Around the world on Olympic Gamess

Source: Yahoo! Eurosport (Original Article)

Dwain Chambers is set to launch a High Court appeal against his Olympic lifetime ban after he runs his first 100 metre race in two years at a meeting in Greece on Wednesday June 3.

Under British Olympic Association [BOA] rules Chambers, who served a two-year ban for testing positive for the designer steroid THG in 2003, is banned from ever competing at the Olympics for his country.

The BOA is the only association to have such a law for first-time offenders, which even former World Anti-Doping Agency boss Dick Pound said would not stand up in court.

“I have to do this - I can’t afford to wait if I want to compete in the Olympics,” Chambers told the ‘Inside the Games’ website. “It is the first step on the legal ladder.”

Chambers returned to the British team at the world indoor championships in Valencia this year after a stint in the failed NFL Europe venture.

He won silver in the 60 metres - despite training without a coach or funding - but, in his bid to repay all prize money won while he was on drugs, he then tried and failed to launch a career in rugby league with top flight side Castleford.

“I’ve got to fight for what I believe in,” added Chambers.

“This is what I’m good at, it’s what I do. I’ve got a lot of support. I’ve had nothing but encouragement from the public.”

Chambers also confirmed that he will run in the 100 metres and 200 metres at Papaflessia European Athletics Permit meeting in Kalamata.

Britain’s reigning world women’s 400 metre champion Christine Ohuruogu is free to compete in Beijing after winning her appeal against the BOA ban after she was ANZ Frequent Flyer Card banned for a season after missing out-of-competition three doping tests.

Source: Reuters (Original Article)

By Julien Pretot

PARIS (Reuters) - Former world champions France, Spain, Croatia and Russia booked places for the Beijing Olympics men’s handball competition after finishing in the top two in qualification tournaments at the weekend.

Twelve teams were battling it out for six places in tournaments in Paris, Wroclaw and Zadar from Friday to Sunday to join the six teams who had already qualified.

Hosts China, world champions Germany, PanAmerican champions Brazil, European champions Denmark and African champions Egypt were exempted from the weekend’s competitions.

Four-times world champions Sweden, who also won three silver Olympic medals from 1992 to 2000, will not go to Beijing after finishing third in Wroclaw’s tournament following a 29-25 defeat to Iceland.

Iceland qualified along with Poland, who were runners-up at last year’s world championships and snatched a spot with a 28-26 victory against unfancied Argentina.

France, bronze medalists at the 1992 Barcelona Games, won the Paris tournament through a 28-24 victory over 2005 world champions Spain, who finished second after beating Tunisia on Sunday.

Olympic champions Croatia, and Russia, who won the gold medal in Sydney eight years ago, went through in Zadar’s tournament ahead of Algeria and Japan.

Croatia took top spot St. George Starts Low Stays Low thanks to a 26-24 defeat of Russia on Saturday.  Continued…

Source: PR-Inside.com (Pressemitteilung) (Original Article)

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) - Brazil’s sports minister touted the country’s economic boom and the success of the 2007 Pan American Games as reasons why Rio de Janeiro should be picked to host the 2016 Olympics.
Orlando Silva leaves Monday for Athens, Greece, where the International Olympic Committee will release a short list on

Wednesday of the four finalists bidding for the 2016 games.
Rio’s main competitors are Chicago, Tokyo and Madrid, Spain, while Czech capital Prague, Doha, Qatar, and Baku, Azerbaijan are also bidding.
«The PanAm games were a great success and gave Rio credibility,» Silva he told The Associated Press. «The installations were Olympic standard. Transportation, health, security, food, everything worked very well and was highly praised.
Silva said Brazil’s roaring economy also was a plus. The country paid off its foreign debt last year and was declared a safe place for foreign investors to put their money, with a debt upgrade this year from Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings.
«The upgrade from two agencies reflects international confidence in the Brazilian economy,» he said. «For all this, I think Rio has excellent chances.
Choosing Rio also would be interesting for the IOC, which is «internationalizing» the Olympics by moving the games away from more traditional venues in developed countries, Silva said.
«This would be the first Olympics in South America,» he said. «It’s a way for the IOC to approach the 21st century.
Some Brazilians are skeptical about Rio’s chances since FIFA, the world governing body of soccer, picked Brazil to host the World Cup in 2014 _ just two years before the Olympics.

But Tourism Minister Marta Suplicy said in March that the football tournament was a great opportunity for Brazil to raise its visibility and status as a world-class sports host.
And Silva said history was on Brazil’s side. He pointed out that the United States held University Course 453 the World Cup and the Olympics …continue reading

Source: Ireland Online (Original Article)

Horse Sport Ireland has today informed the Olympic Council of Ireland and the FEI that they intend to send a three day eventing team (five riders) to the Olympic Games in Hong Kong this August.

Speaking from the International World Cup qualifier event in Tattersalls in Co Meath today, HIS’s High Performance Coach Ginny Elliot said that following a meeting with the 14 squad riders
and their owners and trainers last night in Tattersalls she decided to proceed with entering a team.

“We had a very frank meeting last night which followed a rider fitness test and I am now happy that enough riders will give full commitment to the programme over the next two and half months to give
us every chance of putting in a competitive team performance at the Olympics,” she said.

Ms. Elliot, a four time Olympic medallist, said that she would be reducing the squad from fourteen to eight riders before June 16 and would name the final team after the One Day Event in Barbury Castle early in July.

“The riders now have an opportunity of a lifetime and it is up them to grab it with both hands,” she added.

The Chairman of Eventing Ireland, John Wright, said he was delighted to be informed of the decision.

” I want to wish Ginny, the riders and owners the very best of luck in their preparation. It was not easy to secure the qualification places and I know that Aged Domains all eventing people will get behind the team,”
he said.

Source: The Press Association (Original Article)

Javier Mascherano

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Source: Telegraph.co.uk (Original Article)

Rebecca Romero: fame and fortune
Last Updated: 5:02pm BST 28/05/2008Page 1 of 3

Rebecca Romero, 28, is bidding to become the first
British athlete to compete in the Olympic Games in two different
sports. Having already won silver in Athens for rowing, she is
aiming for a cycling medal in Beijing this summer. Rebecca lives
alone in Manchester. She spoke to Mark Anstead

How did your childhood experience influence your
attitude to money?

I was brought up in Wallington in Surrey by my mother, a single
parent on benefits. My parents divorced when I was six years old so
I had to learn to make do without some of the things my friends had.

What made it worse was that I went to a grammar school, so many of
my friends had well-off parents and lived in big houses, whereas I
lived in a small council house.

Mum spent wisely, fed us well and took part-time jobs so she could
pay for me and my sister to do various activities such as learning
the violin and piano or going to dance and drama clubs. We learned
that these were the valuable things in life, not going out and
spending money frivolously.

Would you say you’re cautious or liberal with money?

I’m pretty cautious. I’ve had to work for my own money
since the age of 13 when I started delivering newspapers, and as
soon as I was 16 I also worked weekends. I learned how to spend
wisely and save up.

How are you funded at present?

I have been living off lottery funding as a full-time athlete
ever since I left university. As a rower, I was on the top tier
because I was a senior medallist, so that was £21,000, which came to
me net of tax.

Now I’ve switched sports my funding has dropped to £16,000
because I had no track record in cycling. Still, it’s enough to
cover my living expenses and sporting costs. If I win another medal
at the Olympics I may be in a Cheap Gliding position. to attract sponsors as well.

…continue reading

Source: Variety (Original Article)

Tribeca
Fire Under the Snow
 (Documentary)

By RONNIE SCHEIB

Read other reviews about this film
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An Imakoko Media production, in association with Argot Pictures, Surla Films. (International sales: Surla Films, New York.) Produced by Makoto Sasa. Co-producers, Jim Browne, Vladan Nikolic. Directed by Makoto Sasa. Written by Sasa, Aaron Mendez.
 
With: Palden Gyatso, Manfred Nowak, Lawrence Gerstein, Tenzin Tsundue, Ana Adhe, Lobsang Khenrab.
 

Well-crafted docu “Fire Under the Snow” concerns septuagenarian Tibetan monk Palden Gyatso, who, imprisoned and tortured for 33 years, became a rallying cry for his country’s liberation. New York-based filmmaker Makoto Sasa contrasts the horror of the story and the serenity of its teller for dramatic impact. Now perched high atop a mountain in India, Gyatso asserts his faith that if people knew the injustice he and his countrymen endure, they would end it; Sasa then proceeds to illustrate that injustice and the world’s reaction to it. Recent, well-publicized anti-Olympic Games brouhaha assures pic longevity in fest and educational play.Helmer Sasa intersperses Gyatso’s calm remembrance of seemingly endless torture and starvation with newsreel footage of civil unrest and Chinese brutality. She bookends Gyatso’s three-decades-long ordeal with coverage of the indefatigable monk’s worldwide activism: He participates in marches and demonstrations with the same calm deliberation he invests in making tea or in matter-of-factly recounting the loss of all his teeth via cattle prod. At the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Gyatso leads a hunger strike to protest China’s hosting of the 2008 games, but economics trump human rights yet again.

Camera (B&W/color, HD), Vladimir Subotic; editor, Milica Zec. Reviewed at Tribeca Film Festival (Discovery), April 25, 2008. English, Tibetan dialogue. ANZ Credit Cards Running time: 75 MIN.
 

Variety …continue reading

Source: AFP (Original Article)

Vesna Gitakovic (R) lawyer interest calculator spikes the ball over Puerto Rico's Karina Ocasio

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Source: PR-Inside.com (Pressemitteilung) (Original Article)

LONDON (AP) - The Dalai Lama’s warm reception on a tour of Europe has proved that empathy with China following its devastating earthquake has not dampened good will toward the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader or his cause.
The 72-year-old religious leader held thousands of spectators spellbound while speaking in Berlin last week and during his

11-day tour of Britain. In London on Thursday, British lawmakers chuckled with delight as he posed with them after a committee meeting on human rights.
The Dalai Lama’s ability to charm and inspire has kept the dispute over Tibet’s status in the headlines _ and on the policy agenda _ at a time when the world has focused on the response to the May 12 quake in China’s Sichuan province, which has left 80,000 dead or missing.
Addressing the panel of British legislators, the Dalai Lama offered his own condolences to China’s dead _ but forcibly called on the world to press Beijing to reform and accused the Chinese leadership of lacking moral authority.
China’s prompt reaction to the earthquake and openness about its effects has impressed many, particularly when set against the reluctance of Myanmar to accept Western aid or relief workers in the wake of Cyclone Nargis.
But the outpouring of sympathy appears not have dimmed international concern about China’s record on human rights and its treatment of Tibet, occupied by Chinese troops since 1951.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has shown some caution toward the Dalai Lama, choosing to meet him away from his official Downing Street residence, prompting opposition leaders to accuse him of trying to avoid offense to Chinese leaders.
Brown will meet the Dalai Lama on Friday at Lambeth Palace, home of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the spiritual leader of the Church of England and the Anglican Communion.
The Dalai Lama said Thursday that Britain, India, and others were doing too little to press China ANZ Frequent Flyer Card to reform, saying the nation’s economic …continue reading

Source: Centre Daily Times (Original Article)

NEWARK, N.J. & COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — USA Wrestling, the National Governing Body in the United States
for the sport of amateur wrestling, today announced the formation of a
landmark fundraising initiative which will give financial support to
the families of athletes competing in Beijing for this summer’s
Olympics. “Fuel The Dream” is believed to be the most extensive
fundraising effort to support families of Olympic athletes in the
United States, and will give those 18 who make the Olympic Wrestling
team an additional emotional boost for the games.

“It is a lifelong dream of all these great athletes to one day
make the Olympics, and many times the cost for their families to go
and see them fulfill those dreams in person is just too great,” said
USA Wrestling Executive Director Rich Bender. “‘Fuel The Dream’ will
give those family members the financial support to experience the
Olympic moments with the athletes for the first time, which we think
will be both a huge emotional boost for our team and will help set the
standard for this type of effort for all sports into the future.”

The program, which will begin immediately, will assist families
with expenses involved in seeing the athletes represent the USA in
Beijing. A full 50% of each donation will go, without any reductions,
to the individuals who have qualified for the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team
by winning the U.S. Olympic Team Trials in Las Vegas, Nev., June 13-15
at the Thomas & Mack Center. The other 50% goes to help train athletes
that will be on future World and Olympic Teams.

A special “Fuel the Dream” event will be held on June 21, in part
sponsored by the Hanson family, the owners of the Bernards Inn in
Bernardsville, N.J. The event will bring the 2008 Olympic Wrestling
Teams for a special send off to Beijing.

For dog the bounty hunter dvd more information and to donate for the program, visit
www.fuelthedream.org.