LONDON: The general public will be given priority for tickets for the 2012 London Olympics and everything possible will be done to fill stadiums, the chief organiser said in a newspaper interview today. Paul Deighton, the chief executive of LOCOG, the organising committee of the London Olympics, said the aim was to avoid the empty seats seen at some venues during the 2008 Beijing Olympics. “We …
Visit link: Olympics: 2012 tickets for the people, not VIPs
THE start of the 2012-13 English football season could be delayed to avoid a clash with the London 2012 Olympics.
View original post here: London Olympics set to delay 2012 Premier League start
Sebastian Coe wants a vuvuzela-free London Olympics in 2012, the Games chief said on Monday.
View original post here: Olympics-Coe wants vuvuzela-free Games in London
London, June 27 : Football can help stimulate the recollections of dementia sufferers, a project has found.
Excerpt from: Football replay used to fight dementia
Sebastian Coe, chairman of the organizing committee for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, says BP is a “partner to stay” despite the Gulf oil spill, The Associated Press reports. BP has been a top-tier sponsor of the London Olympics since 2008 in a deal valued at about $58
See the article here: London Olympics stand by BP
London Olympics leader Sebastian Coe defended BP on Tuesday, saying the company is a “partner to stay” of the 2012 Games despite the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. BP has been a top-tier sponsor of the London Olympics since 2008 in a deal valued at about $58 million. The company has come under severe criticism in the United States for its handling of the massive spill.
See the original post: Coe: BP is ‘partner to stay’ of 2012 Olympics
London Olympics chairman Lord Coe says the Gulf of Mexico oil spill will not harm BP’s sponsorship of the 2012 Games.
Continued here: BP ‘trusted partner’ of Olympics
The main press center for the 2012 London Olympics is taking shape. Organizers said Wednesday the concrete structure is complete, with windows being added. The five-floor press center will be used by more than 5,000 journalists during the Olympics. The building is next to the international broadcast center.
The rest is here: Press center takes shape for 2012 London Olympics
Tottenham Hotspur (Spurs) Football Club is located in North London. The club is also known as Spurs. Tottenham’s home ground is White Hart Lane. The club motto is Audere est Facere (To dare is to do).
See the article here: Tottenhamhotspur.com – News Articles – Football Development a …
Compton Ladies Football – Windows Live … Ladies Football Club in London. Two seperate league teams (Barnes Compton & Fulham Compton) as well as a social team.
See more here: Compton Ladies Football – Windows Live
The International Figure Skating Union’s Grand Prix Series enters its 15th season this weekend with its first event: The Trophee Eric Bompard Cachemire, in Paris. Competition starts Friday in competition, the first of six that will lead up to the Grand Prix Final in Tokyo in December and the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. It will feature some interesting storylines.
Ladies’ Singles
Carolina Kostner
This event has perhaps the most stacked ladies’ field of the Grand Prix season. Two of figure skating’s greatest rivals will meet in this event as Korean World Champion Kim Yu-Na and 2008 World Champion and faces Grand Prix Final champ Mao Asada of Japan.
Kim, who has been training with Brian Orser in Toronto, blew away the field at the worlds in Los Angeles with a record score. She will show off new programs choreographed by David Wilson – George Gershwin’s “Piano Concerto in F Major” in the long program and a short program to a medley of music from “James Bond 007″, considered unusual music for figure skating.
The archrivals will also be joined by Italy’s Carolina Kostner, but the hotly-anticipated comeback of American Sasha Cohen has been iced as the 2006 Olympic silver medallist who is making a comeback, has pulled out of the competition after suffering an injured calf in practice. Japan’s Yukari Nakano and Caroline Zhang of the U.S. may also challenge. There are no Canadian women in this event.
Entries: Mao Asada (Japan), Candice Didier (France), Sasha Cohen, United States, Gwendoline Didier (France), Elene Gedevanishvili, (Georgia), Alexe Gilles (USA), Yu-Na Kim (South Korea), Kiira Korpi (Finland), Carolina Kostner (Italy), Yukari Nakano (Japan), Caroline Zhang (USA), Anna Jurkiewicz (Poland)
Men’s Singles
Brian Joubert, the 2007 world champion from France, launches his season in front of his home fans and will no doubt be trying to vindicate himself after finishing with what he considered a disappointing bronze medal at the 2009 Worlds.
A five-time world medallist known for his big jumps, Joubert is likely to be challenged in Paris by Nobunari Oda. The Japanese skater is in top form, winning last year’s NHK Trophy, after being banned for three months by his national federation in 2007 for drunk driving. Russia’s Sergei Voronov and Tomáš Verner of Czech Republic will also be in the running for spots on the podium. Vaughn Chipeur is the only Canadian man in the event as he begins his quest for the nation’s second spot at the Olympics.
Entries: Vaughn Chipeur (Canada), Chao Yang (China), Tomas Verner (Czech Republic), Brian Joubert (France), Yannick Ponsero (France), Alban Preaubert (France), Peter Liebers (Germany), Nobunari Oda (Japan), Sergei Voronov (Russia), Javier Fernandez (Spain), Ryan Bradley (USA), Adam Rippon (USA)
Pairs
Canadians Bryce Davison and Jessica Dubé will face the world’s finest pairs competition right off the bat in Paris when they return to the romantic style of skating that so suited them before their experimental season last year. They will meet world champions Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy of Germany, the reigning world champs. It’s the first of two meetings between the two teams during this Grand Prix season. The second will be at Skate Canada in Kitchener, Ont., in late November.
Russians Maria Mukhortova and Maxim Trankov, coached by Olympic champ Oleg Vassiliev, may also figure into the podium.
Entries: Adeline Canac and Maximin Coia (France), Marissa Castelli and Simon Shnapir (USA), Huibo Dong and Yiming Wu (China), Jessica Dubé and Bryce Davison (Canada), Vanessa James and Yannick Bonheur (France), Maria Mukhortova and Maxim Trankov (Russia), Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy, Germany
Ice Dance
Canadians Tessa Virtue, of London, Ont. and Scott Moir, of Ilderton, Ont. are making their return to the Grand Prix circuit after missing the series last season when Virtue had to have surgery on both of her shins. They returned late in the season to earn bronze at the world championships, and they feel confident now that they are the best ice dance team in the world. They will debut their highly-anticipated new programs: a flamenco original dance and a free dance to Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 5.
Virtue and Moir enter the competition as the clear favourite but can expect some good competition from the French team of Nathalie Pechalat and Fabian Bourzat, Sinead and John Kerr of Great Britain, and Americans Emily Samuelson and Evan.
Entries: Zoé Blanc and Pierre-Loup Bouquet (France), Kristina Gorshkova and Vitali Butikov, (Russia), Madison Hubbell and Keiffer Hubbell (USA), Sinead Kerr and John Kerr (Great Britain), Kimberly Navarro and Brent Bommentre (USA), Nathalie Pechalat and Fabian Bourzat (France), Ekaterina Rubleva and Ivan Shefer (Russia), Emily Samuelson and Evan Bates (USA), Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir (Canada)
The International Olympic Committee is no stranger to tough decisions. It took the risk of sending the games to Beijing and said “No” to New York in the aftermath of 9/11. Yet, despite all of that accumulated experience, some IOC members are struggling with their latest conundrum: choosing the Olympic host for 2016.
Just two days ahead of the vote, many were undecided.
And that means two things—it’s still too close to call between Rio de Janeiro, Chicago, Tokyo and Madrid and, for the next couple of days, IOC members are going to feel that they are the most popular people on the planet. Everyone in Copenhagen, where they are gathered, seemingly wants to be their new best friend.
Want to meet Michelle Obama? Not a problem if you’re an IOC member who needs a little pointer on which way to vote. The first lady, beating her husband to the Danish capital, has a two-room suite in the IOC hotel, with homely white leather furniture and an interactive table that, at the touch of a hand, gives bird’s eye views of how a Chicago Olympics might look.
Mrs Obama arrived Wednesday, two days ahead of the U.S. leader, and got straight to work on impressing IOC members.
“We’re not taking anything for granted, so I’m going to go talk to some voters,” she said.
IOC members who have been through this selection process repeatedly, previously sending the games to London, Beijing, Athens and Sydney, told The Associated Press that they could not remember a tougher choice. The AP canvassed the opinions of a dozen IOC members. With all four cities seen as amply capable, technically at least, of holding the Olympics, they said much will ride on how well or badly the cities make their case in final 45-minute presentations to the IOC on Friday before the successive rounds of secret balloting.
“I have two favorites,” IOC member Nicole Hoevertsz said. “It’s going to come down to the last, last presentation. It’s going to come down to the last minute.”
As tension mounted, so did tempers. Despite fresh IOC warnings that the cities should avoid criticizing their rivals, the Spanish Olympic Committee’s vice president, Jose Maria Odriozola, told the national Efe news agency that “Rio is the worst bid.”
Rio bid organizers said the criticism was “totally unacceptable” and formally complained to the IOC.
The outcome Friday could hinge on which cities are eliminated first and, if and when their favorites are knocked out, how IOC members subsequently line up behind the other candidates. That makes predicting a winner perilous and means that even members who say they already have made their choice are still worth lobbying.
“It is difficult enough to know where the first-round votes are going to go, so trying to imagine where the swinging votes are going to go is impossible,” said Spanish IOC member Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr, whose father served as IOC president for 21 years.
“Events in the next 48 hours will decide the winner, because they will have a significant influence on the second- and third-round votes,” he said.
Samaranch said he believes nearly all the IOC’s 106 members already have a favorite. But IOC vice president Chiharu Igaya said “many” members are undecided.
Added British IOC member Craig Reedie: “This is really close. The closer it gets the more people will say, let me think about it. We all want to see the presentations. It’s what people see that will count. Decided? No, I haven’t actually. I’m getting close.”
Late, high-powered lobbying can be important—as then-Prime Minister Tony Blair and his wife, Cherie, proved when London campaigned successfully for the 2012 Olympics. Blair traveled to Singapore ahead of the vote and spent two days lobbying members, inviting them to his hotel suite for one-on-one meetings.
Chicago tore a leaf from Blair’s playbook: Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett met with him last week to solicit his advice and get tips on navigating the IOC voting process.
But for the first time, there are no IOC executive board meetings in the days leading up to the vote. That means less opportunity for schmoozing.
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LONDON (Reuters) – Andy Roddick won the shootout between former champions when he squeezed past Lleyton Hewitt 7-6 7-6 to reach the quarter-finals at Queen’s Club on Thursday.
LONDON (Reuters) – Top seed Andy Murray quickly found his feet on grass at Queen’s Club on Wednesday, posting a 6-1 6-4 victory over Italy’s Andreas Seppi to reach the third round of the Wimbledon warm-up tournament.
LONDON (Reuters) – Just when it seemed that it would be a waste of time for anyone other than Rafael Nadal to turn up at the French Open, Roger Federer cast a shadow over the Spaniard’s Roland Garros prospects.
The NFL have held ‘substantive talks’ with officials in London about holding the Super Bowl in the city.
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LONDON (Reuters) – If Roger Federer thinks becoming a father will have little impact on his goal of equaling and then breaking Pete Sampras’s record of 14 grand slam titles he might be in for a rude awakening.
LONDON (Reuters) – The Ryder Cup captaincy is helping Colin Montgomerie relax on the golf course and he believes the new role will ensure his playing performances improve.
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