OLYMPIC GAMES

Source: www.insidethegames.biz

By: Mike Rowbottom at the Olympic Park in London

July 27 - Sebastian Coe has voiced his vehement opposition to reports that the UK Anti-Doping Authority (UKAD) wants more lenient punishments for athletes found to have taken recreational drugs.

And the London 2012 chairman, who has ambitions to challenge for the Presidency of the International Association of Athletics Federations, insisted that if he were in a position to do so he would change the automatic ban for doping abuses from two years back to its previous level of four years.

A report in today's  Times says the UKAD has told the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) that the current punishment of an automatic two-year ban for those found to have taken substances such as cocaine or ecstasy, as opposed to substances that enhance performance, is too harsh.

However, Coe, a double Olympic champion at 1500 metres and a vice-president of the IAAF, rejected that position directly today as he showed the IOC President, Jacques Rogge, around the newly opened London 2012 Aquatics Centre.

"Let's get real here," Coe said.

"What are the messages we are putting out to people?

"There's no ambiguity here, this is not arcane naval law.

"You want to be a part of this project?

"Then don't take drugs.

"Full stop.

"There is no place.

"You can't mix the messages - I am really strong about that.

"This isn't a case any longer of sitting there thinking that even two years is appropriate.

"I don't think that, I will, if I'm ever in a position to do so in track and field, I will move it, we will move that to four years.

"You have to.

"It's about confidence, it's about trust.

"What am I saying to kids out there?

"To those kids we have just seen from Newham Swimming Club?

"'Well, look, we might take a view on ecstasy or cocaine' I'm sorry - it's the morality of the knackers' yard.

"You've got to fight this and you've got to be clear.

"I don't know how this report has come about.

"I'm sure this may be only blue-sky thinking, and that's fine.

"It's right people from time to time think fresh things.

"But I will never be moved on this.

"The problem I've got now is I'm prepared to concede, 20 or 30 years ago, there were systems where there was coercion.

"You came out of some countries, you had no idea probably at the age of 13 or 14 what you were taking.

"But in liberal democracies, where you spend millions of pounds every year on educating young people, important as it is, there are no unhappy accidents out there.

"If you are an international competitor you know what the rules are.

"It could not be clearer.

"We spend as much money in the IAAF on testing and education programmes as we do on some of our development programmes.

"We will go on doing that.

"But there comes a point where all the education and all the 'let's help you through this process', it damages, it kills your sport.

"If you've got people who are sitting out there in that stadium, and they for a second doubt that what they're watching is legitimate, and the athlete in lane four has any doubt that this is anything other than hard work, great coaching and natural talent, you're knackered.

"You've got to win this one."

Source: www.insidethegames.biz

By: Tom Degun

July 28 - Denis Oswald, chairman of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Coordination Commission for London 2012, has warned that traffic remains the biggest obstacle to the smooth running of the Olympic and Paralympic Games next year.

With a year to go until the London 2012 Olympics begin, preparations for the event are at an advanced stage but there are still major concerns that roads in the city will come to a complete standstill when the Games takes place due to the influx of visitors who will use them.

"Traffic is difficult in every Olympic host city because you bring thousands of extra people to the city that have to move from one place to another," Oswald told insidethegames.

"But there is a bigger problem here than is some other city's as London is a difficult city for traffic anyway.

"So you have a situation that is hard to control.

"In order to counter that, you have to make very careful plans to make sure that everybody can get to venues at the right time, especially the athletes as there is no competition without them.

"So we are working with London 2012 and with the local authorities to find the best solution and I am confident this will work in the end.

The Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) launched their £25 million ($39 million) scheme last year which is designed to ensure that athletes, officials and other members of the Olympic Movement are able to move comfortably around London during the Games.

During the Games, there will be designated lanes in areas around key venues such as Wembley Stadium in North West London, Lord's Cricket Ground in South West London and the North Greenwich Arena in South East London, better known as the 02 Arena.

There will also be lanes through central London and out to the main Games site at Stratford.

The Olympic Route Network (ORN), which will include measures such as closing side roads, banning turns and altering traffic light sequences, will comprise more than 100 miles in London and around 170 miles outside London.

The ORN will be used by 18,000 athletes and officials during the Olympics as well as 6,000 during the Paralympics, while others who are also eligible to use the ORN includes judges, referees and umpires, around 28,000 representatives of the media and 25,000 sponsors and their guests.

It remains unclear as to whether the system will work in practice but Oswald, an IOC Executive Board member, believes that London 2012 will be a fantastic event and said he is proud to have helped in the project as chairman of the Coordination Commission.

"With one year to go, we have a chance to look back and see what we have achieved," he said.

"It is very impressive.

"We have been happy to help but they have very good people in LOCOG and that explains why they are so well advanced at this stage."

Source: www.inisdethegames.biz

By Duncan Mackay at Trafalgar Square in London

July 27 - The medals to be awarded to the winners at next year's Olympics were unveiled here tonight by the Princess Royal and Sebastian Coe in the presence of Jacques Rogge, the President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

They have been designed by British artist David Watkins and will be made by the Royal Mint in Wales.

"Highlighting the effort and achievement of the athletes, as well as the city where the Games are held, these beautiful medals will be a fitting reward for the Olympic medallists of 2012," said Rogge.

"It is the pinnacle of a sporting career to become an Olympic champion but I am confident that receiving one of these medals will make it all the more special in London next year.

"Congratulations to LOCOG for creating a design that will inspire the Olympians of 2012."

Watkins, who had been the special effects modelmaker on the hit movie "2001 - A Space Odyssey", was chosen to design the medals from a shortlist of six who had whittled down the 100 artists who had applied for one of the most prestigious roles at the Games.

"It is exciting to think that the finest athletes in the world will be wearing my medal design next summer," said Watkins.

"Its key symbols juxtapose, front and back, the goddess Nike for the spirit and tradition of the Games, and the River Thames for the city of London.

"I hope the medal will be enjoyed and treasured as a record of great personal achievements in 2012."

The Olympic medals' circular form is a metaphor for the world while the front always depicts the same imagery at the summer Games - the Greek Goddess of Victory, Nike, stepping out of the depiction of the Parthenon to arrive in the Host City.

The back features the contorversial London 2012 logo while the core emblem is an architectural expression, a metaphor for the modern City, or as a geological metaphor as a tough crystalline growth which is deliberately jewel like, Watkins explained.

The grid brings both a pulling together and sense of outreach on the design - an image of radiating energy that represents the athletes' achievements and effort, he said.

The River Thames is a symbol for London and also suggests a fluttering baroque ribbon and adds a sense of celebration.

The square is the final balancing motif of the design, opposing the overall circularity of the design and emphasising its focus on the centre and reinforcing the sense of 'place' as in a map inset.

The sport and discipline of the medal-winning athletes will be engraved on the rim of every medal.

In 2012 more than 2,100 Olympic medals will be presented in 302 Olympic victory ceremonies in more than 30 venues over 16 days of competition.

"I hope that seeing the design of the London 2012 Olympic medals will be a source of inspiration for the thousands of athletes around the world who are counting down the year before they compete at the greatest show on earth," said Coe.

"All of our preparations are focused on ensuring the athletes are at the heart of the Games, and I believe that through this rigorous process the panel of experts have selected an artist and a design for medals that all athletes would be proud to own."

Watkins, 61, a former professor at the Royal College of Art, was chosen by an independent panel chaired by Sir John Sorrell with Paralympic bronze medallist Ade Adepitan as his deputy and which also consisted of Iwona Blazwick, the director of the Whitechapel Gallery, Sir Mark Jones, the Victoria & Albert director and amedals expert, writer Catherine Johnson and Martin Green, the London 2012 head of ceremonies.

London 2012 also worked closely with the British Museum's Keeper of Coins and Medals, Philip Attwood, to look at the symbolic history of medals in Europe in the last century and in particular medals that held stories that travelled symbolically from the front of the medal to the back.

The London 2012 Athletes' Commission, chaired by former Olympic triple jump champion Jonathan Edwards (pictured with Watkins), were also closely consulted.

Each medal will weigh 375-400g, be 85mm in diameter and 7mm thick.

The gold medal is made up of 92.5 per cent silver, 1.34 per cent gold with the remainder copper.

There is a minimum of 6g of gold, as stipulated by the IOC.

The ore for the medals is supplied by London 2012 sponsor Rio Tinto and is mined at Rio Tinto's Kennecott Utah Copper Mine near Salt Lake City in America, as well as from the Oyu Tolgoi project in Mongolia.

The medals will go into production later this year at Royal Mint's headquarters in Llantrisant, South Wales.

"The design is dynamic, full of energy and makes ingenious use of the 2012 symbol," said Sir John.

"It is a beautiful piece of craftsmanship with a crystalline, jewel-like quality."

Source: www.insidethegames.biz

Perfect timing is the goal of any athlete and the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games have certainly timed it well for British business.

In the challenging aftermath of the global financial crises, businesses of all shapes and sizes have welcomed the supply opportunities thrown up by an event often characterised as the biggest logistical exercise a country can undertake in peacetime. London 2012 related contracts worth more than £3.5 billion ($5.7 billion/€4 billion) have already been awarded to 950 different businesses.

While the timing was perfect, these opportunities were not served on a plate. The businesses that benefited prepared well and acted quickly.

The race, however, is not yet fully run. With one year to go until the start of the Games, the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games is still to procure more than £700 million ($1.1 billion/€793 million) worth of goods and services. Six hundred or so pre-Games training camps are also still to be arranged and these will be held across the country.

When show time finally arrives, VisitBritain estimates the potential additional spending by visitors resulting from the Games at over £2 billion (£3.3 billion/€2.3 billion), providing another welcome source of extra demand for local businesses.

These visitors will not just be tourists and sports fans. As the world's best athletes strive for gold in the Olympic Park, a diverse array of National Olympic Committees, sports federations, Heads of State, corporate sponsors, their guests and customers will descend on the UK capital, along with other venues as far apart as Glasgow and Weymouth.

No wonder that research recently commissioned by Deloitte found that 41 per cent of companies in the tourism, hospitality and leisure sector were expecting an increase in demand for their services.

Substantial as they are, however, the benefits for British businesses of staging the Games will not solely be short-term in nature.

It has already provided a massive reputational boost for the UK construction industry as a result of the skill and efficiency with which contractors have set about the gargantuan task of creating the Olympic Park. In June this year, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg led a trade mission to Brazil to promote the skills and track record of companies helping to stage the Games, including a significant focus on the construction and engineering contractors.

The Games have also given a clear push forward to Britain's already formidable events and marketing industry. It has opened doors in fast-developing economies such as Russia and Brazil, which will stage, respectively, the Sochi 2014 Winter Games and the Rio 2016 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games.

As the official professional services provider to London 2012, Deloitte is also using the Olympic and Paralympic Games to drive growth.

The Olympic project has given us an opportunity to demonstrate our expertise through a large-scale event of such universal appeal. For example, Drivers Jonas Deloitte will be project managing the construction of both the beach volleyball facility at Horse Guards Parade and the equestrian venue at Greenwich Park. This is a challenging assignment, since it involves creating temporary Olympic Games-calibre venues from scratch on sensitive heritage sites and reinstating those sites afterwards.

The Games also offer an effective tool for inspiring existing Deloitte employees and attracting the highest-possible calibre of job applicants. The value of the Olympic Games has already been demonstrated through a major impact on recruitment and retention. Many of our people have had the opportunity to work with LOCOG and other Olympic bodies either through secondments or on advisory projects. These roles have been highly sought-after with around 10 per cent of the entire firm having applied for a LOCOG secondment role whilst our sponsorship is often cited as a reason to join the firm in job interviews.

While the Olympic and Paralympic Closing Ceremonies will rightly celebrate the achievements of the athletes, it should also provide an opportunity to celebrate the growth that London 2012 has delivered.

Heather Hancock is lead London 2012 partner at Deloitte.