OLYMPIC GAMES

These are hard times for softball. Women's sport rightly complains of lack of recognition, and further evidence of this comes from one of the nation's most successful teams, the GB women's fast-pitch softball squad, who look likely to miss the World Championships in Canada this summer because they can't afford to go. Among the top three teams in Europe, they have to decide by the end of this month whether to take up the place for which they qualified, but many are students who don't have the cash for air fares and accommodation, estimated at a total of £60,000 ($92,600/€71,900).

They have existed on donations but the money has since run out and UK Sport, who are now focusing entirely on sports that can win Olympic medals – softball has been dropped for London 2012 – feel unable to help despite chief executive Liz Nicholl acknowledging that the girls have achieved more than some sports which receive funding. Says the GB Softball manager, Bob Fromer: "Sadly it is beginning to look like they won't get the chance."

Women's fastpitch softball may not register with most people in the UK, but it was an Olympic medal sport from the 1996 Games in Atlanta through 2008 in Beijing. The decision to drop softball and baseball from the London 2012 Games was particularly cruel to those sports in Britain, for whom a host country place in London could have transformed their public profile.

Although a serious national team programme in women's fastpitch softball only began in 1999, the GB team moved steadily up the European rankings over the next few years and in 2004, UK Sport decided that the team had demonstrated the potential for Olympic qualification.

However, shortly after the agency awarded softball £528,000 ($815,020/€632,632) for the 2005-2008 Olympic cycle, the sport was dropped from the programme for London 2012. And when the GB team failed to qualify for the single place available to Europe at the Beijing Olympics, all UK Sport's money was withdrawn in 2007.

Despite that, the programme has gone from strength to strength, with players and staff paying most of the costs.

In 2009, the team achieved a best-ever second place finish at the European Championships and qualified for the first time by right for the 2010 World Championships in Venezuela.

The money that got the team to Venezuela, along with player contributions, came through winning free flights in a British Airways contest plus significant donations from a British businessman based in Coventry and an American multi-millionaire based in Detroit, both of whom had personal connections with team members.

At the 2010 World Championships in Venezuela, the team finished as the 11th best in the world – an amazing achievement for a country where the sport and the player pool are very small and the programme has no public funding.

In 2011, with money left over from those 2010 donations, the GB Team played very competitively against the top four teams in the world at the annual World Cup of Softball in the United States, then qualified for the 2012 World Championships by finishing in the top three at European Championships in Italy.

But now the money has run out. The cost of preparing for and competing at the 2012 World Championships is estimated at £60,000, well beyond what the players and volunteer coaches can afford. Predictably, all attempts to find commercial sponsorship for a women's minority sport with little public profile have come to nought in the current economic climate.

Says Fromer, who has overseen the GB women's softball team programme as general manager since 2000: "A wonderful and dedicated group of players has made GB into one of the world's elite softball programmes over the past few years against all the odds and some will retire after this summer. Surely they deserve to play one more time on the World Championship stage."

So now the team has been reduced to hoping for some kind of miracle. Otherwise, the players' World Championship dreams will be over and the programme, with no prospect of future funding except in the unlikely event that softball regains an Olympic place, will struggle to reach such heights again.

If anyone wants to help, please contact Fromer or call 01886 884204.

Alan Hubbard is an award-winning sports columnist for The Independent on Sunday, and a former sports editor of The Observer. He has covered a total of 16 Summer and Winter Olympics, 10 Commonwealth Games, several football World Cups and world title fights from Atlanta to Zaire.

Source: www.insidethegames.biz

Any thoughts that the 'Dream Team’ might go easy on their opponents at London 2012 were quickly dispelled yesterday when USA Basketball announced what even their own head coach, Mike Krzyzewski, described as an “extraordinary” squad who collectively draw annual salaries worth around £160 million.

Krzyzewski, who needed to announce his squad this week so they can all go on an International Olympic Committee-approved drug testing programme, named a 20-man roster including 10 players who steamrollered their way to the World Championships in 2010 and a further eight who took the US to the 2008 Olympic title. Rarely, if ever, has there been such a comprehensive gathering of the finest players from the world’s strongest basketball nation.

All the NBA’s biggest American names are included, headed up by Kobe Bryant and LeBron James, Olympic gold medallists together in Beijing, while Chicago Bulls’ phenomenal guard Derrick Rose, points machine Kevin Durant and centre Kevin Love – nephew of Beach Boys singer Mike Love – spearheaded the new generation who took the world title so impressively two years ago.

Since the Olympics went 'open’ in Barcelona in 1992 the top American players in the NBA have normally restricted themselves to playing in just one Olympics before giving way to the next wave of top players.

Contractual disputes with clubs were also an issue, with some owners reluctant to see their prime investments playing after an exhausting domestic season, but that scenario has changed in recent years.

After finishing out of the medals at the 2002 World Championships and winning just a bronze in Athens in 2004, US attitudes hardened and their sporting public demanded that they send the strongest available team to every Olympics. Since 2006 Krzyzewski has coached the national team to an impressive 48-1 record.

“It’s an exciting day to have these 20 men commit to selfless service for their team,” says Krzyzewski, who coached both the 2008 Olympic and 2010 World Championship teams. “We have a roster full of champions, people who are excited to play for the USA. They are not playing for us, they are us. This will be the most talented of the teams I have coached, it is an extraordinary talent pool.”

The fledgling Great Britain team will get an early chance to tackle the Dream Team, for the first time ever, in a warm-up friendly at the MEN arena in Manchester on July 19. The gulf between the two squads will be enormous, not least financially. The leading lights in the Dream Team – Bryant and James – will probably be the highest-paid sportsmen competing in London.

Bryant’s basic wage at the LA Lakers is £16.6 million and will rise to over £19.6 million in two years’ time. Britain’s NBA star, Luol Deng, might earn a third of Bryant’s basic salary but most of the GB squad will scarcely earn one per cent of that.

“We always expected the USA to turn up with all their big guns and its great for the sport and the Olympics,” says Chris Spice, performance director of GB Basketball.

"When the USA pick their full side the entire tournament goes to another dimension in terms of quality and worldwide interest. Luckily they can only put five players on the court at any one time, like any other team.

"The Dream Team 2012 will bring a huge amount to the Olympic environment in 2012. These are not just the best basketball players in the world they are among the very best athletes. In the USA they are the best-paid athletes of all and that, ableit in a crude commercial way, is still a pretty accurate measure as to their standing in the sporting community.

From the quarter-finals onwards the basketball will based at the O2 where a number of the players, including Bryant, have already played and reported themselves delighted with the facility.

"The fans in London have shown they are pretty passionate and it should be great tournament," says Bryant. "I had a ball in Beijing, it was a wonderful sporting experience and I had just had to put my hand up for London. It wasn't just winning a gold medal that was good but mixing with so many great athletes from so many sports was special."

THREE TO FOLLOW
KOBE BRYANT (LA Lakers): Currently going through a painful and costly divorce but four consecutive 40 point games this month would suggest there is little wrong with his game. Nine times an NBA All-Star, five times an NBA winner with the Lakers and the NBA MVP in 2008.
Basic salary: £16.5m
Marital status: Getting divorced from Vanessa
DERRICK ROSE (Chicago Bulls): The new superstar of the NBA, Rose is just 23 but has breathed new life into the Bulls who have been slumbering since the days of Michael Jordan. Incredibly dynamic, seems to have re-defined what constitutes a lay-up.
Basic salary: £12.2m
Marital status: Single

LEBRON JAMES (Miami Heat): World class athlete and points machine who has twice been voted the NBA MVP: Suffered disappointment with a bronze medal in 2004 but starred in the 'Redeem Team' of 2008 and wants more of the Olympic action.
Basic salary: £10.4m
Marital status: Married to Savannah

Team USA Olympic basketball squad: LaMarcus Aldridge (Portland Trail Blazers); Carmelo Anthony (New York Knicks); Chauncey Billups (Los Angeles Clippers); Chris Bosh (Miami Heat); Kobe Bryant (Los Angeles Lakers); Tyson Chandler (New York Knicks); Kevin Durant (Oklahoma City Thunder); Rudy Gay (Memphis Grizzlies); Eric Gordon (New Orleans Hornets); Blake Griffin (Los Angeles Clippers); Dwight Howard (Orlando Magic); Andre Iguodala (Philadelphia 76ers); LeBron James (Miami Heat); Kevin Love (Minnesota Timberwolves); Lamar Odom (Dallas Mavericks); Chris Paul (Los Angeles Clippers); Derrick Rose (Chicago Bulls); Dwyane Wade (Miami Heat); Russell Westbrook (Oklahoma City Thunder); and Deron Williams (New Jersey Nets).

By Brendan Gallagher

Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

January 16 - The tone of the London 2012 Olympics will be in keeping with the difficult economic circumstances of the times, with "no extravaganza", International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Jacques Rogge has pledged.

The leader of the global Olympic Movement also says, in an exclusive interview with insidethegames, published today, that he will use public transport at the Games "when I can".

Speaking here, where he is attending the inaugural Winter Youth Olympic Games, the IOC President predicts that there will be "no white elephant" after London 2012, "which is very important".

The Olympic Park Legacy Company (OPLC) revealed recently that the legacies of three more London 2012 venues – the Aquatics Centre, the Handball Arena and the 114-metre high ArcelorMittal Orbit – had been secured.

However, the Olympic Stadium and the International Press and Broadcast Centre have still to find tenants.

Rogge says he understands that the consequences of staging the Olympics in London might cause difficulties for some people.

However: "This is a two-week event that is probably not going to happen [again] in a very long time in London.

"It is going to benefit London a lot.

"There are some inconveniences, but I think the public will accept that."

Acknowledging that the European economic situation places an extra responsibility on the Movement to set the right tone, Rogge states that the Games should be "sustainable, that's the bottom line", adding: "We always want to be sober and not to exaggerate.

"We ask the organiser not to go into extravaganza.

"I'm very clear there is no extravaganza in London.

"I insist on that."

The IOC President says that "when I can go with public transport" in conducting his duties at the Games, "I will.

"There is no doubt about that."

However, Rogge (pictured above with Sebastian Coe and London Mayor Boris Johnson) underlines that his job at the Games will include visiting all 26 Summer Olympic sports.

This logistical challenge, plus security considerations, may well mean that his opportunities to sample the public transport system are, in practice, limited.

On the necessity for Olympic lanes, Rogge says: "You can't ask an athlete who is competing at 10 o'clock to wake up at 4 o'clock in the morning to have breakfast, to go to the underground, to shuttle.

"You need an Olympic lane for that."

-David Owen

Source: www.insidethegames.biz

January 13 -  Innsbruck 2012 tonight delivered on their promise of hosting a "cosy rather than spectacular" Opening Ceremony for the inaugural Winter Youth Olympic Games, which nevertheless proved a heart-warming spectacle despite the freezing temperature at the snow covered Bergisel Stadium.

The undoubted highlight for the 15,000 spectators in attendance was the lighting of the Olympic Flame - or three Flames - because for the first time in the Games 116-year  history, three cauldrons were lit simultaneously.

The reason for this was because the Bergisel Stadium held the Olympic Flames for the 1964 and 1976 Winter Olympics, the last two times that Innsbruck hosted the Games.

Shortly after Austrian President Heinz Fischer had declared the Games open, the Flame of the First Winter Youth Olympic Games arrived in the Bergisel Stadium.

It was carried through the excited crowd by a number of Olympic stars, including reigning Vancouver 2010 figure skating champion and Youth Olympic Games Ambassador Kim Yu-Na, before it was eventually handed to the legendary Egon Zimmermann.

Zimmermann, the Innsbruck 1964 Olympic champion in the men's downhill, then lit the Cauldron of the 1964 Olympic Winter Games.

Zimmermann then passed the Torch to Franz Klammer, the Innsbruck 1976 Olympic champion in the men's downhill, who lit the Cauldron of the 1976 Olympic Winter Games.

Finally it was the young Austrian ski jumper Paul Gerstgraser, who had won gold at the European Youth Olympic Flame Festival in Liberec last year, who lit the Cauldron of the Innsbruck 2012 Winter Youth Olympic Games beside the two other brightly burning Olympic Flames.

The historical climax to the Ceremony followed an event that cleverly fused modern youth culture with Tyrolean tradition and entertainment that included freestyle skiers and snowboarders jumping overhead and the paring of ancient Tyrolean dances with a hip hop crew.

The Ceremony started with traditional Austrian singing and dancing before bloggers BASSS-T and Olympia took centre stage to show online videos featuring highlights from Innsbruck 1964 and 1976.

More young dancers took to the stage, with the freestyle skiers taking to the slopes, before International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Jacques Rogge and Innsbruck 2012 chairman Richard Rubatscher made their speeches to the crowd.

It was Rogge, wearing the brightly coloured top of the Innsbruck 2012 volunteers, who spoke most poignantly to the 15,000 sell-out crowd and the 15 to 18-year-olds in attendance.

"For the first time, young people from around the world have come together for the Winter Youth Olympic Games, a global celebration of sport and Olympic values," he said.

"You have come here from 70 countries not just to compete against each other, but also to learn from each other.

"Some of the friendships formed over the next nine days will last a lifetime, and so will the memories."

Rogge then handed over to the Austrian President who said: "I now declare the Innsbruck 2012 Youth Olympic Games in Tyrol in Austria open."

The triple Flame lighting then took centre stage before it was left to 15-year-old EMA to perform the official Innsbruck 2012 song and the Ceremony concluded with an impressive firework display.

While the event was low key, it was certainly fitting of the historic Bergisel Stadium, which lies on the site famous for a battle in 1809 involving Napoleon.

Meanwhile the Winter Youth Olympic Games, which will run until  January 22, will feature some of the world's most talented young athletes taking part in the seven sports currently on the winter Olympic programme, including three new events: women's ski jumping, ski halfpipe and snowboard slopestyle.

After their success at the inaugural Summer Youth Olympic Games in Singapore in 2010, mixed-gender and mixed-country events will also form part of the programme, with a mixed alpine skiing parallel team event and mixed-country short track skating team relay.

In addition, mixed-sport events, such as cross-country biathlon, will be introduced for the first time.

Just under 1,100 athletes from 70 countries will compete at the event while nearly all 80,000 tickets for the competition have been sold.

By Tom Degun

Source: www.insidethegames.biz