Olympic Times - Sports Daily

Greek Tourism Development Ministry has signed a memorandum of cooperation between the ministry and the organizing committee for the Special Olympics World Summer Games in 2011 on Monday.
The Tourism Minister Aris Spiliotopoulos said on Monday that Greece would once again meet the challenge, as it had done for the Olympic Games of 2004, organizing a sports event to the highest standards in 2011.
The 13th World Summer special Olympic Games will be held in Athens from June 25 until July 4 in 2011, which will bring more than 70,000 athletes, coaches, volunteers, family members and reporters to Greece during that time.
Spiliotopoulos stressed that it was the obligation of his ministry and the Greek National Tourism Organization (GNTO), which were sponsors of the event, to assist the efforts of the organizing committee that were chiefly based on volunteer work.
The GNTO has undertaken to promote the Games through an advertising campaign, promotional events and the distribution of printed material.
The first special Olympic Games started from 1968. Among the 170 million intellectually disabled people worldwide, some 2.25 million people have participated in the special Olympic activities. The 12th World Summer Special Olympic Games was held in Shanghai from October 2 to 12 , 2007.

Speaking to the Guardian, Wiggins admitted that he had been struggling to give his all in the event after winning gold in the individual and team pursuits, and the pair finished only eighth despite being reigning World Champions.
Wiggins said: “Cav is like my little brother and I love him dearly. But we left the stadium without saying a word to each other and we’ve yet to speak.”
The Belgium-born cyclist, who also won gold, silver and bronze in Athens, admits the result in Beijing was a shock to both of them.
“We should have been good enough to win the Madison but in the past I’ve always been the leader so it was weird when the roles were reversed.

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China kicked off its National Day celebrations Monday by highlighting its hosting of the Beijing Olympics and the country’s first spacewalk, two hard-won successes in a tumultuous year marked by natural disasters, ethnic unrest and another food safety scandal.

The spacewalk on Saturday boosted a wave of Chinese pride and patriotism stemming from the Olympics, which is still a big news story in the domestic media one month after it ended. China’s Olympic heroes were honored in a three-hour ceremony at the Great Hall of the People that was broadcast live on national television.

State broadcaster CCTV showed the three returning astronauts, with flower garlands around their necks, waving and smiling as they were treated to a homecoming parade in Beijing. Their mission, including China’s first spacewalk, put the country closer to building a space station and landing a man on the moon.

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Ronaldinho picked the ideal time to open his AC Milan account as his first-half goal gave it a 1-0 win over city rivals Internazionale on Sunday.

The Brazilian powerfully headed home a cross from compatriot Kaka in the 36th minute as Jose Mourinho tasted his first defeat as Inter boss.

The Nerazzurri finished the game with 10 men after Nicolas Burdisso was sent off in the 77th minute, while Marco Materazzi was also sent to the stands from the Inter bench for protesting too strongly in a fiery end to the derby.

Carlo Ancelotti’s side look to have banished their woeful early-season form though after their third straight win lifted them up to sixth in the Serie A table.

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Renault’s Fernando Alonso has won the first Formula One night race after starting 15th on the grid in Singapore.

The Spaniard finished ahead of Williams driver Nico Rosberg, while McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton was third.

Hamilton extended his championship lead to seven points over Ferrari’s Felipe Massa with three races remaining.

Massa had started in pole position but fell out of contention when he drove away from the pits with the fuel line still connected to his car.

Teammate Kimi Raikonnen also had a bad night, crashing with three laps to go.

Mark Webber failed to finish but his Red Bull team-mate David Coulthard was seventh.

from: theage.com.au

The London Olympic Games budget will break through the 10 billion ($A22 billion) barrier, largely because officials have ”vastly underestimated” the cost of protecting the event from terrorists, The Independent on Sunday has revealed.

Security costs for the 2012 Games were now likely to reach $A3.3 billion nearly three times the original estimate, a senior official involved in planning the event said.

The army was to be drafted to help protect athletes and spectators from an atrocity, the official revealed. Military helicopters would patrol overhead and jets would be on standby to intercept any suspect private plane heading for the main Olympic stadium in east London. Under Treasury rules, the Ministry of Defence would charge the Olympic authorities for such a deployment.

The security operation is expected to be the largest in peacetime Britain, with the two-week event classed in Whitehall as a major terrorist target. Yet detailed planning for policing and security has barely started.

Insiders said a price could not be put on preventing a large-scale terrorist attack on the main Olympic site or in London’s parks, where thousands will watch the events on giant TV screens.

The London bombings of July 7, 2005, took place the day after the capital celebrated winning the 2012 bid.

”It will cost whatever it takes to ensure terrorism does not once again try to rob London of celebrating the 2012 Games,” a source said.

The insider said security planning was ”basically starting from scratch. There are no detailed plans yet but of course it will cost far more, around 1.5 billion [$A3.3billion].”

Balancing security concerns with ensuring spectators can enjoy a friendly and open atmosphere in contrast to Beijing’s rigid controls is proving to be the greatest headache for organisers, alongside transport.

Officials want the experience of 2012 to be open and shared by all Londoners, with street parties similar to those in Sydney at the turn of the millennium. Giant video screens will be placed in Hyde Park and at other sites where events will take place.

In addition to police officers from Scotland Yard and other forces, tens of thousands of volunteers will be needed to check bags and tickets. Unmanned military planes, as used to monitor the Taliban in Afghanistan, could be deployed to monitor suspected terrorist aircraft.

The transport network is likely to carry 240,000 passengers an hour during the Games. Extra officers will be needed to identify suspected bombers, and stadiums will be built with special blast-proof material, including shatter-proof glass.

Officials from the Cabinet Office and the Home Office have been meeting regularly to discuss the operation.

If organisers are to keep to budget promises, cuts will have to be made elsewhere, such as in the construction of stadiums and the Olympic village to house 17,000 athletes, and in the funding of the 2012 ”legacy”, intended to promote sport in the community.

source: canberratimes.com.au

Beijing has announced a series of post-Olympics car restrictions, which will take effect next month and hopefully sustain the hard-won smooth traffic and good air quality during the Games.

Under the new traffic restrictions, 30 percent of government vehicles will be sealed off as of October 1, said a circular issued by the Beijing municipal government on Saturday.

The remaining 70 percent of government vehicles, as well as all corporate and private cars, will take turns off the roads one out of the five weekdays as of October 11, it said.

Cars whose number plates end with 1 or 6 will be taken off roads on Monday, while those ending with 2 or 7 will be banned on Tuesday, 3 or 8 on Wednesday, 4 or 9 on Thursday and 5 or 0 on Friday. The ban does not apply on weekends.

The ban will be applicable within the Fifth Ring Road inclusive, from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. for private cars and round the clock for government and corporate vehicles.

The new restrictions will take effect on a trial basis on October 11 for six months until April 10, but does not apply to police wagons, ambulances, fire engines, buses, taxies and other public service vehicles.

“It’s expected to reduce Beijing’s average road traffic flow by6.5 percent and speed up traffic within the Fifth Ring by 8 percent at least,” said Wang Zhaorong, an official with the Beijing Municipal Committee of Communications, at a press conference on Sunday.

In compensation, the restricted vehicles will be exempt from one month of vehicle tax and road maintenance fee a year. Drivers who are caught to have breached the new rule will not enjoy the exemption, according to Wang.

While most people applaud the ban on government and corporate vehicles, the ban on private cars, however, has sparked an outcry from car owners, many of whom complain it is “unfair”.

“I need to take my daughter home from boarding school on Friday night,” said Beijing bank clerk Zhang Min, whose number plate ends with “0″ and will be banned on Friday. “Probably we need to buy another car.”

More than 2,400 people posted online comments on China’s leading portal website sina.com within two hours after it published the ban. Very few postings were supportive of the ban on private cars.

“To ban should not be the ultimate way to ease Beijing’s traffic woes,” reads one of the postings. “Instead, our city should be better planned and the road network better designed.”

While most people were tolerant of the two-month ban on vehicles on alternate days during the Olympics and Paralympics, many are now fed up with the idea to take public transport just once every week.

But to like it or not, the Olympic traffic ban, which took nearly 2 million cars off the roads, was not only successful in easing congestion but also cleared the skies.

During the ban, traffic flow within the Fifth Ring was reduced by an average 21.2 percent and the average speed at rush hours increased by 25.8 percent to 30.2 km per hour, according to the Beijing Municipal Committee of Communications.

The city returned to its normal congestion after the ban was lifted on Sept. 21. Urban streets are unbearably jammed in the rush before the week-long National Day holiday set to start on Monday.

The debate over whether the ban should stay after the Games has lasted for weeks and Beijing authorities, apparently hard to find a solution that is effective and acceptable to all, are rather late in announcing the new ban.

Alongside the ban, city authorities have also encouraged employers to adopt more elastic working hours — even to work at home, if possible — in order to ease congestion.

Downtown department stores have been advised to open at 10 a.m. instead of 9 a.m., as of Oct. 11 and close one hour later than before.

Except for schools, governments and the public service sector, many Beijing organizations will be advised to readjust their office hours to avoid the rush hour.

The government is also considering raising downtown parking fees to ease congestion but no details are available yet.

To improve the city’s air quality, Beijing plans to ban a total of 357,000 “yellow label” vehicles from entering the Fifth Ring starting on Jan. 1, said Du Shaozhong, deputy chief of the municipal environment protection bureau.

By October next year, all the yellow label vehicles, mostly tippers and heavy-duty trucks, will be banned across Beijing, he said.

Beijing’s vehicles were issued green or yellow labels according to their emission levels and cars with a yellow label were banned from entering the city center during the day since two years ago.

Exhaust emission from a yellow label vehicle is equal to that from 28 low-emission vehicles of Euro-IV standards, said Du.

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mayumi

London’s Olympic chiefs yesterday warned that contributions from the private sector to the costs of two of the biggest 2012 projects were likely to be much smaller than originally expected as a result of the credit crunch.
The Olympic Delivery Authority, which oversees the London 2012 venues, said the economic conditions were undermining the development partners’ ability to borrow sums on favourable terms.
The upshot is that the ODA will have to draw on the £2bn of contingency funds made available within the overall budget of £9.3bn.
Lend Lease, the Australian developer of the £1bn athletes’ village, has already talked about its difficulties in raising money to fund half the cost of the 3,000-room complex, leaving the ODA with a shortfall understood to be about £250m.
But John Armitt, chairman of the ODA, said the same problem was affecting the £400m media centre, whose developer is the Carillion Igloo consortium.
“Fundamentally, we originally expected to have quite big sums of private sector funding for the Olympic village and for the media centre,” Mr Armitt told reporters.
“The consequence of what is happening in the markets means that the availability of funding is more difficult - that is not to say that it is not available but, if it is available, it is available on harsh terms.”
Both Carillion Igloo and the ODA are working on a package to help finance the build in a structure resembling the private finance initiatives used in public sector infrastructure projects.

from: ft.com

How the tale of the two cities hosting the 2010 Olympics will end is anyone’s guess, with many predicting the legacy will be a mix of the best and worst of times.
But in the cities outside Vancouver and Whistler, B.C., some people are less convinced it’s an ending that will see them living happily ever after.
While both host cities and those nearby are getting millions in new and upgraded infrastructure, including badly needed housing, some on the outskirts of Olympic glory say they’re getting hardly anything at all.
In Squamish, B.C., which sits along the Sea-to-Sky highway between the Vancouver and Whistler, Mayor Ian Sutherland rails against what he says are broken promises leaving his town bereft of lasting physical legacies from the Games.
A new ferry terminal and service was promised to transport spectators to Squamish, where they were then to transfer to Whistler by bus.

That plan was cancelled.
An ice arena for Paralympic sledge hockey was also supposed to be built.

That plan was cancelled.
Organizers briefly floated the idea of housing media on cruise ships nearby, which would give the town of about 15,000 massive media exposure.

That plan was cancelled.
Squamish was also supposed to be a transportation hub, where buses going to Whistler would stop for people to get a chance to visit on their way to Olympic events.

That’s also been scrapped.
“At the end of the day, it’s a fair amount of frustration for the people who live in Squamish,” said Sutherland, who is running as a Liberal candidate in the current federal election.

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Israel Police held secret training for Chinese police officers ahead of the recent Olympic Games, Haaretz has learned. The approximately six-week course was held in Israel for about 20 selected officers of the People’s Armed Police Force, to use Israeli experience to train them for possible scenarios involving terror and civil disturbances at the Games.

The training involved, among other things, how to neutralize terrorists with their bare hands, how to deal with a crowd that riots on the playing field, and how to protect VIPS and remove demonstrators from main traffic arteries.

The Chinese officers arrived in Israel last May for the training, at the request of the Chinese public safety ministry. Brigadier General Bentzi Sau was appointed head of the project and designed the training program.
All the police and Border Police officers participating in the program underwent a series of lectures by Foreign Ministry officials to sensitize them to cultural differences and make it easier for both groups to find a common language.

The Border Police base at Beit Horon was set up to accommodate the guests, including lessons in Chinese cuisine for police cooks.

For purposes of the training, the Kiryat Eliezer soccer stadium in Haifa played the part of the Bird’s Nest Olympic stadium in Beijing.

The officers learned how to take over a hijacked bus and identify a car rigged with explosives, and trained with M-16 rifles and Jericho pistols.

Although the main focus of the training was to give the Chinese police the tools necessary to handle terrorist attacks, they also learned how to handle mass civilian demonstrations.

The police also used the time the group was here to teach them about Israel.

They went on trips through the country including the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum, the Western Wall and the Dead Sea.

The course’s closing ceremony was held in the presence of Police Commissioner David Cohen and senior Chinese Embassy officials in Israel.

Haaretz has learned that the commander of the People’s Armed Police Force, General Wu Shuangzhan, has expressed an interest in continued cooperation between Israeli and Chinese police following the success of the course. The police has declined to comment on the matter.

The Chinese officials had asked the police and the Foreign Ministry not to report on the course in the media, and sources in Israel expressed concern that a report would harm future cooperation between the two police forces.

source: haaretz.com

A Italia blog

Felipe Massa looks to be planning a repeat of his Valencia performance after he took a comfortable pole position for the Singapore Grand Prix on Saturday evening.

The Brazilian upped the ante after McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari team mate Kimi Raikkonen had set the fastest times, lapping his F2008 in 1m 44.801s. With Hamilton next on 1m 45.465s ahead of Raikkonen on 1m 45.617s, it is probably safe to assume that Massa is running to a lighter fuel strategy.

McLaren’s Heikki Kovalainen split the two BMW Saubers on his final run, his 1m 45.873s leaving him between Robert Kubica (1m 45.779s) and Nick Heidfeld (1m 45.964s).

Monza winner Sebastian Vettel was the only Red Bull-backed runner to make the top 10 this time, taking his Toro Rosso to seventh on 1m 46.244s ahead of Toyota’s Timo Glock (1m 46.328s) and the Williams duo of Nico Rosberg (1m 46.611s) and Kazuki Nakajima (a top 10 first timer with 1m 47.547s).

Q2 weeded out Toyota’s Jarno Trulli (1m 45.038s), Honda’s Jenson Button (1m 45.133s), Red Bull’s Mark Webber and David Coulthard (1m 45.212s and 1m 45.298s respectively), and the unfortunate Fernando Alonso, whose Renault quit on him with fuel supply problems in Turn 18 during his out lap.

Renault’s Nelson Piquet lost out to Coulthard’s final effort in Q1, the Brazilian’s 1m 46.037s leaving him 16th in the line-up. Sebastien Bourdais didn’t get it together either, failing to push his Toro Rosso beyond 1m 46.389s. Rubens Barrichello’s weekend didn’t get any better for Honda, with 1m 46.583s for 18th.

The two Force Indias were at the back. Adrian Sutil lapped in 1m 46.940s, but Giancarlo Fisichella did nothing to endear himself to his mechanics, who had worked flat out to get him running near the end of the session following his earlier practice shunt, only for him to put his repaired VJM01 off into the barriers in Turn 3.

source: formula1.com

China’s food and drug watchdog said on Friday that 523 drug licences were revoked for illegally producing or selling stimulants during the Beijing Olympic Games.
China’s State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA) began a nationwide campaign against illegal stimulants by the country’s drug makers and retailers before the Games to keep a clean Olympics.
The administration and the State Administration for Industry and Commerce had inspected all the authorized stimulant makers and revoked one producing licence for stimulants, said Shao Mingli, SFDA’s director, at a tele-conference in Beijing on Friday.
The authorities checked 13,000 stimulant wholesalers and 341,000 retailers as well as 63,000 chemical plants and withdrew 522 selling licences, the director said.
The two administrations also dug out 45 chemical plants and 334 website operators for other illegalities, he said, adding that there had been no stimulant scandal during the Olympics.
However, the two authorities have not revealed any cases in which suspects or companies were arrested or fined for the illegalities.
Shao asked local food and drug administrations to learn a lesson from the recent milk scandal throughout the country, and to strengthen supervision work on various food and drugs.
China’s domestic dairy firm Sanlu Group was exposed as having produce a toxic baby formula which has so far killed at least three babies and has sickened about 53,000 children in the country and put 11,000 in hospital.

Fernando Alonso took the honours again in Saturday evening’s final session of practice for the inaugural Singapore Grand Prix, and with Nelson Piquet fourth it proved to be a good one for Renault.
Alonso set his time right at the end of another busy hour of running under the floodlights, just after McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton had set the benchmark of 1m 45.119s to depose Felipe Massa’s 1m 45.246s for Ferrari. That itself had just beaten Piquet’s 1m 45.249s.
Alonso’s 1m 44.506s, the fastest lap thus far this weekend, suggests that he was running a minimal fuel load.
Alonso, BMW Sauber’s Nick Heidfeld and Red Bull’s Mark Webber all had off-course moments, usually because of the numerous bumps, Kazuki Nakajima grazed a wall with his Williams, and there was something of a pantomime as Kimi Raikkonen slid up an escape road and was not helped out of it by the marshals after stalling his Ferrari’s engine.
The biggest incident concerned Giancarlo Fisichella, however. The Italian went over the kerbs in Turn 10 - which Lewis Hamilton had emphatically said earlier needed to be avoided at all costs - and launched his Force India into the outside wall. He was unhurt, but the VJM01 sustained wing and front suspension damage.
Nico Rosberg continued his promising form with fifth fastest time of 1m 45.386s for Williams, followed by Honda’s Jenson Button (1m 45.409s), BMW Sauber’s Robert Kubica (1m 45.425s), Webber (1m 45.450s), and the Toro Rosso duo of Sebastian Vettel (1m 45.477s) and Sebastien Bourdais (1m 45.599s). Heidfeld (1m 45.689s), Nakajima and McLaren’s Heikki Kovalainen (both 1m 45.982s) completed the runners below 1m 46s.
Honda’s Rubens Barrichello led those in that bracket with 1m 46.073s, ahead of the Toyotas of Timo Glock and Jarno Trulli (1m 46.180s and 1m 46.221s respectively), then came Raikkonen, stranded on 1m 46.482s, David Coulthard, limited to six laps by technical problems, on 1m 46.794s, Fisichella (1m 47.166s) and Force India team mate Adrian Sutil (1m 47.727s).

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source: formula1.com

A surcharge of $4 to $18 will be added to all tickets to the Vancouver 2010 Olympic events to cover public transit and administration costs, organizers said Friday.
People attending events in Whistler from Vancouver will be required to buy a $25 round-trip bus pass on top of the surcharge because there will be no parking at venues.
The return-trip pass using the Olympic bus network will be $12 for people going to events at Cypress Mountain.
There will also be a delivery fee for all tickets.
“Most ticket holders will need to use public transportation to get to Olympic events as there will be no parking at venues,” said Caley Denton, vice-president of ticketing and consumer marketing of the Vancouver Organizing Committee.
“One of our goals is to see the increased use of public transportation, walking and cycling as one of the legacies of hosting the Games,” Denton said in a release on Friday.
The surcharges are less than those usually applied to high-profile event tickets and the cost to travel between Vancouver and Whistler is about half that of taking a commercial bus service, he said.
The first phase of ticket sales for the Games begins on Oct. 3, but the transportation passes will be sold separately next year.
“With an Olympic ticket in your hand, you will have access to public transportation on the day of your event in Metro Vancouver, including buses and Skytrain, and in Whistler,” Denton said.
TransLink, the company that operates the public transit system throughout the Lower Mainland, said it is gearing up for the extra ridership.
“One way or another we were prepared for the fact that there’s going to be an awful lot of extra people on transit during the Games time, primarily because there will not be parking at or near most of the venues if not all of them,” TransLink spokesman Ken Hardie told CBC News Friday.
Hardie said by 2010 the Canada Line will be in service, 200 new buses will be added to the transit system and another 200 buses will be put into service especially for the Olympics.
The Canada Line is a $1.9-billion expansion of Vancouver’s SkyTrain elevated rapid-transit system that will run completely separated from traffic to and from downtown Vancouver and Vancouver International Airport in Richmond. It’s expected to be in operation in 2009.
At this point Olympic organizers said they aren’t planning to restrict access on the Sea-to-Sky Highway between Vancouver and Whistler to only Olympic business.
“The highway will essentially be able to operate as open,” said Maureen Douglas, director of community relations for the organizing committee.
“We will certainly provide the public with guidelines as to the best time to travel. There will be more efficient times to travel south and more efficient times to travel north,” he said.

from: cbc.ca

France will bid to stage the 2018 Winter Olympics, the French Olympic Committee (CNOSF) said on Wednesday. “Our Olympic ambition led us to bid for the 2018 Games,” CNOSF president Henri Serandour told a news conference.
Three towns — Annecy, Nice and Grenoble, which hosted the Games in 1968 — had already said they were interested in a candidacy, he added. France’s official candidate should be named in March 2009.
One rival will be Munich which declared itself a candidate last December.
France has staged three Winter Olympics, with the other two in 1924 in Chamonix and 1992 in Albertville.
Paris was the host of the Summer Olympics in 1900 and 1924 but was beaten in its bid for the 1992, 2008 and 2012 Games by Barcelona, Beijing and London.
The next Winter Games will be held in Vancouver (2010) and Sochi (2014).

from: iht.com