Carrying the Olympic torch is a once in a lifetime opportunity, so it’s pretty likely that you’ll want a memento of the occasion – and organisers LOCOG have made sure that they’re ready to respond at any moment to your desires.
Olympic tickets ‘for young people’ given away to universities – after students have gone
50 tickets to Olympic events will be given to every higher education institution in the country as part of an “extension” of the Ticketshare programme to get young people to the Games – even though most students will have gone home for the summer.
The allocation is managed by the Further and Higher Education Unit for the 2012 Games, Podium, which has a commitment “to ensure that as many young people as possible get to attend the Games”.
And it seems that the students aren’t the only ones on a break – phonecalls to three members of Podium’s media team this week went unanswered when we tried to contact them about the initiative.
The announcement comes in the wake of reports that two-thirds of Olympic football tickets at Hampden Park remain unsold and that thousands of unsold tickets have been offered to sponsors after sales as a whole slowed down.
50,000 other tickets will also be given away to sport clubs, charities and youth projects in Scotland.
Useful Olympic links for July 11th through July 12th
Here are the Olympic-related links we’ve been looking at over the last week from July 11th through July 12th:
- Olympian blends of torchbearers – Knit Data –
- London Assembly says Dow sponsorship damages Games– “LOCOG and the IOC must tighten up the regulations around Olympic sponsors to ensure they don’t make the same mistakes again.”The assembly agreed a motion saying the IOC’s decision to select Dow as a worldwide partner had caused “damage to the reputation” of the London Games which start on July 27, and that the IOC should review its current partnership with Dow. Continue reading
Is this Olympic torchbearer another Aggreko director?
Philippe Boisaubert carried the torch in Hull with no nomination story. Could it be the same Philipp Boisaubert listed as Managing Director, Continental Europe? His profile on Viadeo lists his home town as Sucy en Brie – the same as that of the mystery torchbearer.
We previously reported on four out of seven executive board members from the company carrying the torch – as well as the chief executive’s PA.
Who are the mystery torchbearers? Crowdsourcing with Guardian users
UPDATE: Now over 60% complete.
The Guardian have published our list of the 500 torchbearers lacking a nomination story, with an appeal to users to help identify the 400 or so yet to be identified. Of the other hundred or so that we’ve already looked at, around a third share names with senior figures at sponsor organisations and commercial partners.
But we figured many eyes on the problem would help.
Among those already ticked off the list thanks to contributions via email and Twitter are Vegard Killingland (nominated through the Coca Cola campaign), David Heeley (a well known blind marathon runner whose nomination was originally turned down but later awarded following a public campaign), and fundraiser Derek Chisnall. There’s also a Mexican rock star – and more leads to company directors. UPDATE: One German daily newspaper used the list to find executives nominated by Samsung.
Many commenters on the article have pointed out the more obvious sportspeople and celebrities, such as Gordon Banks, Gethin Jones and Ruby Walsh. These were identified in the article itself or the linked HMI spreadsheet (not The Guardian’s), but it’s clear we should have been more explicit about the fact that those had already been identified, and that the focus was on the names that weren’t immediately recognisable.
You can access the full data here – post a comment, tweet @HMIolympics or email paul@helpmeinvestigate.com to add details.
Russian executive carried the Olympic torch under someone else’s story
A 40-year-old Russian executive carried the Olympic torch through the Welsh resort of Towyn under the nomination story of a 61-year-old art director – despite having a different name.
Russian torchbearer Konstantin Geskin is named in both the BBC relay liveblog and The Voice of Russia as Konstantin Raykin, a film and theatre actor and director of a Moscow theatre. Continue reading
Mystery torchbearers – the pictures
Most of the hundreds of torchbearers who have no nomination story have no picture either. But the table below shows those who do.
Can you help identify them? Here’s how: Continue reading
Shop Direct boss becomes 8th adidas torchbearer with identical story
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Shop Direct boss Mark Newton-Jones carried the Olympic torch in Liverpool – with the same story as seven other adidas torchbearers
Retail boss Mark Newton-Jones is the latest executive to emerge as one of adidas’s Olympic torchbearers – with the same nomination story as seven other torchbearers.
Coe says Olympic sponsors need a better “narrative” about their role (while interviewer Martin Sorrell prepares to carry Olympic torch)
Sebastian Coe talking about Olympic sponsors – image from Brand Republic
Olympic sponsors have been “reluctant” and “shy” in promoting their role in staging the London 2012 Olympics, according to the LOCOG chairman Sebastian Coe – and need to tell a “coherent and compelling narrative”, BrandRepublic reports.
The remarks, made at the Cannes Lions Festival, blamed negative coverage of sponsors’ involvement in the torch relay on a “willful refusal [by journalists] to understand the nature of the Games’ funding arrangements”.
It is not clear what element of their involvement was being covered negatively.
How to: identify mystery torchbearers
Despite the promise of 8,000 torchbearers “all with inspirational stories”, hundreds of Olympic torchbearers have been listed on the official Olympic Torch Relay site without any nomination story at all. We’ve identified dozens who share their names with senior staff at sponsor organisations and their commercial partners. Here’s how to do it through some advanced search techniques: Continue reading