New South Wales’ police will likely provide Greek officials with the know-how, the technology, the planning and the logistics for a secure Olympic Games. Athens is hosting the 2004 Summer Games. In the first 13 days of the Sydney Games street crime in dowtown Sydney has dropped, which is a surprise to law enforcment officals who set up two courts (both almost deserted) to run 12 hours a day throughout the Games, dealing only with Olympic-related crime.
Since the start of the Sydney Olympic Games only 40 to 45 violatiors have been caught streaming Olympic coverage online. Instead of little-known Web sites streaming television coverage through a video camera to the Web, offenders have been broadcasters with Olympic broadcasting rights who have misunderstood the gudelines set out by the IOC. Offending files on sites have been taken down quickly and cooperatively. The IOC contracted two companies, Copyright Control Systems in the United States and the French company Datops, to monitor Internet breaches in addition to the usual commercial infringements and broadcasting.
International Olympic Committee President Juan Antonio Samaranch told a German newspaper that the 2000 Olympics gets his stamp as “the best Games ever”. Samaranch added that “something could still happen before Sunday. But if I had to close the Games today, I would say ‘best Games ever'”. Earlier this week, IOC vice president Dick Pound gave the Sydney Games a rating of “10 out of 10”. “These Games are well on their way to being Games straight from central casting” he said. Samaranch said “the main thing is that the athletes were very satisfied in Barcelona, but here they are even more satisfied with the organization, and so are the international sports federations”. Despite the many doping cases, Samaranch said the Sydney Olympics have been “cleaner than ever”.
Salt Lake City officials stopped payments to defence lawyers for Tom Welch and Dave Johnson, two indicted bid executives, after covering $542,070 of the $762,635 in fees. SLOC president Mitt Romney has offered to resume the payments if Welch and Johnson renounce any legal claims against organizers for past compensation or wrongful termination. Both men have refused, with Welch saying he was owed $1 million in deferred compensation, and both insist SLOC must cover their defence costs under a liability policy.
And finally, Britain’s Sports Minister Kate Hoey says the possibility of a new London bid to stage the Olympic Games has “taken a step forward” following talks with IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch in Sydney. But she stessed no decision had yet been taken on bidding for the 2012 Games to be staged in London. Hoey revealed that feasibility studies had been undertaken and is confident a decision will be reached “early next year”. Meanwhile Culture Secretary Chris Smith said the proposed new design of Wembly stadium will not be fit to host the Olympic Games. Smith told Britain’s Parliament that a report he had commissioned to examine the planned refit had raised serious doublts about its ability to host athletics events as well as rugby and football.
