Useful Olympic links for July 6th through July 9th

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Here are the Olympic-related links we’ve been looking at over the last week from July 6th through July 9th:

  • Fernandes blazes trail with Olympic torch in London– The AirAsia Group CEO said he was overwhelmed by the support of the locals who came in droves to watch him carry the torch along Hartford Road near Huntingdon.“Fantastic experience running. Proud to represent Malaysia. Despite the rain, the English came out in full force. A real experience,” he said in an e-mail statement to The Star.

    The torch run became a reality after Fernandes, who is Caterham F1 team principal, was invited by the racing team’s official partner GE, to take part.

  • Welcome To The Security Games | Games Monitor – Most military and all private security personnel will work inside the ‘ticketed areas’ of the event venues, according to promises made by the London Olympic organisers. Whether this turns out to be true in practice is one of the issues that the community civil rights group Newham Monitoring Project (NMP), with whom I have been an activist with for twenty years, will keep a close watch upon. However, in the streets surrounding the Olympic Park in Stratford and the ExCel Centre in Canning Town, it is the massive policing operation and its impact on local people that is of our greatest concern.
  • Red Mittens & Red Ink: The story of how the 2010 Olympics came and went –
  • Olympic bargains galore as London’s theatres and hotels slash rates –
  • Guelph Olympic Torch Relay videos still off-limits to the public – In response to an appeal of that decision, the Guelph Police Services Board informed the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario that the criminal matter linked to the video evidence was “no longer ongoing” but that release of the material would still adversely impact when and how the police service could use video surveillance as an evidence gathering technique.

THES: Vice chancellors grabbing university Olympic torch places {updated}

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Times Higher Education reports on senior university managers “getting in on the act” of carrying the Olympic torch, after Samsung allocated 3 places each to 31 universities.  Continue reading →

Argus investigates Olympic torchbearers in Sussex

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The Argus reports on corporate torchbearers in Sussex

The Argus reports on corporate torchbearers in Sussex

The Argus in Sussex is the latest newspaper to ask questions of the allocation of Olympic torch relay places: “between the charity fundraisers, world record holders and people who have dedicated their lives to helping others,” reports Tim Ridgway and Charlotte Pemberton, “there will be Olympic officials and representatives from multinational corporations who live abroad. This despite organisers promising it would “enable local communities to shine a light on the best their area has to offer”.”

The Argus report comes on the heels of yesterday’s investigation by the Daily Echo in Bournemouth and Help Me Investigate’s work on the subject last month.

Among torchbearers identified by the newspaper are: Continue reading →

Useful Olympic links for July 3rd through July 6th

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Here are the Olympic-related links we’ve been looking at over the last week from July 3rd through July 6th:

  • London 2012: even Beijing didn’t put an army on the gates –
  • Olympic Torch storm: locals shunned in favour of corporate nominees (From Bournemouth Echo) – • Four Olympic staff members – a venue health and safety officer from Epping and three people who work for the Olympic Broadcasting Service.

    • A Basingstoke councillor, who is also a senior manager at Lloyds Banking Group.

    • A Belgian, nominated for having an eco-home and driving an eco-friendly car.

    • A Vodafone account manager, who says on an online profile that he was nominated to carry the Olympic Torch because of his strong sales performance.

    • A man from Ballymena in Newport, who has no nomination story but does appear to have a profile on a website called British Sex Dating.

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    • A Met Police constable.

  • Police told cinema worker dressed as Batman to stop | Stratford Observer – The Stratford Picturehouse staff member dressed as the caped crusader, who like the hero wishes to remain anonymous, was stopped by Community Support Officers (PCSOs) working in the town on Sunday, when the Olympic Torch came to town, because they were concerned he might be part of a protest group. Read more: Police told cinema worker dressed as Batman to stop | Stratford Observer
  • Chelsea School of Sport | University of Brighton – Chelsea School of Sport has an excellent national and international reputation for teaching, research and consultancy in sport-related studies. Courses are taught by leading researchers in their fields as well as coaches and sport scientists who work with top athletes.
  • IASE – Home – Purposes of IASE (extract of the status): ¨ Promote the economics of sport ¨ Encourage academic exchanges among researchers ¨ Offer to members all the necessary means to improve their knowledge and skills in the economics of sport ¨ Supply expert analyses in the field of the economics of sport

Corporate torchbearers in Dorset revealed

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Corporate Olympic torchbearers investigated in Dorset

The Bournemouth Echo has picked up the baton in investigating the Olympic torch relay, and found more unusual choices for the honour of carrying the torch. Among torchbearers in Dorset they identify:

“Four Olympic staff members – a venue health and safety officer from Epping and three people who work for the Olympic Broadcasting Service.

• A Basingstoke councillor, who is also a senior manager at Lloyds Banking Group.

• A Belgian, nominated for having an eco-home and driving an eco-friendly car.

• A Vodafone account manager, who says on an online profile that he was nominated to carry the Olympic Torch because of his strong sales performance.

• A man from Ballymena in Newport, who has no nomination story but does appear to have a profile on a website called British Sex Dating.

• A Met Police constable.” Continue reading →

Get the data: Coca Cola’s US torchbearers for “health, community, environment”

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23 of the places that Coca Cola allocated through public nomination went to these US citizens through the Live Positively campaign. As part of our investigation into how places were allocated, we’ve re-presented the data in a more usable format.

The Live Positively site provides nutritional information on Coca Cola products to medical professionals, including information for patients on low-calorie sweeteners (PDF). Continue reading →

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 –

Get the data: Aggreko torchbearers

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Last week we reported on the company where 4 out of 7 executive directors were carrying the Olympic torch.

As part of our process of investigating the allocation of torchbearer places, we’re publishing the data behind that investigation.

This is most likely not an exhaustive list – if you know how many places the company was allocated, please let us know. You can also find a list of employees who have made an impression on the company in their 2011 annual report (PDF), which may contain others.

UPDATE: We have had a tip off that the ‘torch kiss’ between Tom Sreeves and Simon Lyons on Day 26 represented another two Aggreko directors: a Tom Sreeves is also Director of Manufacturing for the company and lives in the same area (his story has since disappeared from the official torchbearer site but is still cached).

If Simon Lyons ever appeared on the official site, it would have been taken off equally quickly, as his name was never caught in any of the sweeps made of the official site by Help Me Investigate. But he is named on the BBC liveblog as receiving the torch from Tom. And he shares his name at least with Aggreko’s Director of Marketing and Communications.

Also appearing without any nomination story is Simon Thompson, who our source suggests is Aggreko’s legal adviser, and certainly the company does have one listed here. Can anyone help confirm or deny?

Previous update: also listed is Philippe Boisaubert, who shares details with the company’s MD for Continental Europe.

Here’s the data:

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.

Document: Government promised to pay for LOCOG’s losses – however big

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Embedded above is a report from the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee on preparations for the Olympic and Paralymic Games. Some of the contents were covered (mainly on specialist blogs) when it was published in April, such as the concern over the increase in security costs where:

“LOCOG has had to renegotiate its contract with G4S for venue security from a weak negotiating position and there is a big question mark over whether it secured a good deal for the taxpayer.”

Random Blowe provides further detail on this.

But we haven’t previously published it here.

There’s a lot to look at as the games ramps up to the opening ceremony. One of the sentences that particularly stands out, for example, is this:

“The Government is highly dependent on LOCOG to deliver a successful Games and is obliged to meet any shortfall between LOCOG’s costs and revenues.”

Can you find anything else of interest?