The London TELEGRAPH's Paul Kelso wrote under the header, “Match-Fixing And
Gambling The New Threat In IOC's Battle Against Corruption” that IOC
President Jacques Rogge “believes the issues represent the next big
fight facing sports organisations and governments.” The IOC “has
established a monitoring unit, with input from the Metropolitan Police
and the U.K. Gambling Commission,” to tackle the threat. The group has
been “in regular contact since July 16, and will start daily meetings
from this weekend.” The Gambling Commission will “receive details of any
suspicious betting patterns from the legitimate U.K. bookmakers it
licences, while European and worldwide gambling trends will be monitored
by ISM, a company retained by the IOC” (London TELEGRAPH, 7/26).
DOPERS CAUGHT: NBC News’ Kevin Tibbles reported WADA
has already “banned more than 100” athletes from the London Games for
testing positive for banned substances. The positive tests were caught
by a "new drug-testing program that screens their blood even before they
leave home” ("Nightly News," NBC, 7/25).
SOCIAL MEDIA TRACKER: Social Agility co-Founder Tony
Burgess-Webb said that the company “uses more than 50 metrics to
calculate the scores posted on its continuously updating London 2012
Social Media Scoreboard.” In Toronto, Morgan Campbell noted the company
found that Coca-Cola, British Airways and adidas “have surged to the top
of the social media medal table.” Companies gain points “for being
active on platforms like Facebook and Twitter, and for creating web
pages specifically for their Olympic campaigns.” By Wednesday afternoon,
Coca-Cola’s “score of 298 placed it atop the ‘Top Performers’ scale,”
with employment agency Adecco “at the bottom” with a score of 15 (TORONTO STAR, 7/26).
CYBER SECURITY: In L.A., Ryan Faughnder noted Olympic
security officials are “bracing for an onslaught of cyber assaults that
could easily surpass the 12 million attacks a day, or 500,000 an hour,
that were logged" during the ’08 Beijing Games. More than 3,500 IT
engineers and technicians "have been assigned to monitor the Games'
computer systems and networks.” IOC TOP sponsor Atos is “monitoring more
than 11,000 computers and servers” from a deployment center (L.A. TIMES, 7/26).
SHIPPING SAMPLES: In London, Neate & Gibson
noted there is a process to ensure Olympic athletes’ drug testing samples
“are not tampered with during” the Games. UPS, which won the delivery
rights to the Games, indicated that it had “the delivery of urine and
blood samples ‘locked down to a very few’ highly trained drivers.” UPS
has developed “its own information and communications technology to
ensure that managers are alerted immediately if anything goes amiss in
the delivery of the samples to the laboratory” (GUARDIAN, 7/26).
GET YOUR TOYS HERE!: The WALL STREET JOURNAL’s Alice
Speri noted with 10,000 official items for sale, the London Games "offer
the largest variety of Olympics paraphernalia ever.” LOCOG organizers
hope to sell more than £1B ($1.6B) of merchandise “from toys to egg cups.”
Retail analysts “hate to dash any Olympic dreams, but they have their
doubts.” Kantar Retail Insights Dir Bryan Roberts: "I'd be amazed if
they got anywhere near that." Verdict Research estimates that the Games
“will generate a total of £100M ($157M) in Olympics-related sales this
quarter -- including official and unofficial products, as well as food.”
LOCOG has said that merchandise sales of £1B ($1.6B) would result in £80M ($125M) “in profits and help balance its books” (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 7/25).
PANNING FOR GOLD: REUTERS reported that Indian athletes who win Gold Medals will "be rewarded with an additional Gold Medal weighing five kilograms." Athletes who win Silver and Bronze will also be awarded 3kg and 2kg Gold Medals, respectively by the Sahara Group, which has interests in the financial sector, media and entertainment, housing and sport (REUTERS, 7/26).
GOT TO BE THE SHOES: Adidas revealed its new shoe called the adizero Primeknit on Thursday. The shoe is adidas' first one-piece upper performance running shoe featuring a new seamless engineering technology. Adidas created 2,012 individually numbered pairs of the adizero Primeknit knitted in the same red and white colors adidas athletes will be competing in at the Games (adidas).
