Australia –AUSTRALIAN sports authorities have spent thousands of dollars preparing a pole vaulter who will represent Russia against our own defending champion Steve Hooker at the London Olympics.

None of the bodies involved in bringing Sergey Kucheryanu, his wife and child to Australia and supporting them for seven months at the West Australian Institute of Sport was willing to put a figure on the cost, but estimates vary from $50,000 to $100,000 in cash and kind on what turned out to be a misadventure.

Athletics Australia’s highly controversial high performance manager Eric Hollingsworth, who referred to Kucheryanu as “my pole vaulter”, was prime supporter of the plan to buy a world-class vaulter rather than invest the money in developing local talent. Continue reading →

Baron Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the modern Olympics, was a French aristocrat with an enormous waxed mustache that hung on his face like a rogue accent mark. In 1914, the baron announced that he had designed a symbol for the 20th anniversary of the Games. “This, truly, is an international emblem,” he wrote of the five rings, linked together to suggest the unity of humankind. But where did the baron get his idea for the design? In 1984, a sports historian named Robert Barney was exploring a Greek archaeological site when he leaned over to tie his shoe and noticed a symbol etched into a weather-beaten stone: five linked rings. His heart fluttered. As it happened, Barney specialized in the history of the Olympics, and he believed that he had just stumbled across a breakthrough: Had Baron Coubertin – decades before – seen this same etching? Had it been his inspiration?

Actually, it had not. The “ancient” carving, which fooled historians before, turned out to be a relic of Nazi filmmakers. When Leni Riefenstahl passed through Greece to document the torch ceremony for the 1936 Olympic Games, she stage-crafted a mythic backdrop. Someone – perhaps a set designer – hacked that stone into an ersatz relic of antiquity. It was pure Goebbels-style kitsch: the Nazis would have liked us to believe that the Olympic symbol emerged from the mists of Delphi.

In fact, the design simply burst forth from the imagination of a baron with effulgent facial hair. Baron Coubertin believed in sport as a kind of religion “with its own church, dogmas and ritual.” And when he cast about for a logo, he may have been inspired by – of all things – an advertisement for Dunlop tires. The baron had been perusing a magazine illustrated with five bicycle tires at around the same time that he invented his design, according to the historian Karl Lennantz.

The Olympic rings were inaugurated in June 1914, the same month that a bullet felled an archduke and sent the world tumbling into war. It has since become one of the most-recognized logos in the world and a symbol for peace   more

It is quite fitting that in a year where Ashton Eaton has set World Indoor and Outdoor records at the Heptathlon and Decathlon respectively, Gunnar Nixon became the first ever American to win the Decathlon World Junior title in the history of the event after a fantastic 2-day competition here in Barcelona.

Overnight, the American from Santa Fe (Edmond, Okla.) had a 10-point margin at the top of the standings from Tim Dekker of the Netherlands and that in fact was the first time the American found himself in top position after no fewer than 5 men swapped names at the top of the scoreboard over the course of the first 5 events!

As the athletes came back to the track this morning Nixon quickly lost his top spot to Dekker who ran a faster 110m Hurdles and then Jake Stein of Australia, the reigning World Youth champion whose class in the throwing events saw him leapfrog back in the lead courtesy of massive 51.43 and 69.61 in the Discus and Javelin Throw respectively.  Continue reading →

Decathlon Delight

Gunnar Nixon clinched the Decathlon gold medal after a very tense 1500m contest where he had to defeat Jake Stein by 15 seconds to become the first ever American gold medallist.
Both multi-eventers produced their fastest ever metric mile times but a vastly superior Nixon ran 4:22.36 while his Australian rival more suited to the strength events recorded only 4:46.05 to surrender his lead.
Nixon’s USA record score and 2012 World leader saw him total 8018 points while Stein claimed an Australian record with 7951pts and Dutchman Tim Dekker took the bronze medal scoring 7815pts.
The final build up to the grand finale began with the Pole Vault at midday where Nixon thanks to a 4.50m effort went into the overall lead with 6539pts but by only one ahead of Dekker who cleared 4.20m. Stein vaulted only 3.80m for a tally of 6425pts.
In the javelin Stein with a big PB 69.61m – a three metres improvement – was back in the driving seat on 7308pts as Nixon after a 56.25m effort moved on to 7222 pts with Dekker who massively improved his personal best by over seven metres sitting third on 7099pts.
It made for an exciting finish after two days of action where the lead had almost continuously changed. After all the exertions Nixon proved himself on this occasion the better man.   more

The UK’s armed forces are on standby to provide an additional 3,500 troops to help with security at the 2012 London Olympics, the BBC has learned.It comes amid fears that private contractor G4S would not be able to provide enough trained staff in time.The armed forces were already providing some 13,500 personnel – this could now reach 17,000, meaning summer leave for some troops will likely be cancelled.G4S said it had “some issues in relation to workforce supply”.G4S is being paid £300m to guard the Games, but the BBC understands it has not been able to guarantee it can supply the 10,000 guards it has been contracted to deliver.’No impact on security’A G4S spokeswoman said the company had accepted “that the government has decided to overlay additional resources.”She added: “This has been an unprecedented and very complex security recruitment, training and deployment exercise which has been carried out to a tight timescale.”We have encountered some issues in relation to workforce supply and scheduling over the last couple of weeks, but are resolving these every day and remain committed to providing a security workforce for the start of the London 2012 Games more

11 July 2012 – Monte Carlo – With just nine days to go, organisers of the Herculis 2012 Meeting, the ninth stop on the Samsung Diamond League series, hosted a press conference today with Olympic Pole Vault champion Yelena Isinbayeva and also provided an event-by-event update of the programme.
Isinbayeva, also the World record holder in the event and a resident of Monaco, made her season’s debut in Sotteville, France, yesterday where she scaled 4.75m. Her goal is only to improve on that in Monaco.
“I want to get higher than 4.85m in Monaco, it is a very good track, fast and soft. I love to compete here and want to do my best!”
“It is a very special competition,” she continued. “I have a lot of friends in Monaco and they all come to support me! I especially want to perform well for the Prince!”
Isinbayeva, 30, will be aiming to underscore her position as a legend in the event with a third straight Olympic title in London early next month. Monaco will be her last competition prior to the Olympics.
“To win at the Olympics I will need to go over five metres,” she said. I am training very hard and I am focused for London.”    Preview: WOMEN’s Pole Vault: Jirina Ptacnikova cleared 4.60m to win European gold in Helsinki, and last winter jumped a national record 4.70m at the Pole Vault Stars meeting in Donetsk. She set another personal record in Prague with 4.72m, and looks to be Yelena Isinbayeva’s primary competition
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