Category Archives: Links

Useful Olympic links for June 30th through July 2nd

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Here are the Olympic-related links we’ve been looking at over the last week from June 30th through July 2nd:

  • Parents spend less on their children’s sport | The Sun |News|Sun City|Cashflow – She said the London Games would be a giant “missed opportunity” to inspire young Brits. And she blasted Education Secretary Michael Gove for slashing funding for the Schools Sports Partnerships from £162million to £35million. Schemes shown the red card include free swimming for the under-16s, proposed cycling routes in 18 cities, and plans to fund 1,300 new playgrounds.
  • The Strongest Woman In America Lives In Poverty – BuzzFeed Mobile – “You can get that sponsorship if you’re a super-built guy or a girl who looks good in a bikini. But not if you’re a girl who’s built like a guy,” she says. The 23-year-old from California became the highest ranked weightlifter in the country last year after placing 11th at the world championships, beating out every male and female American on the roster. On her best day, she can lift more than 568 pounds — that’s roughly five IKEA couches, 65 gallons of milk, or one large adult male lion.
  • The London Olympics As Creative Destruction | EcoHustler – In 2007, the UN-funded Centre for Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) released a report detailing the effects of the Olympics between 1988 and 2008. Beginning with the 1988 Seoul games, which witnessed the ‘redevelopment’ of 48,000 buildings and the eviction of 720,000 people, where it was used to accelerate the process of neoliberalism, leading to a ‘drastic rise in housing prices’, transforming Seoul from a city maintained by ordinary people to one that most efficiently entices and reproduces capital.
  • London 2012: Olympic boom turns to bust – Olympics – Sport – The Independent – Tom Jenkins of the European Tour Operators Association said the Olympics were scaring people away. "It's too early for a post-mortem, but it looks like the opposite of a boom," he said. London estate agents are also disappointed. Eric Walker of the lettings agent Bushells, said: "Landlords jumped on the bandwagon, but people seem to be staying with friends or relatives."
  • The Great Olympic Tax Swindle –

Useful Olympic links for June 28th through June 29th

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Here are the Olympic-related links we’ve been looking at over the last week from June 28th through June 29th:

  • Why does the north remain so unimpressed by the Olympics? | UK news | guardian.co.uk – Analysing the results of the ComRes polling, it is clear that northern England is simply not engaging with the Olympics. Asked to what extent they were excited about the games, people in the north east mustered 42% of Yes-es, the north west 44% and Yorkshire and the Humber merely 36%. This compared with the 56% who disagreed in the north east, 53% in the north west and 60% in Yorkshire and the Humber. To make things worse, despite coming under budget, across all three northern regions over 60% of respondents felt that the games weren't delivering value for the taxpayer's money. Less than 20% thought that the Olympics would spur them on to engage in sporting activity themselves.
  • Protecting the Olympic Torch | Anglia – ITV News – The TST travels with the Olympic flame, from the moment it is handed over to LOCOG in Athens until it arrives at the Olympic Stadium for the Opening Ceremony. The same team will then travel with the Paralympic flame.

    It is made up of around 70 staff and officers, including 35 ‘runners’ – a number of whom are from the Anglia region. Other members include motorcyclists, senior officers to make command and tactical decisions, communication officers to relay messages to the torch security team and operational planners.

    Looking after the torch security is no mean feat, and members of the TST have been through 18 months of gruelling training to prepare for this unusual role.

  • ORG Zine | The Olympics Organising Committee Run Rings Around Transparency – This lack of transparency was highlighted recently when it emerged that Lia Hervey, Sky Sports News’ Olympics producer, had attempted to seek further information about the breakdown of Olympic tickets to the public by sport and session. Of course, as Locog is not obliged to provide this information due to its status as a private company, it has refused to provide this information, despite concerns that savings from the public sector package appear to be trickling over to Locog. However, whilst it is a private company, Locog has been in receipt of public funding to the tune of £183m.
  • Olympic expenditure – a Freedom of Information request to Powys Council – WhatDoTheyKnow –
  • How many vehicles does it take to escort one Olympic flame on 300 yard dash? 47! | Mail Online – So how many vehicles does it take to marshal a single Olympic flame for a 300-yard dash? Answer: 47. I counted them all in, and I counted them all out.

    There are 16 ‘core vehicles’ assigned to accompany the torch for its epic journey – which last night saw the unlikely figure of US rap star Will.i.am, the Black Eyed Peas singer and a judge on BBC talent show The Voice, carrying it through Taunton.

    But everywhere the procession goes, a small army of support and ancilliary vehicles is also called into service. In Cornwall on Saturday, for example, the convoy was escorted by police motorcyclists bearing the emblems of five separate constabularies. In south Devon, an ambulance, local dignitaries, firearms officers and police ‘safety officers’ on BMW mountain bikes joined the parade.

Useful Olympic links for June 22nd through June 27th

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Here are the Olympic-related links we’ve been looking at over the last week from June 22nd through June 27th:

  • BBC’s Olympic rights under threat from new TV deal | Sport | The Guardian – total, $3.91bn was raised from TV rights deals for the 2010 and 2012 Games, a significant increase on the $2.57bn raised from the previous four years. A further, more-modest increase is expected for 2014 and 2016.
  • Distributing Cushions – The History | www.woolsack.org – In the middle of all this we had the request from British Olympic Association (BOA) to make red, white and blue cushions for Team GB athletes at the Winter Youth Olympic Games. Their plans to ship the cushions direct to the Village in Innsbruck were stopped by organisers there so BOA arranged for the young athletes to choose their cushions in the UK. They loved them so much that they let us know they were taking their cushions to Innsbruck and back in their personal luggage and we have had some lovely thank-you letters! It has been frustrating to have one after another agreed plan brought to an end by or through LOCOG, but inspired by the efforts the athletes are making to get selected for the Games, we are looking upon this as just another challenge to be met. Now we know how much the athletes love the cushions and want to have them, we will persevere and find ways meet their requests.
  • Olympic torch route, day 37: the Games will leave no legacy in Moss Side | Sport | guardian.co.uk – I found it difficult to promote my
    programme of workshops in schools because I
    was not sanctioned by the council or the
    Olympic committee. I was told I could not use
    the word Olympic to describe or promote my
    song, Olympic Flame, recorded with the Destiny
    Africa children choir in Bridlington last autumn.
    The proceeds will help make Kampala Children's
    Centre self-sufficient by purchasing land for
    them to farm.
  • A games for the people not the sponsors | lives; running – Testament to how London 2012 has purposefully chosen to ignore this counter-model is the Olympic Marathon. Every year the East End successfully hosts a decent chunk of the London Marathon route, but in the single minded desire to showcase the Central London landmarks which are already well-known to the world the route was moved to the centre. For those who would want to watch one of the very few free Olympic events this was also very bad news. Instead of a 26.2 mile route the whole length if the way, a four mile-circuit lapped six times will slash the space for the potential crowd who would have watched in enormous numbers by more than 75%. What might have been one of the most well-supported events of the Games has been reduced by a huge margin and for no reason other than to ensure that corporate control is maintained and the global image of a London Games as represented by Big Ben, the Mall, and Buckingham Palace is maintained.
  • Olympics organizers aggressively guard trademarks – "When you bid to host an Olympic Games," says Simon Chadwick, a professor of sports business at Coventry University in England, "you must, and that's in capital letters, underlined, guarantee to pass legislation outlawing ambush marketing and protecting against any trademark infringement." Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/06/16/BUD11P21PJ.DTL#ixzz1yV7FQfUo

Listen again: Help Me Investigate on BBC radio

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Adrian Goldberg

Help Me Investigate was featured on Adrian Goldberg’s programme on BBC Radio WM

I spent around 20 minutes yesterday talking about Help Me Investigate and its investigation into Olympic torchbearers on BBC Radio WM. The broadcast broke the story of Aggreko’s executive torchbearers, and also covered some of the issues surrounding sponsors’ selection of torchbearers and doubts over the promise that 90% of spaces would be available to the general public.

The programme is online at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00tjbzf – the interview begins around 2 hours and 25 minutes into the broadcast.

US Olympic Committee apologises after demanding end to “disrespectful” knitting competition

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One of the world’s biggest Olympic committees has apologised after it demanded that a knitting and crochet community change its biannual “fibre craft events” because it felt that they were “disrectful to our country’s finest athletes”.

Fak’s thoughts reported earlier this week on the US Olympic Committee’s letter to the organisers of the Ravelympics, which sees people from all over the world creating craft items in a range of categories during the period of the Olympics. The competition has been running every other year since 2008.

The letter read:

“We believe using the name “Ravelympics” for a competition that involves an afghan marathon, scarf hockey and sweater triathlon, among others, tends to denigrate the true nature of the Olympic Games.  In a sense, it is disrespectful to our country’s finest athletes and fails to recognize or appreciate their hard work.” Continue reading →

Stansted torchbearers investigated by David Morgan

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A cluster of Chinese torchbearers with stories of business success have been identified by Stansted resident David Morgan.

The Herts and Essex Observer reports on his findings, and includes a reaction from LOCOG who say “the Chinese nationals were nominated through a campaign by electronics giant Samsung.” Continue reading →

Public didn’t get “90%” of torchbearer places, figures reveal {updated}

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Updates follow original post below

The commonly-quoted figure that 90% of torchbearer slots were “available to the public” is wrong, an analysis of official figures suggests.

According to LOCOG statistics published by ITV News, torchbearer allocations were distributed as follows:

  • “33% of places held by LOCOG (total 2,640)
  • “17% of places to each of the three Presenting Partners (total 1360 each)
  • “16% of places shared between the IOC (total 117), BOA (total 250) and other Games commercial partners (total 913).”

Based on the above numbers, commercial partner slots alone represent 11.4% of the total. Only 84% – not 90% – have been allocated to members of the public through various competitions and nomination processes. This represents 480 people who have missed out on promised slots. Organisations who are not Presenting Partners cannot allocate torchbearer slots publicly.

UPDATE (June 12, 10am): A spokesperson for London2012 confirmed the figures and adds:

“The BOA and IOC and some of the commercial partners in the 16 per cent allocation also put forward members of the public too e.g. grassroots sports coaches, athletes, long-term supporters of Games and existing customers in case of commercial partners.”

However, as only Presenting Partners can accept nominations from members of the public, it’s not clear how other commercial partners would have been able to do so.

The statement appears to contradict figures previously in documents from organisations including the BOA, which explicitly states that its own places are separate from those available to the ‘general public’:

“90% of these slots will be allocated to the general public through each [Presenting Partner] company’s own public selection process. The remaining 10% has been allocated to other deserving bodies, of which the British Olympic Association is one.”

It’s also not clear how London2012 could be confident that the extra 6% of places were “made available to the public”. We are awaiting a response explaining what processes were in place to monitor that.

UPDATE (June 12, 7pm): A further response states the following:

“90% of the 8,000 Torchbearer places are made available to the public through a number of channels, including the four public nomination campaigns from LOCOG, Coca-Cola, Lloyds TSB and Samsung.

“The 16% share is made up of core stakeholders, for example, the IOC, BOA and commercial Games partners. Some of these stakeholders could also put forward members of the public, for example, long-term supporters of the Games and sports coaches.

“The rights packages for some partners included a small number of Torchbearer places that had to be filled through internal campaigns, for example, from existing customer and staff pools.”

The spokesperson does not address the question of what processes were in place to monitor any allocation of places to ‘members of the public’ in this way.

We have asked again for clarification on that process, specifically whether LOCOG can identify the 480 members of the public who may have been given torchbearer spaces through routes other than those previously outlined.

Stoke Sentinel on Help Me Investigate: “Collaboration is king”

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This Is Staffordshire’s digital publisher David Elks has written about Help Me Investigate in the Stoke Sentinel’s ‘DaviddotElks’ column following his involvement in our investigation into corporate torchbearers. He writes:

“Collaboration is such an obvious idea because it allows people to focus on their skills, but team-work doesn’t necessarily come naturally to reporters. It should.

“For the seven years that I was a business journalist at The Sentinel, there was a constant desire and pressure to find stories which would make the front page ‘splash’.

“I would be incredibly loathed to share any tip-offs or contact information if I thought another colleague might use it to break news that I could report myself.

“But I’ve had to change my attitude as I’ve moved to reporting on the web. Why?

“Because it’s almost impossible to do everything yourself.”

We delayed our post on the photo of two corporate torchbearers Tom Foley and Christos Angelides exchanging a ‘torch kiss’ to allow the newspaper to run the story first. The story was later picked up by the Daily Mail.

Daily Mail pick up our torchbearer photo story

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Daily Mail torchbearer story

The photo and story we published last week on the ‘torch kiss’ of two retail bosses has been picked up by the Daily Mail.

The newspaper combines the story with one previously reported in This Is Staffordshire (but not credited): that of local torchbearer James Taylor, whose place was withdrawn two weeks earlier due to ‘failing Home Office checks’, despite Taylor having no criminal record and passed CRB checks previously.

The piece suggests that Taylor’s withdrawal may be connected to the fortuitous scheduling that allowed the two bosses to carry the torch on sequential legs of the relay.

This suggestion had also been made by a parent of James Taylor in the comments to a This Is Staffordshire piece on the sponsor’s choice of torchbearer. She added:

“Having had this done on him as angered me even more, his sporting and the family’s reputation has been marked along with his broken spirit, I do hope the people who decided to do this to my son feel shame.”

It was This Is Staffordshire’s David Elks who found the image of the two corporate torchbearers when we approached him to ask if the newspaper had any images of those carrying torches through Stafford.

Torchbearers do not normally have any control over where or when they carry the torch.

Olympic torchbearer investigation picked up by Guardian

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Guardian cover HMI's olympic torchbearer investigation

The Guardian have now published their story on the corporate torchbearers, following a tip-off last week from Help Me Investigate the Olympics. James Ball writes:

“More than 1,200 spaces were allocated to the International Olympic Committee, the British Olympics Association, and to staff working for Games sponsors – whose picks included company directors, Russian newspaper editors, and even an official at the US’s Food and Drug Administration.”

The article generously credits HMI Olympics and adds further details, including responses from sponsors Coca Cola who say: Continue reading →