Terreno Deportivo

Lausanne, the Olympic Capital and host city of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and more than 20 International Sports Federations, is organising, from 9 to 11 October 2008, the first Summit for Olympic Host Cities. “For each successful edition of the Olympic Games, there has been a strong host city at its core. The Lausanne Summit is the first ever gathering of these Olympic cities, where experiences will be shared to build the platform for the future”, explained Lausanne’s mayor, Daniel Brélaz.

More than 30 cities participating

The Summit will bring together the cities who have organised, will organise, or are considering organising, the Olympic or Youth Olympic Games, both summer and winter. More than 30 cities have already confirmed their participation - a great success and clear sign of the interest in this initiative, which is primarily based on knowledge transfer.

IOC President: “Perfect platform”

The International Olympic Committee backs this initiative as part of its knowledge transfer strategy. "The IOC is committed to ensuring that a city understands, as early as possible, the importance of integrating the Olympic Games into its long-term urban development strategy, in order to leave the best possible urban and sporting legacy to the country, the city and its entire community. This is why the IOC supports the first Lausanne Summit and the General Assembly of the World Union of Olympic Cities, which will be the perfect platform to share and exchange information and knowledge”, said IOC President Jacques Rogge.

Prestigious speakers

The City of Lausanne has succeeded in signing up prestigious keynote speakers for this first Summit. Simon Anholt, the world’s leading specialist in creating brand strategies for countries, cities and regions, will give a keynote speech about how sports events can be used to help a host build its own competitive identity. Michael Knight, former Minister of the Olympics for the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, will be joining the impressive list of keynote speakers. He will be addressing the Lausanne Summit on the topic of socio-political opportunities related to hosting the Olympic Games. Gilbert Felli, Olympic Games Executive Director at the IOC, will explain how the bidding, planning and staging of the Olympic Games has changed over the last 10 years.

More than 200 representatives from international news wire services, photo agencies, newspapers, internet sites and non-rights holding broadcast organizations are expected to attend the Vancouver 2010 World Press Briefing this autumn.

Four day programme

Scheduled for 18 to 21 November 2008, the World Press Briefing will outline detailed information about the services and facilities for the written and photographic press. The briefing will include presentations by various Games functions, including Accreditation, Accommodation, Rate Card, Technology and Transportation. The four-day programme features detailed tours of the competition and non-competition venues, with an emphasis on the services and facilities for the press, including plans for the Main Press Centre and venue media centres. Tourism agencies are also participating in the briefing by providing destination information about the Games host region.

Operational plans

“The goal of the World Press Briefing is to present VANOC’s current operational plans in order to help our press clients with their 2010 Winter Games coverage plans,” said Terry Wright, executive vice president, services and games operations. “Our Press Operations team is focused on providing a high level of service and convenient facilities for the world’s press so they can tell the story of the 2010 Winter Games in both an efficient and exciting manner. Representatives of the leading press organizations from around the world will have an opportunity to experience our region, from the ice arenas in Vancouver to the mountain slopes in Whistler.”

Quota

The International Olympic Committee has established a quota of 2,800 accreditations covering the categories of written and photographic press and non-rights holding broadcast organizations. The concept of the World Press Briefing debuted before the Sydney 2000 Games. The World Press Briefing is held one year before the Games; it presents the Organizing Committee’s detailed plans for Games-time print media facilities and services.

More than 200 representatives from international news wire services, photo agencies, newspapers, internet sites and non-rights holding broadcast organizations are expected to attend the Vancouver 2010 World Press Briefing this autumn.

Four day programme

Scheduled for 18 to 21 November 2008, the World Press Briefing will outline detailed information about the services and facilities for the written and photographic press. The briefing will include presentations by various Games functions, including Accreditation, Accommodation, Rate Card, Technology and Transportation. The four-day programme features detailed tours of the competition and non-competition venues, with an emphasis on the services and facilities for the press, including plans for the Main Press Centre and venue media centres. Tourism agencies are also participating in the briefing by providing destination information about the Games host region.

Operational plans

“The goal of the World Press Briefing is to present VANOC’s current operational plans in order to help our press clients with their 2010 Winter Games coverage plans,” said Terry Wright, executive vice president, services and games operations. “Our Press Operations team is focused on providing a high level of service and convenient facilities for the world’s press so they can tell the story of the 2010 Winter Games in both an efficient and exciting manner. Representatives of the leading press organizations from around the world will have an opportunity to experience our region, from the ice arenas in Vancouver to the mountain slopes in Whistler.”

Quota

The International Olympic Committee has established a quota of 2,800 accreditations covering the categories of written and photographic press and non-rights holding broadcast organizations. The concept of the World Press Briefing debuted before the Sydney 2000 Games. The World Press Briefing is held one year before the Games; it presents the Organizing Committee’s detailed plans for Games-time print media facilities and services.

An astonishing Opening Ceremony in Beijing on Saturday welcomed the world to the Paralympic Games. The Ceremony, which took place in the "Bird’s Nest", was witnessed by a full house of spectators from all over the world. During the three-hour event, the show focused on the “harmony between man and nature”, with three different parts – space, time and life. A total of 420 performers with a disability participated in the Opening Ceremony, marking one of the largest performances of this sort. The first three days of the Paralympic Games saw a large rang of high-level competitions in an excellent atmosphere.

The International Paralympic Committee (IPC), in collaboration with the Beijing Olympic Broadcasting Ltd. (BOB), offers eight hours per day of live commentated coverage of the Paralympic Games. It is broadcasted on the IPC’s internet TV channel www.ParalympicSport.TV. BOB - as the host broadcaster - provides live signals of 10 Paralympic sports including athletics, boccia, cycling (track), judo, table tennis, volleyball (sitting), wheelchair basketball, wheelchair fencing, wheelchair rugby and wheelchair tennis.

Video on demand

The official programme of ParalympicSport.TV will have an interesting mixture of the aforementioned sports, with additional daily highlights provided as video on-demand. The daily highlights will also include those sports that are not covered in the live stream. SIXTY Seconds™, the daily news show presented by Paralympian Ambassador Chris Waddell, will wrap up the latest Paralympic Games News. It will be available on the main channel at www.ParalympicSport.TV, as well as on the YouTube Channel of ParalympicSport.TV at www.youtube.com/paralympicsporttv.

The Beijing Paralympic Games (official website)

If you want to get one of the last places for the 6th World Forum on Sport, Education and Culture, register now at www.olympic.org/busanforum. Under the motto "Sport and Education for the Now Generation", the event will take place in Busan (Korea) from 25 to 27 September 2008. Forum participants will also have the chance to watch the Opening Ceremony of the 4th Busan TAFISA World Sport for All Games on 26 September.

What is the educational potential of events like the Youth Olympic Games? How can we educate athletes for life after their sporting career? How can we discuss the doping scourge effectively with youngsters? And which are successful methods to implement nationwide Olympic education programmes for kids and young people in the countries of future Olympic Games? These are only a few of the topics which will be addressed during lively discussions in plenary and parallel sessions. The detailed programme is now available and features speakers from the Olympic family, governmental and non-governmental institutions, the United Nations system, universities and media groups. To get input from young people first hand, one session will feature only youngsters on the podium.

Learn more about the programme

An astonishing Opening Ceremony in Beijing on Saturday welcomed the world to the Paralympic Games. The Ceremony, which took place in the "Bird’s Nest", was witnessed by a full house of spectators from all over the world. During the three-hour event, the show focused on the “harmony between man and nature”, with three different parts – space, time and life. A total of 420 performers with a disability participated in the Opening Ceremony, marking one of the largest performances of this sort. The first three days of the Paralympic Games saw a large rang of high-level competitions in an excellent atmosphere.

The International Paralympic Committee (IPC), in collaboration with the Beijing Olympic Broadcasting Ltd. (BOB), offers eight hours per day of live commentated coverage of the Paralympic Games. It is broadcasted on the IPC’s internet TV channel www.ParalympicSport.TV. BOB - as the host broadcaster - provides live signals of 10 Paralympic sports including athletics, boccia, cycling (track), judo, table tennis, volleyball (sitting), wheelchair basketball, wheelchair fencing, wheelchair rugby and wheelchair tennis.

Video on demand

The official programme of ParalympicSport.TV will have an interesting mixture of the aforementioned sports, with additional daily highlights provided as video on-demand. The daily highlights will also include those sports that are not covered in the live stream. SIXTY Seconds™, the daily news show presented by Paralympian Ambassador Chris Waddell, will wrap up the latest Paralympic Games News. It will be available on the main channel at www.ParalympicSport.TV, as well as on the YouTube Channel of ParalympicSport.TV at www.youtube.com/paralympicsporttv.

The Beijing Paralympic Games (official website)

Three days to go for the 2008 Paralympic Games in Beijing. The Games will kick off with another spectacular ceremony in the National Stadium – the Bird’s Nest - in Beijing. Over 13 days, 4,000 athletes from 148 countries will compete in 20 sports. The Paralympics will be staged in the same iconic venues as the Olympic Games in August, including the sailing competitions in Qingdao and the equestrian competitions in Hong Kong.

Paralympic firsts
Burundi, Gabon, Georgia, Haiti and Timor-Leste will participate for the first time in the Paralympic

Games; Serbia and Montenegro will participate for the first time as two delegations. The Chinese delegation, with 332 athletes and 215 officials, is the country’s largest at the Paralympics. Rowing is on the sports programme for the first time.

Torch relay under way
The Games will be preceded by a torch relay that includes 850 torch bearers who are

carrying the torch over 10 days in different provinces of the country. Some 30,000 volunteers will

welcome and assist the athletes.

Paralympic Village opened

The Paralympic Village was opened formally on Saturday, with the Chinese squad hoisting its flag and moving in. The Paralympic Village, transformed from the Olympic Village, will play host to the athletes and officials. Special accessories and facilities have been added to the Village to meet the needs of physically challenged athletes. Spread over 66 hectares, the Village has 42 apartment buildings, a hospital, a bank, places of worship and many shops.

A commemorative wall with the inscription of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, in Chinese and English, was also unveiled on Saturday. The Convention was unanimously approved by delegates of the 192 UN members two years ago, and became effective from 3 May this year. All athletes, officials and visitors to the Village can sign their names on the wall, which will be retained as a legacy of the Beijing Paralympic Games.

Facts and Figures

Discover Paralympic Games through the Olympic Express

Learn more about the Paralympic Games

Three days to go for the 2008 Paralympic Games in Beijing. The Games will kick off with another spectacular ceremony in the National Stadium – the Bird’s Nest - in Beijing. Over 13 days, 4,000 athletes from 148 countries will compete in 20 sports. The Paralympics will be staged in the same iconic venues as the Olympic Games in August, including the sailing competitions in Qingdao and the equestrian competitions in Hong Kong.

Paralympic firsts
Burundi, Gabon, Georgia, Haiti and Timor-Leste will participate for the first time in the Paralympic

Games; Serbia and Montenegro will participate for the first time as two delegations. The Chinese delegation, with 332 athletes and 215 officials, is the country’s largest at the Paralympics. Rowing is on the sports programme for the first time.

Torch relay under way
The Games will be preceded by a torch relay that includes 850 torch bearers who are

carrying the torch over 10 days in different provinces of the country. Some 30,000 volunteers will

welcome and assist the athletes.

Paralympic Village opened

The Paralympic Village was opened formally on Saturday, with the Chinese squad hoisting its flag and moving in. The Paralympic Village, transformed from the Olympic Village, will play host to the athletes and officials. Special accessories and facilities have been added to the Village to meet the needs of physically challenged athletes. Spread over 66 hectares, the Village has 42 apartment buildings, a hospital, a bank, places of worship and many shops.

A commemorative wall with the inscription of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, in Chinese and English, was also unveiled on Saturday. The Convention was unanimously approved by delegates of the 192 UN members two years ago, and became effective from 3 May this year. All athletes, officials and visitors to the Village can sign their names on the wall, which will be retained as a legacy of the Beijing Paralympic Games.

Facts and Figures

Discover Paralympic Games through the Olympic Express

Learn more about the Paralympic Games

Following the decision of the IOC Executive Board to shortlist the four Candidate Cities of Harbin (China), Innsbruck (Austria), Kuopio (Finland) and Lillehammer (Norway), the IOC President has appointed an Evaluation Commission to further analyse the projects put forward for the 1st Winter Youth Olympic Games (YOG) in 2012.

The IOC Evaluation Commission will be chaired by Ms Pernilla Wiberg, IOC member and IOC Athletes’ Commission member, and is composed of the following persons:

- Victor Khotochkin, NOC representative, Vice-President of the Russian Olympic Committee
- Fredi Schmid, AIOWF representative, International Skating Union (ISU) Director General
- Martin Rutishauser, Swiss Olympic Association Secretary General
- Gilbert Felli, IOC Olympic Games Executive Director
- Christophe Dubi, IOC Sports Director
- Essar Gabriel, IOC Head of the Youth Olympic Games

As part of the candidature procedure, the Candidate Cities will have the opportunity in September to present their bid to the Evaluation Commission through a video conference call. The video conference calls will take place for one hour and will be structured in two parts: a 15-20-minute verbal presentation by the city to present its bid, followed by questions and answers.

The Evaluation Commission will submit a report to the IOC Executive Board. On the basis of this report, the IOC Executive Board will decide which shortlisted YOG Candidate Cities will be selected to be submitted to a postal vote by all IOC members. The announcement of the 1st Winter Youth Olympic Games host city will take place in December 2008.

Learn more about the YOG

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For further information, please contact Emmanuelle Moreau on +86 158 1155 1830 or +41 79 637 30 17 or e-mail: pressoffice@olympic.org.

Afghanistan’s first Olympic medallist received a hero’s welcome on Thursday from hundreds of beaming fans. Rohullah Nikpai, who won a bronze medal in the under 58kg taekwondo competition, was greeted along with his three teammates in Kabul, the Afghan capital. Taekwondo is the most practised combat sport in Afghanistan. The country’s previous best Olympic finish was a fifth place in wrestling at the Tokyo Games in 1964.

An Olympic Solidarity scholarship holder

Win a trip to Copenhagen and attend the 13th Olympic Congress in October 2009: this is the prize for 20 participants of the current virtual Congress. Each member of the general public who submits a written electronic contribution to the virtual Congress is automatically eligible to participate in the prize draw. The 20 invitations include economy airfare and local accommodation and meals. Submissions will be accepted until 31 December 2008.

The quality counts

The contributions to the virtual Congress will be numerous. Today more than 1,000 people have already registered or contributed. It will be up to the IOC, through its Olympic Congress Editorial Committee, to select 20 contributions and award their authors one prize each. When making its decision, the Committee will in particular take into account the quality of the contribution. The competition rules can be accessed on the virtual Congress page.

Making a contribution to the virtual Olympic Congress is easy! Access www.2009congress.olympic.org, register and contribute online to a maximum of two of the five Congress themes.

The themes are as follows:

Theme 1: The athletes

- Relationship between the athletes, the clubs, federations and the NOCs

- Health protection in training and competition

- The social and professional life of athletes during and after elite competition

Theme 2: The Olympic Games

- How to keep the Games as a premier event

- The Olympic values

- Universality and developing countries

Theme 3: The structure of the Olympic Movement

Visa “Olympics of the Imagination” programme launched four years ago and, since that time, millions of kids have taken part in the competition. Even more impressive is the 255 children from 44 countries aged 10 to 14 who have gotten to attend the Olympic Games in Beijing thanks to Visa.

Olympic spirit
Scot Smythe, Senior Vice President of Visa International, says, "We believe that the unifying nature of the Olympic Games brings together people and communities in a way so as to enhance their lives. The Visa “Olympics of the Imagination” embodied that spirit, bringing together the young people from 18 nations to demonstrate through art the Olympic spirit."

Use your imagination

The programme challenged school children to use their imaginations to create a piece of art based on the theme of global unity: “Show how the Olympic Games connect different cultures and capture the Beijing theme – One World, One Dream.” The winners were given the opportunity to come to Beijing as a guest of Visa Inc.

Thirty winners were chosen based on their various themes: “Dare to Dream”, “Games for Peace”, and “Unified World” were just a few of the innovative ideas thought up by kids from across the globe. The programme began in March of last year and the 30 winners were selected from Brazil, Canada, Caribbean, Chile, China, Colombia, Croatia, Hong Kong, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Morocco, Poland, Russia, Serbia, South Africa, Ukraine and the United Kingdom.

Each country funnels into China

A new record for www.olympic.org was established on the occasion of the Games of the XXIX Olympiad - Beijing 2008. Approximately 5.7 million surfers visited the olympic.org web site from 8 to 24 August. A total of 25.5 million page views were recorded.

This new, all-time record has more than doubled the figures reached at the 2004 Athens Games, when the web site was viewed by approximately 2.8 million visitors for the same Games-time period.

The top five countries visiting the olympic.org web site were the United States, Great Britain, Australia, Canada and France.

Most successful sections :
New Multimedia Gallery

Olympic Quizzes and Online Mini Game

Future and past Games

Sports

Past Games Results

New olympic.org features a real hit!
Many of the new, exciting features which were developed for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games have proven to be very popular with visitors. For example, the new multimedia gallery recorded approximately 5.2 million views, including a staggering 1.2 million videos watched. As a point of interest, during the Athens 2004 Olympic Games, only 125,000 videos were viewed on olympic.org.

Mini Game and online quizzes

What do eight-time Olympic gold medallist Michael Phelps and 17-time Olympic sponsor McDonald’s have in common, besides their love of food? The American swimmer was named the Global Ambassador for McDonald’s Champion Kids programme in August 2007.

Eight gold medals
Just days after breaking the record for most gold medals in a single Olympic Games, Phelps visited Beijing with 34 McDonald’s Champion Kids, taking pictures and answering questions. About what he thinks a champion is, Phelps said, “I think the biggest thing is never giving up. You know, there are some things that aren’t always easy, but you just push through the hard times and it all pays off.”

Two hundred kids travelled to China
The programme was created to inspire and engage young people worldwide in activities that encourage sport, fitness and fun, while providing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for them to experience the Olympic Games first-hand.

This programme has brought more than 200 kids from around the world to Beijing. During their stay, the children are meeting athletes, visiting cultural sights, and attending Olympic events, leaving them with a multitude of stories and experiences to share with family and friends.

A full schedule
“Bringing these kids to Beijing to witness the Olympic Games and the wonders of China is another example of our commitment to children’s well-being,” said Johan Jervoe, Vice President, McDonald’s Global Marketing. More importantly, these kids are making new friends and creating memories that will last them a lifetime.

“McDonald’s has proudly partnered with the Olympic Games for 40 years, and each time, we strived to create programmes that capture the unique spirit of the Games and to engage our customers worldwide,” said Jervoe.