Tag Archives: Claudia von Salzen

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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