- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has told Olympic and corporate heavyweights that Australia’s image around the world has been fashioned in many respects by its athletes.
He told the seventh Prime Minister’s Olympic Dinner that leaders of the world he had met had a view of Australia which they had garnered by the performances of the nation’s sportsmen and women over the past century.
More than 1,400 high paying guests, including Victorian Premier John Brumby and ex-premier Steve Bracks, NAB chief executive for Australia Ahmed Fahour and CSL boss Brian McNamee helped raise $1 million for athletes at the dinner.
Mr Rudd said Australia was one of the few countries in the world to have taken part in every Olympic Games including the first one in 1896 when our sole representative was accountant Edwin Flack, who made his own way from London to Athens and won two gold medals and a bronze.
“Who said accountants were boring,” Mr Rudd joked.
“He began a great and continuing tradition for Australia.
“When the world looks at Australia, so much of their image of Australia is shaped by what our sportsmen and women have done on the fields of sport, including Olympic sports, in that intervening century.”
He thanked corporate Australia for backing the nation’s Olympic athletes and the trainers and coaches who identified young talent then nurtured it with the Olympics as their target.
“I meet presidents and prime ministers whose view of Australia is shaped so much by the sportsmen and women of Australia,” Mr Rudd said.
LIBERTY AMBASSADORS
WASHINGTON – US President George W Bush has told US athletes bound for the Beijing Olympics that they will be “ambassadors of liberty” representing US commitments to “human rights and human dignity”.
“In Beijing, you will convey our nation’s most cherished values. As ambassadors of liberty, you will represent America’s love for freedom and our regard for human rights and human dignity,” he told them at the White House.
“You’ll represent that to other athletes, and to the people of China,” said the US president.
BASKETBALL
PARIS – Germany clinched the last place in the 12-nation line-up at the Olympic Games men’s basketball tournament with a 96-82 win over Puerto Rico.
Greece and Croatia had qualified on Saturday and with Germany will join Angola, Argentina, Australia, hosts China, Iran, Lithuania, Russia, Spain and the United States in the Beijing tournament.
OPENING RAIN
BEIJING – Chinese state media says there is a 41 per cent chance of rain during the opening ceremony at next month’s Olympic Games in Beijing.
But the China Daily newspaper says that according to historical data analysed by the China Meteorological Administration if it does rains it is likely to be light.
The director general of the opening ceremony, Chinese film director Zhang Yimou, has said rain is the top worry for the ceremony, plans for which are being kept under complete secrecy.
The China Daily on Wednesday quotes Chen Zhenlin, director of the Olympic Weather Service centre, as saying thunderstorms, heavy rain, high temperatures, muggy skies and hailstorms still pose a threat.
The paper says global warming has also caused more extreme weather.
The CMA says Beijing experienced its wettest June in 15 years.
FLIGHTS DELAYED
BEIJING – At least two airlines say they have been told to stay away from Beijing’s international airport during the opening ceremony of the Olympics, while further scrutiny was applied to foreign entertainers in the latest security moves ahead of next month’s games.
No official announcement has been made, but local media and airlines said Beijing’s airport will close for about four hours during the opening ceremony, affecting dozens of flights.
Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific said it would postpone one flight after receiving word from Chinese authorities that the airport would be closed during the ceremony, set to begin at the auspicious time of 8pm on August 8.
Cathay Pacific spokeswoman Carolyn Leung in Hong Kong said she was informed that Beijing Capital International Airport would be closed from 7pm to midnight on August 8.
She said a flight from Hong Kong scheduled to arrive at 9.45pm will instead land at 1am the next day.
A customer service spokesman of Olympic sponsor, Air China, said the airline had also received a notice that the airport would be closed.
But a spokesman from the airport denied the reports, saying they welcomed all flights to Beijing.
FLAG WAVING
BEIJING – Fans will be unable to wave banners supporting national teams at the Beijing Olympics, according to an official guide book for spectators.
The book, published by Olympic organisers and available to ticket holders, said banners backing individual teams including China were “tendentious (and) violate the fairness principle of an Olympic event,” state media reported.
Also banned from stadiums are materials supporting human rights, religion or politics as well as animal rights and the environment. Commercial banners promoting products are also banned from stadiums during the August 8-24 Games.
Huang Keying, an official on the organising committee, said the guidelines were in line with the Olympic Charter, which outlaws using the Games to promote religious, political and racial discrimination.
Drunkenness, nudity and gambling are also banned from Olympic venues, as are soft drink containers, musical instruments, cameras and radios.
Animals other than guide dogs are also banned, and adults are discouraged from taking babies into venues.
Zhang Zhenliang, director of the Games’ inquiry centre, said the rules were designed to promote an “orderly, happy and harmonious environment,” according to Xinhua news agency.
China has already issued rules for foreign visitors, which include a ban on protests and sleeping outside during the Summer Games.
CANOE TRAGEDY
BUDAPEST, Hungary – Two-time Olympic canoeing gold medallist Gyorgy Kolonics has died after collapsing in his canoe during training.
The Hungarian Olympic Committee says the 36-year-old Kolonics lost consciousness and paramedics were not able to resuscitate him.
The committee says the probable cause of death was heart failure.
Kolonics won Olympic gold medals in the 500 metre canoe single and double events at the 1996 Atlanta Games.
He also won bronze in Atlanta in the 1000m double race, teamed with Csaba Horvath, and in the same event at the 2004 Athens Games, with Gyorgy Kozmann.
Kolonics was training with Kozmann for next month’s Beijing Games, which would have been his fifth Olympics.
RADIOACTIVE LONDON
LONDON – Radioactive material was found at the main site to be used for the London 2012 Olympics, requiring 1 million tonnes of soil to be decontaminated.
The announcement by Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell comes less than a week after the discovery of asbestos temporarily halted construction at the Olympic stadium.
Jowell said the Olympic Delivery Authority’s contractors had not been “unnecessarily” exposed to radium at the rundown East London area being regenerated into the Olympic Park, which will also house the aquatics centre, velodrome and basketball arenas.
“Other contaminants discovered on site include hydrocarbons, industrial chemicals, heavy metals and a very small amount of low level radioactive material,” Jowell said in a written parliamentary answer.
“A report on the radium find from the ODA’s specialist contractor stated that ‘no worker or member of the public has been unnecessarily exposed to ionizing radiation,’ which registered low or very low levels of radioactivity.”
GOLF
SOUTHPORT, England – Golf’s major governing bodies have come together to push for their sport to be added to the Olympic program in 2016.
The PGA Tour, Royal & Ancient, European PGA Tour, LPGA, US Golf Association, PGA of America and Augusta National have joined forces to lobby the International Olympic Committee.
The IOC will decide in October 2009 on possible changes in the Olympic program at the same meeting where it picks the next host city for the Summer Games.
The 2016 finalists are Chicago, Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and Madrid, Spain.
Golf hasn’t been an Olympic sport since 1904.