While the stadiums are ready with 100 days to go for London’s Olympics, question marks still hang over the security of the Games and transport.
London celebrated the one-year countdown to the Summer Games with the first dive into the new Olympic pool and a presentation of the medals.
Jacques Rogge says Tokyo should not be discouraged from bidding for the 2020 Olympics just because South Korea won the right to host the 2018 Games.
There was a "genuine desire" from SA politicians to bid for the Olympics, International Olympic Committee boss Jacques Rogge said on Saturday.
The International Olympic Committee hopes the countries that have never sent female athletes to the Olympics, will do so at the 2012 London Olympics.
Developing countries across the world have been urged to take heart from Pyeongchang’s winning bid to be the host of the 2018 Winter Olympics.
After a successful World Cup, SA will be back in the sports spotlight when Durban hosts the biggest Olympic gathering in Africa in more than 70 years.
Jamaica made a clean sweep of Olympic sprint golds on Thursday with victory in the women’s 200m to complete their domination over the United States.
The most lavish Olympic Games of the modern era will get under way on Friday in the spectacular Bird’s Nest stadium, with more than 80 heads of state.
Football is in danger of losing its prominent position at the Olympics after a ruling allowing clubs to deny them a place at the Games.
There is new freedom on the internet as Olympic athletes can talk about the restrictions and other issues on their own blog.
From its dangerously empty coffers in the late 1970s to the multibillion-dollar revenues from the Beijing 2008 Games, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has managed a remarkable commercial transformation of its prime product, the Olympic Games.
Crowds of Chinese students waving red flags and signs such as ”One World, One Dream, One China” scuffled with pro-Tibet protesters in the latest leg of the Olympic torch relay in Japan on Saturday. Commenting on the turmoil that has bedevilled the global relay, International Olympics Committee president Jacques Rogge urged the West to stop hectoring China over human rights.
The Olympic torch set off through the Malaysian capital on Monday to rapturous cheers from Chinese supporters and tight security by police keen to avoid the disruption seen on earlier legs. More than 1 000 police and other security forces were deployed on the route from the city centre to the iconic Petronas Twin Towers.
China on Monday unveiled ambitious plans to improve its capital’s heavily polluted air in time for the Olympics, including halting construction and heavy industry. Beijing’s Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau laid out a range of tough measures to cut back pollution, such as closing numerous petrol stations and even banning spray-painting.
Thousands of protesters were expected to line the route of the latest leg of the Olympic torch’s ”Journey of Harmony” on Wednesday as officials in San Francisco braced themselves for a repetition of the tumultuous scenes in Paris and London. A broad coalition of protest groups has converged on the city.
The Paris leg of the Beijing Olympic flame relay was cut short on Monday after citywide protests against China’s crackdown in Tibet forced the torchbearers to take refuge on a bus. The torch’s journey by foot ended outside the French Parliament, where protesting deputies hung a Tibetan flag on a railing.
Anti-China protesters draped in Tibetan flags disrupted the Olympic torch relay through London on Sunday, billed as a journey of harmony and peace. Scores of Chinese officials in blue suits and British police on foot and bicycles guarded the celebrities and athletes carrying the torch, but demonstrators repeatedly broke through their security cordon.
China said on Tuesday that protesters were out to hijack the Olympic Games as the torch relay embarked on a world tour that is certain to ignite demonstrations. Pro-Tibet activists, human rights campaigners and groups seeking to end the crisis in Darfur say they plan protests during the relay, which is scheduled to last 130 days and cover 137 000km.
As a small group of pro-Tibet demonstrators briefly disrupted the ceremonial lighting of the Olympic torch in Athens this week, they were underlining a central truth concerning the world’s greatest sporting festival: it tends to hold up a mirror to the face of its hosts and the result is not always flattering.
Pro-Tibet demonstrators tried to hijack the Beijing Olympic torch-lighting ceremony in ancient Olympia on Monday. In a globally televised ceremony to mark the start of a five-month torch relay, the actress Maria Nafpliotou, playing the high priestess, used a break in the clouds to light the torch in front of the Temple of Hera.
One way or another, Beijing will get its Olympic flame. At Sunday’s final rehearsal, clouds over the ancient Games’ ruined birthplace prevented organisers from kindling the torch for the 2008 Olympics in the traditional way — using the sun’s rays harnessed in a convex mirror.
Beijing’s air quality is ”better than we have feared” but the International Olympic Committee is prepared to postpone some long-duration events if pollution levels rise, IOC President Jacques Rogge said on Monday. Rogge said there had been similar delays in other Olympic games when there was too much wind or too much snow.
China’s premier accused Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, of orchestrating riots in which dozens may have died and said his followers were trying to ”incite sabotage” of Beijing’s August Olympic Games. The Dalai Lama called at the weekend for an investigation into what he called cultural genocide in Tibet.
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/ 27 February 2008
Eat an orange. Wear a face mask. Train elsewhere and fly in at the last possible moment to compete. These are some of the strategies suggested for Olympic athletes planning to compete in Beijing, where a thick cloud of smog often blankets one of the world’s most polluted cities.
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/ 4 February 2008
Tyson Gay has heard stories that some athletes may wear face masks at the Beijing Olympics, hoping to fend off fumes in one of the world’s most polluted capitals. ”I hear a lot of people saying, ‘You’ll have to wear a mask, you’ll have to do this or that,”’ the 100m and 200m world champion said on Monday.
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/ 19 December 2007
The hardest part is yet to come for Beijing Olympic organisers, heading into 2008 with all plans in place but potential pitfalls aplenty in the run-up to the event in August. Traffic congestion, closely linked to air quality, food security, media freedom and human rights as well as boycott calls are issues likely to flare up again over the coming months.
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/ 3 November 2007
International Olympic Committee (IOC) chief Jacques Rogge said on Friday that poor air quality in Beijing could disrupt events in next year’s games. ”We will not hesitate to delay or postpone events if the air quality could harm athletes,” Rogge said during a speech in Chicago.
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/ 2 November 2007
China warned on Thursday that unauthorised protests will not be tolerated during the Olympics next year, raising the prospect of detentions for civil rights campaigners and religious activists during the two-week event. The warning came as the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Olympic truce resolution for the 2008 Beijing Games.
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/ 31 October 2007
Beijing Olympics organisers apologised on Wednesday after suspending ticket sales following a booking system meltdown, their first major blunder in preparations for next year’s Games. About 1,8-million event tickets were supposed to go on sale on Tuesday on a first-come-first-served basis for people living in China.
Reversing years of denials, United States track superstar Marion Jones pleaded guilty on Friday to lying to federal investigators and admitted using steroids, which could cost her the five medals she won in the 2000 Olympics. In a sober court hearing and a tear-filled appearance before reporters, Jones (31) admitted using performance-enhancing drugs.