Throughout their descriptions of the 70-day Olympic torch relay, the London 2012 organisers talked of having tracked down "8,000 truly inspirational people from across the UK". But while most of the torchbearers were picked through this process, some people – including one of the world's richest men – managed to get on the torch relay by another means: working for, or being affiliated with, one of the London 2012 sponsors.
More than 1,200 spaces were allocated to the International Olympic Committee, the British Olympics Association, and to staff working for Games sponsors – whose picks included company directors, Russian newspaper editors, and even an official at the US's Food and Drug Administration.
Help Me Investigate the Olympics, a crowdsourced news coverage site dedicated to London 2012, looked into torchbearer slots handed out by one particular sponsor, Adidas.
While, generally, slots had been given to junior or mid-level employees, Adidas had also selected Christos Angelides, the £900,000-a-year senior director at Next, which has a retail partnership with Adidas covering the Olympics. Other Adidas slots went to people in the marketing team who had worked on the company's sponsorship.
The group's findings, posted by Paul Bradshaw, also noted descriptions of staff's work performance in their nominating stories, mentioning that one torchbearer had "made a fantastic contribution to the Adidas group business". Another "breathes Adidas … Her positive attitude and 'money in [the] till' approach is legendary" and a third mentioned "achieving my sales targets in every market I have worked in".
A spokesman for Adidas said the firm was restricted by Locog rules and could only offer its torchbearer slots to employees or those in its network. He added that owing to the low average age of the company's staff, not many of their children were old enough to carry the torch.
Other sponsors struck further afield for their choices: among Coca-Cola's selections were the Las Vegas resident Dr Debra Toney, who among other roles sits on a committee of the US's Food and Drug Administration.
Coca-Cola also selected Evgeny Faktorovich, the deputy editor-in-chief of a Russian paper that "supports all social initiative held by Coca-Cola" and Vonta Vontobel, the president of the Brazilian Bottlers Association of Coca-Cola.
Coca-Cola, as an official torchbearer partner, was able to allocate places to members of the public – it was responsible for allocating 1,350 slots.
"Over 90% of our allocation has gone to members of the public through our Future Flames campaign, which celebrates inspirational people by giving them the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to carry the Olympic flame," said a spokesman. "A small number of our allocation has been given to some of our employees through a nomination campaign, and to our campaign ambassadors who have helped to find our Future Flames. Our remaining places have been given to our partner organisations and their affiliates."
ArcelorMittal, another organisation supporting the Olympics, was given six torchbearer slots. Two of these went to the company's founder, Lakshmi Mittal, the world's 21st richest man according to Forbes magazine, and his son Aditya, the group's chief financial officer. Among the others, however, were the US technician Angel Alvarez, who donated his kidney to a fellow worker, and Polish employee Filip Kuzniak, who cycled 600km to raise money for a colleague's daughter.
Among 50 torchbearers selected by BP were Gillian James, a member of the company's North Sea leadership team, and Carl Halksworth, the creative director of Landor, BP's design agency partner for the Olympics. As BP sponsored a particular section of the route, near Aberdeen, the remainder of its picks were made up predominantly of "onshore and offshore BP staff, young relatives of staff, business partners, and nominees from local schools, universities and charities".
The electricity giant EDF, meanwhile, included the group's former director of HR and communications among the 71 staff members chosen to carry the torch on the company's behalf.
A London 2012 spokesman said: "Staging the Olympic Games is a huge undertaking and we couldn't do it without the support from our commercial partners. The rights packages for some partners include a small number of torchbearer places that had to be filled through internal campaigns.
"The same torchbearer selection criteria applied across the whole relay – ie personal bests and/or contribution to the community."
Source: www.guardian.co.uk
Kent State’s rotation has it rolling along - Register-Guard
When a team loses six players to the pro baseball draft — four in the top 10 rounds — and among them is a left-handed ace who passes up his junior year to sign a contract, the likelihood of a breakthrough season seems slim.
One year after Kent State suffered that very fate, however, here are the Golden Flashes, in the NCAA super regional round for the first time in school history, and coming to Eugene this weekend to play Oregon for a spot in the College World Series.
Twelve months removed from a “heartbreaking” loss to Texas in the Golden Flashes’ 11th regional appearance, and from losing their top two starters plus their closer to the draft, Kent State beat Kentucky twice and Purdue once to win a regional last week. The Golden Flashes open a three-game series against Oregon on Saturday at 8 p.m. in PK Park.
“When we lost last year in the regional final, it was heartbreaking,” Kent State coach Scott Stricklin said. “It was really tough. It’s been a long year thinking about it.
“If you were to ask me last year which team would have a chance to make a super regional, every one of us I think would have said that team. But that just speaks volumes about the kids we have — blue-collar, hard-working kids who have exceeded expectations.”
Kent State’s 2011 staff ace, Andrew Chafin, was selected with a compensatory first-round pick in last year’s pro draft. Closer Kyle McMillen was taken in the fourth round, and 2011 Mid-American Conference pitcher of the year Kyle Hallock went in the 10th round.
And yet, starting pitching has improbably been Kent State’s strength this season. David Starn, a seventh-round pick in this year’s draft, will start Saturday against the Ducks, putting on the line a 10-3 record and 2.01 ERA, with 118 strikeouts in 107 2/3 innings.
As a third-year starter, Starn was the sure thing this season. More surprising have been contributions from Kent State’s other two starters. Ryan Bores (9-2, 3.29), a junior college transfer who passed up a pro contract after being drafted last season, will start Sunday’s second game, and Virginia transfer Tyler Skulina (11-2, 3.84) would start game three Monday, if Oregon and Kent State split the first two.
“We lost a lot of impact arms off last year’s team,” Stricklin said. “That was the big question mark coming in — could we have guys fill those shoes? And Ryan Bores and Tyler Skulina have been outstanding.”
No more so than in the regional round. Starn started the opener against Kentucky, which lasted an incredible 21 innings, severely stressing each team’s bullpen. Bores responded by throwing a complete game in the win over Purdue, and Skulina lasted seven innings to win his school-record 11th game in the regional final against Kentucky.
David Lyon, a four-year starter at catcher for Kent State, said the three starters present three vastly different styles. Starn is a lefty who relies on off-speed stuff, Bores uses on his sinker and slider to get groundball outs, and Skulina is the power arm of the group.
“Going from a soft lefty to a sinker-slider guy that’s at 91 (mph) with a lot of sink, to a guy that’s 6-5, 250 pounds and runs it up there at 96, that’s a big change,” Lyon said.
Stricklin calls Lyon “as good a defensive catcher as there is.” In a rare responsibility for this level, Lyon calls pitches himself in most situations, rather than the coaching staff.
“It is unique in the college game, but that’s the kind of leader he is,” Stricklin said. “He’s just outstanding.”
Kent State’s leadership as a whole was tested this season, Stricklin said, when the Golden Flashes played less than inspired baseball from the start. They still looked like a strong candidate to win their conference, but at the midway point there were few signs this would be the Kent State to break through in the postseason.
The low point came at Bowling Green in mid-April, when the Golden Flashes dropped two of three, their first MAC defeats of the season, to a team without a strong recent tradition. Since then, they’ve won 24 of 26, including a national-best 20 straight entering this weekend’s super regional.
“Our seniors really took over the team, made sure our guys were doing the little things in practice,” Stricklin said. “And we’ve just been really sharp and played good baseball ever since.”
This weekend, that streak will go against an Oregon team that also swept through its regional in impressive fashion.
“I feel good about where our team is, but going all the way across the country to play a top-five team that’s competed at such a high level in the Pac-12, it’s a tough challenge,” Stricklin said. “But we’ve got good baseball players who play hard and play with confidence. We’ll be ready to play.”
Said Lyon: “We’re 54 outs away from Omaha. It’s crazy to say that. I think everyone wants to get to Omaha so bad, we’re going to be playing our hearts out. Even if we end up on the losing end, we’re going to leave everything on the field.”
Source: www.registerguard.com
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