How the 2012 Olympic Torch Relay lost its way part 1: Jack Binstead’s story

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Get the free ebook for the full story: 8,000 Holes: How the 2012 Olympic Torch Relay Lost its Way - Leanpub.com/8000holes

This is the first part of a serialisation of Help Me Investigate’s first ebook – 8,000 Holes: How the 2012 Olympic Torch Relay Lost its Way. You can download the book for free – or choose to pay a donation, with all proceeds going to the Brittle Bone Society – at Leanpub.com/8000holes

Part 1: Where did the torchbearer places go?

Jack Binstead is one of the UK’s most promising young athletes: a wheelchair racer in with a chance of competing in the next Paralympic Games. Born with brittle bone disease he has, says his mother Penny, broken 64 bones in his body over just 15 years.

“At the age of nine he was a very down young boy,” she explains. “He was very overweight – he didn’t know which way to go. But when he went to a taster session for children with special needs, the borough’s Head of Sports saw in Jack that he would be good at wheelchair racing. He recommended that Jack try wheelchair racing at a local track in Kingston called Kingsmeadow.”

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New details in ebook from HMIO: How the 2012 Olympic Torch Relay Lost its Way

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8000 Holes - book cover

As the Olympic Torch Relay enters its final week we are today publishing Help Me Investigate’s first ebook: 8,000 Holes: How the 2012 Olympic Torch Relay Lost its Way.

A longform report, the book details how the 8,000 torchbearer places were allocated – and how that process made it impossible for Olympic torch relay organisers LOCOG to meet key promises about the numbers of places available to the public, and to young people.

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Useful Olympic links for July 19th through July 23rd

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Here are the Olympic-related links we’ve been looking at over the last week from July 19th through July 23rd:

  • Police rapped for wasting time on Olympic protest calls | This is Cornwall – "I can confirm that 18 people were visited or spoken to in relation to the policing
    of the Olympic torch relay through Devon and Cornwall, in order to ensure that
    the force could support its obligations in relation to the facilitation of peaceful
    protest as well as the safety and security of the Olympic torch and bearers."
    After a positive response from Devon and Cornwall, the campaign group
    followed up by asking other forces if they had done likewise.

    • Continue reading →

How universities allocated their 3 Olympic torchbearer places from Samsung {updated}

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Following our post on July 6 on THES’s report on vice chancellors carrying the Olympic torch, we can provide further background on the processes used to allocate torchbearer places.

At Brunel University a spokesperson explains:

Two places were for students and one for a member of staff.  We took a different approach to selecting each Torchbearer.

Firstly, we invited the 16 highest achieving students from the 2011 graduating class to submit a 300 word piece on why they would be a suitable person to represent the University as a Torchbearer.  We chose Ainsley Bell from the ten applications.  His story can be seen on the relay website.  It was quite compelling and an easy decision to make.

The second place was awarded to Michelle Quaid by the elected committee of the Union of Brunel students who had asked the students to nominate their classmates who have gone the extra mile for sport.  Michelle’s story is also on the website. Continue reading →

Useful Olympic links for July 12th through July 17th

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Here are the Olympic-related links we’ve been looking at over the last week from July 12th through July 17th:

  • Sam Fraser: The Torch Relay – The Olympic Ideal in Flames– And then arrives a convoy of coaches. One badged with Samsung logos, bearing pretty young girls waving and texting on Samsung phones. Next, a coach in the livery of Lloyds TSB bearing pretty young girls waving. No sign of any thanks for the bail out. Finally, a huge red float sponsored by Coca Cola, featuring a team of pretty girls waving and holding Coke bottles. They head up the drive where the coaches turn around and let all the pretty girls out for a loo break. Continue reading →

Investigation into today’s torchbearers in German daily Der Tagesspiegel

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der Tagesspiegel's story on the corporate Olympic torchbearers

German daily newspaper Der Tagesspiegel has published a story on German executives carrying the Olympic torch after spotting our list of ‘mystery torchbearers‘ on the Guardian’s datablog.

The story, entitled ‘The Olympics and Samsung: Questionable selection of torchbearers’, was published on Sunday. In it, Claudia von Salzen writes:

“As the list of German participants shows, those people nominated by Samsung have apparently been accepted. This means that at least 18 German torchbearers have been chosen out of business interests. And therefore actually not because they had “excelled at special merits in the spirit of the Olympic idea”, as the company had announced in May.”

We’ve translated the entire article into English below: Continue reading →

Identified: mystery German torchbearers in Bognor and elsewhere

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A couple of newspapers recently reported on the number of Germans carrying the torch as it makes its way through Bognor – but neither identifies why they’re carrying the torch.

We can reveal that a number work for or have connections with Olympic sponsor Samsung.

Dirk Schafer carried the torch in Bognor. His image is the same as that used on a Samsung worker's LinkedIn profile.

Dirk Schafer carried the torch in Bognor. His image is the same as that used on a Samsung worker’s LinkedIn profile.

Dirk Schafer‘s profile on the official torchbearers site does not have any nomination story, but a poorer quality version of the same image is used in a social networking profile for the Sales Manager:

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Isle of Wight Olympic torchbearer mystery picked up by Ventnor Blog

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The mystery of story-less Olympic torchbearer Aslan Khabliev has been picked up by Isle of Wight news site Ventnor Blog.

The site reports that although Khabliev – who is likely to be this director of Sky Media among other things – was originally-listed as taking part in the Newport leg of the torch relay.

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Full interview: how alternative torch relay Real Relay was organised

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Earlier this month we wrote about the alternative torch relays springing up around the country. As part of that we interviewed Kate Treleaven of Real Relay – here’s that interview in full.

The costs of organising the relay were pretty minimal really. We had to employ our freelance web developer to create a Real Relay Facebook application and build a simple website. Since my boss Andrew Barker came up with the idea I’ve been working pretty much seven days a week co-ordinating the Real Relay so I guess by the time we reach London that will be 8 weeks worth of my salary – which isn’t very big! Continue reading →