 42.Kg6 Kxe3 43.Kf6 f4 44.c4 f3 0-1