Jul 29
East London celebrated two years until the start of the 2012 Olympics yesterday, with a number of public events at the Olympic Park.
See the original post: Olympics: just two years away
Jul 27
PHOENIX – The group of Arizona Special Olympic athletes spent the week competing in Lincoln, Nebraska for the National Special Olympics games. The 31 Arizona athletes brought home 8 gold medals, 13 silver medals and 7 bronze medals. Over 3,000 athletes across the nation competed.
Read more: Special Olympics athletes from Arizona shine at national competition
Jul 22
With the 2014 Winter Olympics likely on the horizon, halfpipe skiers worldwide feel like they’re standing at the edge of something big. Designation as an Olympic event would vault the sport to an international competitive forum of a scope unprecedented in halfpipe skiing. Along with that, competitors…
More: Olympics Hopeful
Jul 07
Marlen Esparza is just the second boxer to represent Houston on the national team, following in the footsteps of 2000 Olympic silver medalist Rocky Juarez.
View original post here: Olympics a weighty subject for local boxer
Jul 01
The Government is hoping for £400 million cashback from the Olympic budget thanks to the smooth running of the 2012 construction project.
See the rest here: Olympics pay price of efficiency as Government tries to claw back funds
Jul 01
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The International Olympic Committee said Tuesday it will be promoting the U.N. goal of equality for women and will be pressing Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Brunei to send female athletes to the Olympics for the first time when London hosts the games in 2012.
Read the rest here: Olympics promote U.N. goal of women’s equality
Jun 23
A producer specializing in TV spectacles such as the Olympic Games and one of the Oscar-winning filmmakers behind “American Beauty” will run the Academy Awards telecast next year, organizers said Tuesday.
Read more: Olympics, "American Beauty" producers helm Oscars
Jun 23
Leisel Jones has hailed next month’s inaugural Youth Olympics Games as a perfect primer for Australia’s future Olympic champions as soon as London 2012.
Here is the original post: Youth Olympics pure gold: Leisel Jones
Jun 23
All three applicant cities for the 2018 Winter Olympics have made an International Olympic Committee shortlist, the IOC said on Tuesday.
Continued here: Olympics-All three 2018 Games bidders make IOC shortlist
Jun 11
The Special Olympics Connecticut summer games gets started tomorrow, but first the Olympic torch must make its way through the state.
Jun 09
At a summit held last week in Antalya, Turkey, the International Ski Federation (FIS) Congress voted unanimously to support Ski Halfpipe in its bid to become a medal event for men and women at the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia. The decision means that the FIS will now take Ski Halfpipe’s case to the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the organization that has the final say on …
Read this article: FIS endorses Ski Halfpipe for Olympics
Oct 16
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)
Oct 03
Tokyo’s hopes of hosting the 2016 Olympics were shattered Friday as the Japanese capital was eliminated in the second round of voting by the International Olympic Committee.
Rio de Janeiro was named the winner of rights to stage the 2016 Games, beating Madrid in the final round of voting to become the first South American Olympic host. Rio had 66 votes to Madrid’s 32.
Chicago was eliminated in the first round of voting before Tokyo’s exit left the race down to the Rio and Madrid. Tokyo had 22 votes in the first round and 20 in the second.
Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama released a statement Saturday congratulating the Brazilian people on Rio de Janeiro’s win in a bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympics.
‘‘I want to offer my heartfelt appreciation for the citizens of Tokyo and athletes,’’ said Tokyo Gov Shintaro Ishihara. ‘‘Let’s use this precious experience, while tackling environmental issues and contribute to the development of world cities. I pray for the success of the Games in Rio de Janeiro.’’
Under host city voting procedures, the city with the fewest number of votes in each successive round of balloting is eliminated until one city has reached a majority of the valid votes cast.
Oct 01
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.
Read the rest of this entry…
Jul 15
NBC plans on bidding for rights to televise the 2014 and 2016 Olympics despite the U.S. Olympic Committee’s decision to build a competing Olympic network.
NBC spokesman Brian Walker said Sunday that nothing had changed in the network’s intentions to bid for the games.
Because of the rough economy, the International Olympic Committee has postponed the bidding for the 2014 and 2016 Olympics, likely until after the 2016 Games are awarded in October. Chicago, Madrid, Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo are the finalists.
NBC has televised all Olympics since 2000. Fox, the ABC Sports-ESPN team and CBS and Time Warner have also discussed bidding for the games.
The IOC sent a letter last week chastising the USOC for announcing plans for its new network, saying it raised complex legal questions and also could have a negative impact on the relationship with NBC.
The USOC worked for nearly three years on constructing a network. That included negotiations with NBC, whose cable partner, Universal Sports, already airs a healthy amount of Olympic-sport coverage.
Those negotiations fizzled and the USOC teamed with Comcast, which will give the network clearance on about 10 million homes when it goes to air after next year’s Vancouver Olympics. The USOC, which doesn’t have non-Olympic-year rights to most of the major Olympic sports, plans to start with mainly small-sport coverage, news and information shows and archival footage.
USOC leaders are touting the network as a good way to increase interest in the Olympic movement and as a complement to NBC, which has rights to the 2010 and 2012 Olympics and Olympic Trials.
“We’re looking forward to working things out with the IOC in the very near future,” chief operating officer Norm Bellingham said. “When it becomes more clear to everyone what is taking place with regards to the new entity, they’ll see it’s not cannibalizing anybody’s piece of the pie, but growing it for all parties involved.”
But Bellingham conceded that after 2012, the USOC network plans to bring Olympic trials to its own network.
All of this has leaders at the IOC worried, as they look to maximize the amount of money they can get for the U.S. TV contract — not just the most lucrative TV deal out there, but the biggest chunk of money the IOC receives from anywhere. NBC will pay about $2.2 billion to televise the 2010 and 2012 Olympics.
Jun 11
Amanda Ray Beard (born October 29, 1981 in Newport Beach, California), is an Olympic-level swimmer and model from the United States of America. Beard participated in the 1996 Summer Olympics, 2000 Summer Olympics, 2004 Summer Olympics, and 2008 Summer Olympics, capturing a total of seven medals, the most recent in the 2004 games. She [...]
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Jun 10
Amanda Ray Beard (born October 29, 1981 in Newport Beach, California), is an Olympic-level swimmer and model from the United States of America. Beard participated in the 1996 Summer Olympics, 2000 Summer Olympics, 2004 Summer Olympics, and 2008 Summer Olympics, capturing a total of seven medals, the most recent in the 2004 games. She [...]
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May 22
Beautiful, charitable and talented, Ana Ivanovic has battled the pretty tennis player stereotype and proved her critics wrong.
But as this 21-year-old is finding out, staying at the top can be harder than getting there.
It is in a karaoke booth that Ana Ivanovic proves she is flawed. Wearing tracksuit pants and a blue singlet top, coloured lights spinning, she twirls and waves one hand goofily in the air as she dances to a Diana Ross tune.
“Upside down you’re turning me,” Ivanovic sings out of key. “You’re giving love instinctively”.
She moves awkwardly, theatrically pulling the microphone back, as she points her finger at the camera.
She descends into giggles and resorts to miming parts of the song. Singing is something Ivanovic can’t do well. But what does it matter? This is the woman who calls up UNICEF to volunteer her services, studies economics and takes exams between grand slams. The woman who says the roguish Andrew Symonds is her favourite Australian sportsman and often decorates magazine pages like a supermodel.
She’s a sports beauty devoid of pretension, and one who has won a grand slam title. But when asked about her imperfections she insists there are many things she can’t do. “I mean I can’t sing,” Ivanovic admits through a torrent of giggles. That’s an understatement; she couldn’t hold a note in a bucket. The incriminating YouTube footage is proof.
Ana Ivanovic
“But obviously I appreciate what I have and I feel very fortunate to have what I have at a young age,” Ivanovic, 21, says. “I think it’s normal as human beings that we want more and more and more. You think: ‘Have I got everything? Can I have more?’ There’s always something. But you’ve got to appreciate, realise: ‘Hey, I’ve got so many things in my life so I should just appreciate it’. Obviously I have goals, and something more that I want to achieve, but I have to take life as it comes. I don’t need to have everything right here, right now.”
Ivanovic has graced the pages of US Vogue and models expensive watches. She has the most visited website of any sportswoman in the world, which is unsurprising as she is often voted “sexiest”, “most beautiful” and as having the “most beautiful body in sport” by various polls.
“She has everything,” her long-time manager, Dan Holzmann, says. “And she is natural. Some people are made. But with Ana we didn’t have to do anything. She is smart, has a good heart – a pretty girl who’s very competitive and fights for every ball.”
Oh yes, let’s not forget she can play. Ivanovic has won eight WTA singles titles but, of course, the highlight is her French Open win last year. During that perfect French spring Ivanovic also collected the No.1 world ranking.
She had everything. But since she cried tears of joy on clay nearly a year ago, Ivanovic has wobbled under the weight of having it all, with her ranking dropping to seven. She injured her thumb between the French Open and Wimbledon and was bundled out in the third round at the All England Club. Following that, Ivanovic failed to win back-to-back matches in her next five events including an early second round exit at the US Open. During this time she admitted being No.1 was a cross to bear. After her 12-week reign at the top she wondered how Roger Federer had survived as No.1 in the men’s game for so long.
When she bowed out of the Australian Open this year in the third round, the critics again questioned her heart and talent. Would she just be a one-slam wonder?
Ivanovic says she knew the magnitude of her French Open success last year. Her Roland Garros win relieved the burden that comes with being a beautiful and talented sportswoman. The parallels once drawn between her and Anna Kournikova were quickly dismissed.
“Yes, before definitely people were [distracted by my looks],” Ivanovic says. “I’d played disappointingly before that French Open win. People were saying: ‘Can she do it?’ It was great to make that happen. It’s one thing getting into the final, it’s another altogether winning it. That gave me a lot of confidence.” However, since winning her first grand slam title she admits she has struggled to maintain that confidence. But if anything, Ivanovic has proved that adversity is a fuel for her.
She grew up scheduling her training sessions according to when the bombs would be most likely to drop on Belgrade. She remembers as a 12-year-old she had to practise between seven and nine in the morning because from midday the bombing would start. Those dark days during NATO’s 78-day bombardment of the city amid the Kosovo crisis of 1999 were harrowing times for Ivanovic. The grief of that period aside, the tennis facilities were unconventional. In the winter Ivanovic crafted her game in an abandoned Olympic-sized swimming pool that had been drained of water, carpeted and converted into an indoor court. In trying financial circumstances her parents, Dragana, a lawyer, and Miroslav, a businessman, still managed to support her tennis dream. “My family was in a very tough situation, my country was in a very bad place,” Ivanovic says. “They were some very hard years [but] my parents always supported me.
I was just this kid who wanted to play and people were finding it hard to survive.”
During the spring of 1999, Ivanovic spent four months sheltering from the air raids. She remembers her crippling fear as she heard the bombs and felt the building shake. Despite the bombardment her family refused to tuck themselves away in the cellar. They filled the house with “positive” people and made an effort to remain emotionally resilient. Ivanovic now wears her positivity like an armour.
While many sports stars may sour with success, Ivanovic has not changed. She’s a walking Disneyland. Ivanovic bubbles through press conferences and even the most inane questions don’t trouble her cheery demeanour. “Yeah, I always have been like this,” Ivanovic says. “Ever since I was a kid I’ve always thought it very important to be happy inside. There’s a lot of bad things happening in the world, but it’s important to try to stay happy and appreciate what you’ve got and don’t look externally for the happiness.”
Her parents have been the key to her attitude and success, says Holzmann. “If you met her parents you’d know she’s their daughter,” he says. “I have met many tennis parents on the tour and some of them are so crazy and manipulative.”
Everything changed for Ivanovic when, as a 14-year-old, she met Holzmann, a Swiss businessman with a passion for tennis. His tennis coach told him about Ivanovic, whose sponsor was facing bankruptcy, so the teenager and her mother flew to Switzerland for a visit.
In their first meeting, Holzmann remembers Ivanovic having “warm eyes” but a steely determination. “She knew what she wanted,” Holzmann says. “She said to me: ‘I want to be No.1.’ And I believed her.
I believed this 14-year-old girl.”
Holzmann, who had made his riches from the vitamin drink Juice Plus, decided to finance and manage Ivanovic’s career. However, her first match with Holzmann on her side was a disaster. She lost. This led to tears and a locker room lock in. He had travelled to Milan to watch Ivanovic and she was devastated that she had failed. She sobbed for hours. “She wanted to prove she was great,” Holzmann says. “She thought I was going to cancel her contract.”
During the next few years Holzmann spent $500,000 on Ivanovic’s career. Within two years of becoming a pro, she had repaid his investment. Today, the pair have a sturdy friendship. He is kept busy helping manage her multi-million-dollar empire, seeking the right endorsement opportunities. Selling Ivanovic requires little effort. Her image is faultless and she has remained an unchanged “modest girl” since he met her seven years ago. “She’s not Little Miss Perfect but the nice thing about Ana is she is very natural. She is very different to, say, Jelena Jankovic, the Williams sisters. You look at Maria Sharapova, these people, they are thinking: ‘What can I do to be loved, to be more respected by my fans today?’
“Ana has a life outside tennis. If she didn’t play tennis she would be a doctor.”
The attention lately has also been on Ivanovic’s love life. In the past she has dated Spanish player Fernando Verdasco and she was recently linked to Australian golfer Adam Scott. The pair are both brand ambassadors for Rolex and are said to have “hooked up” in the last Australian summer. Her management states the pair are “friends”. For now there is no significant other. The only man Ivanovic has recently brought into her life is American coach Craig Kardon. It’s the first time in two years she has employed a full-time coach. In her first tournament in February under Kardon’s tuition she defeated Alisa Kleybanova, the Russian who had rubbed her out of the 2009 Australian Open. “We have a firm view of how my game should develop,” she says.
Holzmann says Kardon could be just the man she needs, reflecting on her slump after the French Open. “It was tough,” Holzmann says. “A lot happened to her; she became No.1, won a grand slam tournament. Once you get there it is even more difficult to stay at the top.” And she has 10 million people in Serbia watching her. Ivanovic is feted in her home country. The President of Serbia, Boris Tadic, attended her 20th birthday party.
She admits it can be hard constantly having people approach her in the street, but, Ivanovic finds good in this, saying it’s nice to be a role model. “Wherever I go many people come up to talk to me and give me advice on my shots, on my game – on everything,” Ivanovic says and then descends into another heap of giggles.
“I understand it’s how it is,” she says. “If I make a change to a young kid to play any sport, not only tennis, instead of spending time in front of the TV or computer, that is good. I want to give them a good example: ‘Hey, go out and play and see the world’.”
Although the tennis road may have been bumpy, Ivanovic says, in her optimistic way, that things will get better. “I want to win more grand slams. I think I’ve got the ability to achieve that, I know that I’ve got to work very hard for it. Yes, I think I’ve the game and talent to do that.”
source: www.watoday.com.au
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