{"id":486,"date":"2012-07-10T15:06:43","date_gmt":"2012-07-10T15:06:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helpmeinvestigate.com\/olympics\/?p=486"},"modified":"2012-07-10T11:07:20","modified_gmt":"2012-07-10T11:07:20","slug":"shop-direct-boss-becomes-8th-adidas-torchbearer-with-identical-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/helpmeinvestigate.com\/olympics\/shop-direct-boss-becomes-8th-adidas-torchbearer-with-identical-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Shop Direct boss becomes 8th adidas torchbearer with identical story"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_488\" style=\"width: 339px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/helpmeinvestigate.com\/olympics\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Mark_Newton_Jones_Olympic_Torch.png\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-488\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-488\" title=\"Mark_Newton_Jones_Olympic_Torch\" src=\"http:\/\/helpmeinvestigate.com\/olympics\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Mark_Newton_Jones_Olympic_Torch.png\" alt=\"Shop Direct boss Mark Newton-Jones carries the Olympic torch\" width=\"329\" height=\"390\" srcset=\"http:\/\/helpmeinvestigate.com\/olympics\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Mark_Newton_Jones_Olympic_Torch.png 329w, http:\/\/helpmeinvestigate.com\/olympics\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Mark_Newton_Jones_Olympic_Torch-253x300.png 253w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 329px) 100vw, 329px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-488\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Shop Direct boss Mark Newton-Jones carried the Olympic torch in Liverpool &#8211; with the same story as seven other adidas torchbearers<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Retail boss <strong>Mark Newton-Jones<\/strong> is the latest executive to emerge as one of adidas&#8217;s Olympic torchbearers &#8211; with the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.london2012.com\/torch-relay\/torchbearers\/torchbearers=mark-newton-jones-7582\/\">same nomination story<\/a> as <strong>seven<\/strong> other torchbearers.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Mark&#8217;s name was added to the London 2012 torchbearers site <em>after<\/em> <a href=\"http:\/\/helpmeinvestigate.com\/olympics\/adidass-torchbearers-share-a-common-story\/\">we reported on adidas nominating company bosses with identical stories last month<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Newton-Jones is the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.shopdirect.com\/shop-direct\/directors\/mark-newton-jones\">Group Chief Executive<\/a> of Shop Direct, the country\u2019s largest catalogue and online retailer. He joins other executive nominees from adidas including the Group Product Director of Next and the general manager of Intersport.<\/p>\n<p>Newton-Jones&#8217;s nomination provides continuing evidence that adidas ignored LOCOG guidance not to nominate executives.<\/p>\n<p>Retail Week reported on the Shop Direct boss carrying the torch in Liverpool in a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.retail-week.com\/shop-direct-boss-carries-olympic-flame\/5037457.article\">brief article<\/a>, which repeated elements of his nomination story.<\/p>\n<p>A spokesperson for adidas said that the organisation were not able to give torchbearer places away to consumers. They had &#8220;no further comment&#8221; on the use of identical nomination stories or the decision to award places to executives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Retail boss Mark Newton-Jones is the latest executive to emerge as one of adidas&#8217;s Olympic torchbearers &#8211; with the same nomination story as seven other torchbearers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[79],"tags":[241,242],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/helpmeinvestigate.com\/olympics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/helpmeinvestigate.com\/olympics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/helpmeinvestigate.com\/olympics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/helpmeinvestigate.com\/olympics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/helpmeinvestigate.com\/olympics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=486"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/helpmeinvestigate.com\/olympics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":557,"href":"http:\/\/helpmeinvestigate.com\/olympics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486\/revisions\/557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/helpmeinvestigate.com\/olympics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/helpmeinvestigate.com\/olympics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/helpmeinvestigate.com\/olympics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}