GAMES

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.

Source: www.insidethegames.biz

By: Tom Degun

July 25 - London 2012 chairman Sebastian Coe claimed today the success of the overseas legacy programme - International Inspiration, which has involved top athletes like Denise Lewis - has shown that they have kept the promise it made to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) when it was awarded the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Singapore more than six years ago.

With just over a year to go until the start of the Games, it was announced that the programme has delivered on its promise a year earlier than planned as International Inspiration has already achieved its vision of reaching 12 million children in 20 countries.

Coe made the promise to the IOC that if the city was awarded the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the Organising Committee would reach out to young people all around the world and connect them to the inspirational power of the Games so they are inspired to choose sport.

"I think it is really important that when you make commitments to the international leadership of sport that throughout the delivery of the project that you are seen to be meeting those commitments and fulfilling that vision," Coe told insidethegames.

"I think International Inspiration illustrates that we have delivered on what we promised to the IOC in Singapore six years and 19 days ago as we won the Games on the back of a series of commitments.

"I would like to thank the delivery partners of International Inspiration who have helped us achieve our vision, particularly the IOC, and I am confident this programme will be adopted future Olympic and Paralympic host cities."

International Inspiration is delivered as a partnership between UK Sport, UNICEF and the British Council while the programme works with local communities, teachers, coaches and governments to improve children's lives and give them the chance to take part in sport and play.

It is helping change children and young people's lives in many different ways, Coe claimed.

In Bangladesh, where thousands of children drown each year, International Inspiration is working with the Bangladesh Swimming Federation to teach swimming survival techniques to over 80,000 non-swimmers.

Working in seven flood-prone priority districts, International Inspiration has so far trained 784 teenage swimming instructors to teach children how to swim and to raise awareness about the importance of survival swimming.

Noor, an 18-year-old involved with the International Inspiration programme in Bangladesh and who saved a child from drowning by performing CPR which she learnt during her training, joined Coe for the announcement.

"Before being involved with International Inspiration, I wasn't very confident and I didn't feel like I would have any opportunities in life," she said.

"Now, thanks to International Inspiration, I am using the skills and experience I have learnt to further my education and I am much more respected in my community, which is something very important for women in Bangladesh."

School partnerships are also an integral part of International Inspiration, providing an opportunity for teachers, children and young people to develop and share innovative approaches to PE, sport and play in the classroom and their local community - as well as learning about and understanding each other's cultures, experiences and international development issues.

More than 200 schools in the UK currently linked to a school overseas through International Inspiration.

"International Inspiration has used the power of sport to change the lives and futures of 12 million children worldwide," said Hugh Robertson, the Minister for Sport and the Olympics

"It is a fantastic achievement and one of the greatest, and most long-term, legacies of London 2012."

The London 2012 programme will continue in some countries until 2014.

Source: www.insidethegames.biz

By: Duncan Mackay

July 24 - Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan tonight officially confirmed that Istanbul will bid for the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics, making the

announcement before a cheering crowd of more than 20,000 during a speech to open the European Youth Olympic Festival at the H. Avin Aker Stadium in Trabzon.

Erdogan was accompanied by Dr Ugur Erdener, Turkey's International Olympic Committee (IOC) member, to the Opening Ceremony to an event which has attracted

more than 3,300 entries from 49 countries.

Among the dignitaries attending was Ireland's Patrick Hickey, the President of the European Olympic Committee and an influe tial member of the IOC.

A moment's slence was also held for the victims of the tragedy in Norway.

The Norwegian athletes taking part in the ceremony wore black armbands.

The British flag was carried by Tonbridge's Jemima Yeats-Brown, a judo player.

"It was a big surprise to be selected as flag bearer because there were lots of other athletes who were just as deserving," she said.

"They chose me and it is really special."

After the march of the athletes the crowd were treated to a traditional show of Turkish dancing before a spectacular firework display.

The announcement that Istanbul is to bid was made to coincide with the 88th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923 that established the

sovereignty of the new Republic of Turkey as the successor state of the defunct Ottoman Empire.

The city previously mounted four consecutive failed bids, for the 2000, 2004, 2008 and 2012 Olympics.

But, having narrowly failed to win its campaign to host the 2016 European Football Championships, there is a feeling that this bid will be much stronger.

Istanbul will face Madrid, Rome and Tokyo and, possibly, Doha.

"These Games will directly affect Istanbul's candidancy," said Erdogan.

"Turkey is strong enough to stage this fantastic event."

More details about the bid are expected to be released in the next few days.

The IOC is due to choose the host city at its Session in Buenos Aries on September 7, 2013.