International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Jacques Rogge told the Italian sports daily Gazzetta dello Sport that Turin’s preparations for the 2006 Winter Olympic Games are not moving along quickly enough
He told the newspaper that he believes the 2006 Games will be successful, but the Games’ organization is running behind.
On December 28 the Turin 2006 Board of Directors is holding its next meeting to approve the Turin 2006 budget and Rogge said everything must be cleared up by then. There’s a 180 million euro budget shortfall, which must be located by that date.
On a positive note Atos Origin, the Worldwide Information Technology Partner of the Olympic Games, has completed the delivery of key competition software for the Turin 2006 Games.
The company began preparations for the first IT test events right after the Athens Summer Games.
Atos Origin announced that they have completed the software applications for transmitting/conveying sports results for all Winter sports and disciplines of the Turin Games.
The software has been tested for several months in the Integration Test Laboratory in Turin and was released into production this month.
Meanwhile, a government official said that Series A leaders Juventus will be wearing shirts with Olympic logos to publicize the Turin 2006 Games.
The club pledged to take over some Olympic promotions after Turin’s organizing committee said it was short of the necessary funds. There will be speeches, mascots on the pitch, an exchange of mascots, posters in the stadium and shirts with the Games logo, said Turin 2006 official Mario Pescante.
