Pre-television: swimmers training for 1912 Stockhom Olympics (Photo, ©2011 International Olympic Committee, by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – The Beau Rivage in Lausanne will be bustling with sports and TV executives Monday and Tuesday 6-7 June, as intense bidding gets underway to win US broadcast rights for upcoming Olympic Games. Day’s end Tuesday, after a cocktail party where the bidders will socialize while waiting for news, should see the winner named—or just possibly, everyone adjourned to come back another day with another bid.
The stakes are high for all concerned: US rights provide about one-third of all IOC (International Olympic Committee) revenues for the Games and about half of the TV revenues, according to USA Today. The US Olympic Committee, whose senior executives are in Lausanne for the bidding, receives 12.75 percent of the rights, according to Insidethegames.
The Beeb will be watching closely for the impact on world Olympics coverage
And the BBC in London is watching closely because this week’s bids could have a major impact on their ability to continue covering the Olympics, reports the Telegraph in the UK.
The IOC is hearing bids from three networks, ESPN, Fox and NBC, who are vying for the potentially valuable TV broadcast rights to two and possibly four Olympic Games after the 2012 London Games.
“Nothing else in US sports costs so much and has so many variables. Airing the Olympics means selling millions of viewers on largely unknown athletes in sports few Americans watch,” USA Today sums up.
The Moscow Times reports that parliamentary committees in Georgia have been meeting to plan ways to “destabilize” the 2014 Sochi Olympic Games, following their failure to convince the Lausanne-based IOC (International Olympic Committee) to move the Games elsewhere because of continuing tensions between Georgia and Russia. “Georgia, which fought a five-day war with Russia after attempting to retake its breakaway province of South Ossetia in 2008, appealed in November that year to the International Olympics Committee to relocate the Olympics from Sochi because of the possibility of conflict in neighboring Abkhazia, another separatist Georgian region. The committee ignored the request,” write the newspaper, which quotes Maxim Agerkov, an analyst with a think tank, as saying that “The only possible option is destabilizing the situation in the region,” and that Georgia could use existing local ethnic conflicts and separatists to influence the situation.
Links to other sites: The Voice of Russia, Pravda
Update 12:35 Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The United Nations Environment Programme (Unep) has criticized the impact on wildlife of construction projects for the 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Sochi, Russia. The cumulative impact, in particular, of several projects around the Black Sea resort are not being addressed, says Unep in a new report that was requested by the Russian government. The report follows a late January visit to the site by a Unep team.
It is not too late for the Games to serve as an environmental showcase, however, says Unep, which praises the Russian Railway, Ministry of Natural Resources and the 2014 Sochi Games organizers for being open to discussions.
The Vancouver Winter Olympic Games are over and it’s back to business as usual in British Columbia, Canada, starting with the budget. Finance Minister Colin Hansen presents the new budget 2 March. He said during a photo opportunity where he played wheelchair rugby to draw attention to upcoming Paralympic Games that it will be a belt-tightening budget, with little room to maneuver and stimulus spending coming to an end.
Link: Globe & Mail
Didier Cuche, ranked number one in Men's skiing
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Swiss Ski has announced the list of athletes who will be heading for Vancouver for the Winter Olympic Games. Among them is Didier Cuche, the world’s number one-ranked skier in Men’s events, who plans to train in a few days despite a broken thumb from Friday 30 January. The complete list of skiers rounds out announcements of teams in several other sports, made in the past few days. Details about the sports, dates, selections and the area where Swiss athletes will be competing are part of the wealth of information provided by Swiss Olympic (Fre).
Close of Olympic Games for doping
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The International Olympic Committee (IOC) in Lausanne has stripped Rashid Ramzi from Bahrein of his gold medal. He won the men’s 1,500 metre race in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Italian Davide Rebellin, who placed second in the men’s road cycle event, will have to return his silver medal, the IOC announced. The world governing body for the Olympic Games sanctioned three other athletes who participated in the Beijing Olympics for using the banned hormone CERA, 18 November.
The IOC’s zero-tolerance policy in the use of endurance or performance-enhancing drugs means that it will store blood and urine samples taken during the Games for eight years so that the laboratories can do retroactive testing.
Visa goes to Rio
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The International Olympic Committee in Lausanne and Visa International have extended Visa’s sponsorship agreement to 2020, the two announced 27 October. Visa was one of the founding members of the worldwide TOP Olympic Games partners programme in 1986. The agreement means that Visa is the only official payment services card accepted by the Olympic Games.
Torchbearer, Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games
Lausanne, Switzerland / Athens, Greece (GenevaLunch) – The Olympic torch has been lit in Athens for the 2010 Winter Games that open in January in Vancouver, Canada. The torch will fly to Victoria, British Colombia in Canada 29 October and from there it will begin its trek around Canada’s 13 provinces and territories, a voyage of 45,000 km with 12,000 torchbearers. The national relay is the longest in Olympic history.
The torch relay begins just days after the UN General Assembly adopted the Olympic Truce Resolution for the Vancouver Games.
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – US President Barack Obama will accompany his wife Michelle to Copenhagen to promote the city of Chicago’s bid as host of the 2016 Olympic Games, the White House announced 28 September. “It’s a city of broad shoulders, big hearts, and bold dreams. A city of legendary sports figures, legendary sports venues and legendary sports fans. We want these games!”, Obama said at the White House in early September. Obama was a senator representing the state of Illinois before becoming president. He lived there for 25 years.
The Lausanne-based International Olympic Committee (IOC) holds its 13th Congress in Copenhagen from 3 to 5 October, and will announce its choice of the host city.
