Left field
The Reuters global sports blog
London Olympics 2012 live blog
Click on the link below to find all the latest news, photos and gossip from the London Olympics 2012
from Newsmaker:
Send your questions for Seb Coe and Hugh Robertson
To mark the one year countdown to the London Olympics, Thomson Reuters will hold a Newsmaker on July 21 at 18:30 BST with four-time Olympic medalist and chairman of the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games, Sebastian Coe and Minister for Sport and the Olympics, Hugh Robertson MP.
The event will begin with a speech by Coe, who won gold in the 1500m at the 1980 and 1984 Olympics, followed by a Q&A session with both guests, moderated by me, Global Sports Editor Paul Radford. The Newsmaker will be streamed live to the Reuters website and we'll provide rolling coverage of the event as it happens.
As well as questions from the audience, you also have the chance to put your questions to Coe and Robertson. Please join us on the day and leave your comments and questions below. You can also post your questions on the Reuters UK Facebook page or send them over Twitter using the hashtag #newsmkr or via @ReutersSports
Image -- The Chairman of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG), Sebastian Coe, poses with a prototype of the London 2012 Olympic Torch at St Pancras station in London June 8, 2011. REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth
from MacroScope:
Asking a banker about the Olympics
Henrique Meirelles, Brazil's highly rated central bank president, gave unusual insight into current thinking at the International Olympic Committee in a speech in Oxford the other night.
Diverging from his main theme on Brazil's remarkable journey from economic basket case to emerging market superpower, Meirelles said that he had gone to Copenhagen last month as part of Rio de Janeiro's successful bid for the 2016 Olympics. The reason: The IOC asked him to come.
Meirelles said that the IOC knew that Brazil currently had all the conditions needed to host the Games, but wanted to know about how predictable it was that this would carry through over the next seven years. "They wanted to know what is really happening," he said.
Essentially, the IOC wanted to check with the top economic manager that the country's finances will still be shining when the Games are held.
Perhaps they were thinking of London 2012.
from UK News:
Minister warns against “contaminating” 2012 Olympics
Clerics and police have expressed concern, and now the Olympics minister has - London could see a proliferation in prostitution and human trafficking during the 2012 Games.
Some have warned the Olympics could see a repeat of the "mega brothels" set up in German cities for the 2006 World Cup in Germany.
Tessa Jowell said: "I am concerned about that. I certainly became aware of it in the run-up to the World Cup.
"We need to send the strongest possible message that our Olympics will not be contaminated by this exploitation."
In January, two Church of England dioceses set down a motion for discussion at the General Synod, or clerical parliament, for a government crackdown on human trafficking in the run-up to the London 2012 Olympics, saying "anything like slavery is wrong".
They pointed to the World Cup in Germany, where they said city officials adopted a "pragmatic" approach towards catering for the sexual desires of the estimated three million football fans who attended the tournament.
"Sex huts" or "sex garages" for prostitution were set up, filled with 40,000 extra prostitutes, while special licences were issued allowing prostitutes to offer sex on the street, they added.
from The Great Debate UK:
Government must deliver on Olympic legacy promise
- Hugh Robertson is the opposition Conservatives' Olympics spokesman. The views expressed are his own. -
With three years to go, it is remarkable that London 2012 is going so well.
London’s Olympics were launched with a massive government miscalculation that resulted in the budget having to be increased threefold, were based on a plan that required us to build two Terminal 5s in half the time and have had to contend with the worst economic recession in living memory.
Despite this, the construction process remains on time and nearly on budget, the organising committee have raised more than £500 million in sponsorship and our athletes have given London 2012 a considerable boost by winning a record haul of medals in Beijing.
However, among all the plaudits, it is sensible to sound a note of caution.
The construction process is only just over one third complete and much remains to be done to a tight and immoveable deadline. Many of the major operational challenges for The organising committee lie ahead such as balancing the budget, finalising the venues, ticketing and the content of the opening and closing ceremonies. Finally, it is a considerable challenge to get our athletes to replicate, or exceed, their performance in Beijing.
In short, if you were writing a school report, you would probably conclude that London 2012 has started well but much remains to be done. You would also warn against too much self congratulation!
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Resident Left Field Expert
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