The Guardian reports that Simon Clegg, the chief executive of the British Olympic Committee (BOA), has written members of the London 2012 executive committee to complain that London 2012 moved the venue for volleyball from the Olympic Park in east London to Earls Court without consulting the BOA.
Clegg said LOCOG broke a joint agreement that meant the BOA should have written permission before any changes were made and could have vetoed the move had it been aware of it earlier. He called for a major overhaul of how future changes are handled.
In an e-mail to the 11 members of the executive committee the Guardian reports Clegg wrote, “I have to advise you that LOCOG has handled this entire matter very badly”. He said it was against the joint venture agreement agreed between LOCOG and the BOA which requires “written consent for any material changes to the sporting aspects of the delivery of the 2012 Olympic Games”.
According to the Guardian the BOA is one of four members of the Olympic board, along with LOCOG, the government, and the Mayor of London, each of whom has a veto on decisions.
A spokeswoman for London 2012 said, “we are all breaking new ground. This process flushed out an issue which has been dealt with. We are all moving on together”; while Clegg said it was a case of the process rather than a complete breakdown”.
Meanwhile London’s Mayor Ken Livingstone has received the International Olympic Committee Sport and the Community Trophy in recognition of his work for the London 2012 bid. The award was presented by British Olympic Association President Her Royal Highness the Princess Royal at an award ceremony in London Friday.
BOA Chief Executive Simon Clegg said, “as a result of Ken’s vision, commitment and support for the London Olympic bid, sport and the community across the entire country has been given the greatest opportunity of a generation.
“We now have the ability to build a healthier and stronger nation where every child can reach its potential irrespective of geographical upbringing or financial means – an opportunity to leave a lasting legacy well beyond the Games in 2012”.
But does fast food and fizzy drinks mix with the legacy of a healthier and strong nation? The Telegraph reports that public health experts said it was “hard to reconcile” the fact that McDonald’s and Coca Cola were leading sponsors of the International Olympic Committee.
Jeff Collin of Edinburgh University’s centre for international public health policy and Ross MacKenzie of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine wrote in The Lancet that “the 2012 London Olympics will require over 2.3 billion pounds in public investment, an undertaking justified in part via the claim to provide a legacy of health. The Games aim to inspire a ‘new generation to greater sporting activity and achievement, helping foster a healthy and active nation’ – an ambition we find difficult to reconcile with the presence of McDonald’s and Coca-Cola as official sponsors”.
They called on governments and sporting authorities to reassess how they funded the events.
