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Censorship

IOC To Olympic Athletes: Online Diaries Verboten 113

Posted by timothy from the my-last-vestige-of-respect-just-self-immolated dept.
joshstaiger writes: "An article was posted here on Slashdot a while back about the International Olympic Committee's banning of many forms of Internet broadcast of the upcoming Olympic Games. Now they are going even further, forbidding athletes to keep online journals of their experiences during the games under the reasoning that the athlete would be acting as a journalist (and therefore outside the IOC's nice little ring of corporate sponsors and media giants). Check this article from thestandard.com: IOC Bans Athletes From Net Storytelling." Also, note that athletes may not wear "branded clothing of unauthorized sponsors when receiving medals." Don'tcha love that true spirit of amateurism and admirable, personal ambition?
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IOC To Olympic Athletes: Online Diaries Verboten More

IOC To Olympic Athletes: Online Diaries Verboten

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  • After a lot of pressure from athletes and others, the US Congress got involved with the restrictions the AAU was placing. I can't find the details right away -- it's mentioned at the close of _Without Limits_ -- but I do know that it was due in large part to the efforts of Steve Prefontaine and his fights with the AAU.

  • It sucks. TV coverage sucks. The pandering athletes suck. TV keeps showing the tally of medals all through the games and how good My Country is doing.

    It is supposed to be a friendly get together, but all it does is put stupid nationalistic pictures trying to stuff a stupid 'my country is best' piece of crap down our throats.

    Adolf Hitler was the first idiot to nationalize the Olympics with his 1936 Berlin summer games. It has gotten a lot worse since.

    The Olympics is boring and stupid. The corporate sponsorship of them is stupid too. The athletes are saying, "Go ahead! f**k me in the ass! All I want is money and fame!" The olympic committee has been given a special legislative act (in the US) to be a monopoly, and they act the part.


    blessings,

  • I thought I'd never again after the primary school see someone taking pride in his ignorance, but I guess I was wrong.

    If you are relying on "must see tv" to cure you of ignorance, you are doomed to disappointment.
  • From all I know of the IOC (a friend of mine has worked closely with them, but I know my knowledge is slight), they seem like a power-brokering circle of friends who are blessed with an organization not only mostly beyond legal purview, but which people associate with all the hard work and courage of the athletes.

    I'm all in favor of a strong international athletic meet, but the particulars of the elite which holds the strings of the Olympics? No thanks. Greed, corruption, avarice. Remember guns in Salt Lake City? They play cities against one another, accepting bribes along the way, and no doubt members benefit hugely from knowing what cities will be picked. (I'd like to see a full accounting of the real estate holdings of the members, families and close associates of those on the IOC.)

    From the "spirit of competition" to utter politicization (sp), the Olympics have suffered, even though all but a few competitors are honest / hardworking. I think it would be *more* cynical to just accept that than to point out the corporate greed which drives them now. Perhaps someone can start a better policed, less odious organization than the IOC?

    [There may be some stinkers among the athletes, too, but that's another story.]

    timothy
  • Get thrown from the olympics to where? That could really hurt if there wasn't proper protection to break their fall.
  • Riders in the Tour, like Bobby Julich [bobbyjulich.com] post online diaries after every stage of the Tour. Do they get paid for doing it? Probably. If not, its for publicity. But still, at least the UCI (the group that organizes the race) lets them do it, and it gives fans of the sport a chance to hear how the race is like from a rider's perspective. Of course, other aspects of the race like what you are supposed to wear is just like the Olympics, but at least they give freedom (i think)to any news agency to post stories/results, and to allow participants to write journals. And remember , after soccer, this is the premier sporting event in Europe.
  • They fear the Internet in all its forms.

    Actually, I think they fear loss of control in all its forms. The internet is a proven way to lose control.

    Control == best chance for long term profits. Everybody wants to control their destiny. They just want to control yours too if it'll profit them.

    But in the end, control results in exclusive news deals rather than letting the best journalists get the money. It results in dictating what time the news is given out rather than the money going to the fastest news organization.

  • Yes they are.

    Read about it here [thenews.org]

  • To stay on topic, I am disgusted that personal expression is now considered journalism, and can be regulated as such. Now to get slightly off-topic.

    I've been fascinated by the trend to stupider and stupider sports in the Olympics. Rhythmic gymnastics? Target shooting? Which of "Faster, Stronger, Higher" applies to any of those?

    I wrote a short satire [intergate.ca] on the trend. Unfortunately, not long after I posted it, I saw a documentary on CBC about the struggle to get ballroom dancing accepted as an Olympic sport. They've passed the first hurdle ... it's now a recognized sport, as long as they don't call it Ballroom, just "Dance Sport."

    As Tom Lehrer said, satire is dead. :-(

  • Not all computer lovers got the shit kicked out of them in high school. I ran cross-country and track, and got along with the entire team, plus a number of lacross and football players. No one picked on me. Most schools have no entry requirements for some sports every season, give them a try and put some effort out. Meet some people, get some color, some muscle, and learn to socialize.

    -----------------------

  • What the IOC really wanted was for the athletes to not break news about who won their events before the event had been shown to the world. The ban on Internet diaries altogether is like swatting a fly with an asteroid. The sad part about all of this is that it is a lose-lose. Good athlete websites would have been good for the athletes and good for the Olympics (since more people would be interested them after looking at an athlete's website). And it is not like the athletes wouldn't have accepted a ban on reporting results given how they easily they're accepting this ban. Instead, the Olympics lost the promotional benefits of athlete websites and at least one viewer. Because, after this, I cannot, in good conscience, watch the Olympics.
  • Indeed, and specifically, Australia doesn't have any guarantee of free speech as currently enjoyed by those Merkins among us. Whilst onsite in Sydney, one would expect athletes to be governed by local laws, or do they enjoy diplomatic immunity?

    One would expect that athletes are not treated as diplomats, and thus must honour the local laws of the country they are in. Being in Sydney, this means they are not only denied the right to free speech they may normally enjoy in the US of A, but they'll also be subject to the swathe of recent draconian legislation passed by our government.

    I recommend a combination of boycott and civil disobedience. The IOC (and others) can't censor international websites entirely, and I for one am very glad to be out of Sydney for the Olympics.

  • Re:THE OLYMPICS IS DYING slowly (Score:3)

    by interiot ( 50685 ) on Saturday September 02, 2000 @08:41AM (#809281) Homepage
    1) A technology race isn't necessarily bad. It increases the capability of the human race. Who knows, 100 years down the road, we might need super tough humans or really fast cars.

    2) Car racing can also turn into a technology race or a race of who has the most money to put into hardware. But car racing has managed to keep the cars pretty even so they can compete mainly on driver skill.

  • Re:Athletes = Jocks (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Be careful with your stereotypes. Some of the finest people I've met are athletes. Of course you have the jerks as well, but they exist in every social group. Just read some of the really stupid comments in Slashdot if you don't believe me. Back to the jocks. With sports, at least in the amateur ranks, you see three distinct stages in an athlete's social development: 1. You're just starting out, unsure of yourself, and just happy to be there. You're nice to everyone because you're a nobody and you know it. 2. You're rising up the ranks. You are getting better, and your head increases in size. You don't have to be nice the everyone, just whoever is above you or you are sucking up to so you can get to "the next level". Everyone below you is shit. This continues until... 3. You get to "the next level" and get the crap kicked out of you by the real elite. You figure out that no matter who you are, there's always someone better. All of a sudden you start acting like a human being again because it's friends that count and you're one good injury away from sitting on the sidelines. There are quite a few who bypass step 2 as well. Now you look at nerd culture. Way back when, being a nerd didn't mean being a pretentious little asshole. These days, there a quite a few like that maybe should get the shit kicked out of them once in a while, at least, in an intellectual sense.

  • Re: Shortsightedness (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    It's not just the financial issue.

    It's about expanding the Olympic franchise. And the IOC is still shortsighted, or rather, acting on the defensive. Why can't the IOC embrace the internet to create a better Olympic experience for the fans?

    For instance, logging personal journals on *personal* (non-commercial sites), as viewed as undermining the value of exclusive media contracts. Doesn't anyone believe that these journals will inspire more people to "reach for the gold"? Or, actually cuase people to watch their fans on NBC instead of watching Survivor reruns on CBS? What do you think CBS execs think about this development?

    Remember, the fact that Napster-type services exist stimulated the demand for CD albums, while the global market growth rate was projected (by Sony and others) to flatten out!

  • Thank you. I don't watch tv at all I plan to be hacking away during the olympics as usual. Sports are to do, not to watch.
  • >>>
    To think otherwise is crass idealism. So get over it already... It may not be cool, but it's normal.
    >>>

    "crass idealism" -- how's that for an oxymoron?
  • Even the word scam doesn't do these people justice. Lets hope these two do some jail time. [cnn.com]

    Lots more info at Olympicssuck.com [olympicssuck.com]

    The funny thing these things will never go away as long as we have Joe and Mary Blow from any country getting patroitic that so-and-so lost by a fraction of a second and fall into obscurity because he/she was beated by someone else from a different country by that fraction of a second and now will be on every McDonalds cup for the next six months.

  • Consider events such as "biathlon": Cross-country skiing while carrying a rifle and target shooting along the way. (This was used very effectively against the NAZIs by resistance movements.)

    If they are going to use nazis for target practice I'm going to go out and buy a TV.

  • Why do you think athletes still make pitful salaries?

    Maybe they arn't unionized. They should join the screen actors guild. Actors and atheletes arn't much different from each other these days. It would be pretty funny to see the atheletes striking too.

  • I did not say the games were fixed, I said they IOC had fixed games. Actually they looked the other way when the fixing was discovered, but it amounts to the same thing.

    http://ajennings.8m.com/boxing.htm [8m.com]
  • There was a time when Olympic athletes had to be amateurs

    But, at that time, sportsmen were aristocrats or generally very rich people.
    Remember how during Cold War, the Eastern athletes were colonels of their armies. The State payed them to compete.

    The point is that, traning and competing give no money per se. If you want to spend all that time and get a living, you have to either:
    • be very rich yourself
    • have a rich family
    • be payed by the State
    • be payed by a commercial sponsor


    You know, the root of all evil.
    __
  • I may be trolling but I feel that, in the the US and Britain, there is a tendence to point out mistakes and faults in international organizations like Unesco, the IOC, the UN. Often they are right, but they are singled out because the share of American, British or generally Western managers is lesser than other organizations.

    That's my impression.
    __
  • I used to be an amateur ski racer; I even know a few kids who made it to the top and are now on the US Ski and Snowboard teams. What's unfortunate is that the IOC has let soft money and greed cause them to ignore the simple fact that without sponsors, some of these athletes wouldn't even have the equipment they need to compete. Runners may not have the money to buy running shoes, and the IOC is now telling them "sure, you can get your shoes for free, but if they're not from [our sponsors] then you better accept your medal barefoot." Most amateur athletes got put through athletic academies on full scholarship and will get the same when/if they go to college, simply because 1) they're too poor to begin with, or 2) if they spent their time working, then they wouldn't be spending it training.

    I just hope the IOC doesn't start banning athletes from wearing branded equipment while competing. If a skier couldn't pop his ski off and hold it up for the cameras after his run, I think we'd start seeing lawsuits being filed by ski manufacturers against the IOC.
  • We still have a Campus Printing Center at my school. They make me want to go Joe Pesci.

  • Are you suprised? (Score:4)

    by 0xdeadbeef ( 28836 ) on Saturday September 02, 2000 @07:36AM (#809294) Homepage Journal
    The International Olympic Committe is nothing more than a crime syndicate under the guise of a non-profit organization. They take bribes during the city selection process, they have fixed events, they've co-opted the word Olympic and bully anyone who has a legitimate use of that name. They bend over for powerful nations like China when they force the democratic Republic of China, better known as Taiwan, to play as "Chinese Taipei" and under a generic Olympic flag.

    The Olympics have very little to do with athletics or international goodwill. That's how it is sold, but of course, it is all about selling things, isn't it? It's about sponsership, marketing, and product placement. It's about political favors, one-upsmanship, and propoganda. Do yourself a favor and have nothing to do with this scam.

  • The Olympics Suck (Score:3)

    by Luminous ( 192747 ) on Saturday September 02, 2000 @07:38AM (#809295) Journal
    The Olympics have totally lost their true meaning (if we even understood what that true meaning ever was). If an athlete wants to keep an online journal, it should be encouraged. Okay, so I may actually read someone's journal over watching a little biography of their life. Why? Because the person keeping the journal may actually be from my homestate and she isn't expected to win big in anything so they won't do any special feature on her.

    I am shocked the US Olympic Committee agreed to this. This is a better reason to boycott the Olympics than many of the other reasons people give. Denying athletes basic fundamental rights is sickening. So much for freedom of speech. Even if it isn't a universal concept, each American athlete should protest in his/her own fashion.

  • Re:"Let's think about the little guys for a change, eh? They're representing our countries, NOT a specific list of corporations."

    Personally, I'de love to see an american gold metal winner listening to the national anthem, with a tear in her eye, rip off her shirt and reveal a sports bra with MICROSOFT SUCKS across each tit.

    Would the world see it? I mean, they can paste logos onto the athletes in real time and the average viewer would never know the differance. So even IF the individual wanted to make a side deal to jump out of his sweat pants to reveal a jock strap with "slashdot" on his ass, I doubt the message would reach the masses.

    Takeing this thought to it's extreeme, Why not ask the athletes to except their metals wearing a color neutral green suit so that each individual television market can digitally paint on their own local sponsors, thus returning "power to the people"?

    People who don't have many people watching them can sell time to "1-900weare18" and "Your local Johnson Ford/Mitsubishi" and the people who win big in prime time can sell to coke and nike. Winning althletes could sell adds from their host country directly and pay a small "pasteing fee" to the network for putting it there.

  • Olympics-Suck.com Website - Learn the Truth!! (Score:5)

    by Ron Bennett ( 14590 ) on Saturday September 02, 2000 @07:51AM (#809297) Homepage
    The Olympics continue to get worse and worse. There was a time when Olympic athletes had to be amateurs...these days professional athletes are permitted to compete in the games; while one may argue there's nothing wrong with that, it's a reflection of how the Olympic games have changed from being an athletic event where athletes competed to see who was the best...these days the Olympics is all about who can make the most money.

    Olympics Suck Website - Learn the Truth! [olympicssuck.com]

  • In the past I used to enjoy watching the olympics. But now I just don't think I can anymore. I currently live in Utah, and I've been watching the whole mess around here.

    What irks me is that the biggest outrage of all is ignored. Public funding of the games. A lot of people think that in the US the games don't have any public funding. But an example of this, there is an army installation where the olympic committee wanted to build part of the olympic village. So they tell the army, gives the land and put your reserve center somewhere else. The army in essence tells them to go hell. Fortunately for the SLOC Utah has congresscritters. They get this overruled eventually. The end result, $10+ million are spent to move the reserve center from a better location to a worse, all on the tab of uncle sam.

    There are other examples of this. I'd much rather have corporate sponsership of the games than public funding of the games.
  • In my world payment for services comes in many different forms. Just because some althete can't go down to the BeerBarn and get a keg for the weekend screwfest doesn't mean he isn't being paid. Ask an athlete how much debt he's in after 7 years of college ( just to get a B.S.), oh but that doesn't matter because he wasn't able to wear Tommy Hilfiger to the Spring Fling his senior year. Cut me a break.

  • Are there still people who think that the Olympics have anything to do with amateur competition and brotherly rivalry among fellow humans? Raise your hands? You do? Moron.

    Could someone explain to me exactly why the Olympics should only be open to amateurs? This seems totally stupid to me. To me, the olympics are about the best athletes in the world, competing. Period. Why should we not allow the best athletes to compete just because they happen to make money doing what they do?

    As an aside, you do know the real reason that the Olympics were originally open only to amateurs, right? It was done to keep the poor riff-raff out of the games, and keep it reserved only for "gentleman". Only someone with enough money to train without needing a job was able to devote the time necessary.


    --

  • If the athletes just wanted to see who was best they could find out without the IOC. But most really want to be famous and for that they sell their souls and take their drugs, and thank God that the IOC has sold the TV rights to anyone and everyone. The conditions placed on them don't matter. After all, most of them are incapable of any useful work (due to time spent training) so this is their only way to make it.

    TWW

  • God forbid anyone should take away coverage or ownership of information about the Olympics from the lovely NBC/Microsoft bunch of WNBC, MSNBC and CNBC.

    Scumbags! Let the athletes have a diary if they want. Whose thoughts are they anyway? Certainly not YOURS. What'd ya make 'em sign an NDA? Argh.

    Like the Olympic committee should really talk, considering the recent (and repetitive) issues with Utah.

    The Olympics, IMO - are becoming a farce. It's less and less about the competition and the athletes and more about airtime, commercial value and sponsorship. You can see this just by watching the lousy coverage that we as Americans get... You only see an event if an American either won, or is "high profile."

  • Re:Athletes = Jocks (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    3. You get to "the next level" and get the crap kicked out of you by the real elite.

    Interestingly, these three stages describe pretty well an academic career as well.

  • "One of the things we're telling our athletes if there are any questions - if it's Nike or Speedo or somebody - just be interviewed." In other words, if the text is a question and answer format rather than a personal diary, than that's not likely to raise a flag, said Condron.
    Q: So what's new in the Olympic compound?
    A: Well, today they're setting up a propane-powered branding iron to brand corporate logos on our cheeks. At first I was kind of put off by that, but you know what they say: "No pain, no gain."
  • Somehow I don't think that the ATHLETES sold their rights to keep an on-line diary to their sponsors.

  • Yes... but free speech is not an international convention. It's a right guaranteed under the US Constitution, and I imagine some other countries have similar rights for their citizens, but the 'I' in IOC stands for 'International', meaning that the US Constitution (and the others) don't apply.

  • Maybe they arn't unionized. They should join the screen actors guild. Actors and atheletes arn't much different from each other these days. It would be pretty funny to see the atheletes striking too.

    Already happened. ESPN.com's story [go.com]
  • Actually, the U.S. Olympic committee, the national branch of the International Olympic Committee, which will be enforcing this on U.S. athletes, is not a govermental actor. (See San Francisco Arts & Athletics v. U.S.O.C. [findlaw.com], 483 U.S. 522 (1987)) Thus, the First Amendment does not apply to the U.S.O.C. (See an excellent article [ucla.edu] by Prof. Eugene Volokh [ucla.edu] of UCLA Law School. So, unfortunately we're stuck with the clap-trap the Olympic committee wants to feed us. Personally, I'll boycott the "official everything" [olympics.com] of the Olympics, and watch for write-ups after the fact from either observers (because the audience are not restricted from writing) or the athletes after the fact. Thalia
  • The US Olympic Committee is probably just as corrupt as the rest of them, and you've got to take into account that a lot of the big-name sponsors are American as well.

    The Olympics is just too much greed and too much hype these days, and the World Cup isn't far off either. But what can be done to bring them back to how they used to be, before the corporations took over? Even if more and more of us switch off the telly they'll just think they need to advertise more, in a vicious circle.

    Bah. Now where's my desert island?
  • lol.... u get sued over the domain yet?

  • I live alongside the Olympic marathon course and have a window which will possibly appear on camera. Naturally, I am thinking of using this to promote my views about the Olympics. Ideally I'd just write "Olympics Suck" on some pieces of board but that might be too offensive for the various TV companies.

    So, I'm seeking advice on the wording. The brief is as follows:

    • Window size: 4x1.2 metres (12x4 feet)
    • Style: Short and sharp for readability. Not too offensive or it won't get airtime.
    • Key message: That the Olympics are boring, unnecessary, too commercial, don't help civilisation one bit, etc
    • Cross-promotion: I'm happy to promote a similarly-themed web site, eg Silly 2000 [silly2000.com]
    • Legalities: Won't get me sued

    Suggestions?

  • The IOC should just allow the sponsors to bid on the results. Then, they don't need to bother with athletes at all; they can just use realistic CGI animations. Or better still, they could just animate the logos competing against each other.
  • We have a TV show over here in Australia called The Games, it's a parody of the Sydney Olymics organisers. Anyway, they did an episode last week where a gold medal favourite athelete legally changed her name to "Pepsi" so the commentators when they called the race and she recieved her medal would have to refer to her as a non-sponsor name. Amusing. The Games has been a great series, outlining many amusing political scenarios.
  • Ok history meister.

    Infact, christians were not put to death in the Roman colosseum - at least not unless they also happened to be gladiators, criminals or beggars.

    They *were*, however, systematically put to death in the circus maximus down the road, amongst other places.

    There is a large cross in the colosseum to honour cristian martyrs, and I belive that a pope has declared it sacred ground, based on the same misunderstanding.
  • Good for you, I wish I could say the same. But this is a good reason why the fucking Olympic games should be boycotted. The 'man' tells you what you can and cannot do. Well I say 'fuck you' to the 'man'. I won't be watching any of this drug enhanced crap. Actually, I don't even care about the drugs, it's the showy hypocrisy of the IOC towards the use of Performance Enhancing Drugs. If you're not going to properly police the use of drugs then make the goddamn things legal and just get on with the show (and the decades of Real-Life TeeVee with all those mutant athletes suffering from various side effects - gigantism anyone - would be a real boon to TLC and Fox.)

    The same goes for the NFL, NHL, NBA, MLB, CIA, FBI, MI5, KGB, Staatssicherheitsdienst, etc.

  • That in itself is interesting. Jesse Owen(?)'s Black Power salute was radical politics at the time - would this be an issue too? And how would it be that only officially-recognised flags are allowed in the stadium?

    What it needs for this is an athlete who's prepared to stick their neck out a bit. Win your event (and preferably a high-profile event such as track events), and then do your stuff on the podium. If the IOC and/or the country committe try screwing them over, the public indignation will be incredible.

    I'd volunteer, but I don't think I stand much chance out there. Only event I'd make is the 100m printout...

    Grab.
  • Obviously you were attempting to get FP but nod get an Offtopic. Good try, but you'll get it anyway.
  • You know, the root of all evil.

    Go back and check that quote. It's love of money that's the root of all evil, not money itself.

    Oh, and btw, it's a haughty spirit that goes before a fall and pride before destruction.

    I hate it when people screw up perfectly good biblical quotes.

    John.

  • My Aunt was a World Cup and Olympic skier in the 60's and at that time you were banned from wearing branded equipment. The skiers had to put tape on their skis to cover the brand name. It's hard to believe now but at one time the Olympics were really about amature sport and not ratings. I don't think she could even accept gifts because they were thought of as a form of compensation and an athlete could loose their amature status.

    ----
  • Is there a form of NDA when you enter the Olympics or a contract to keep you from wearing such items? Also, is the ban only for the athletes, so that anyone viewing the Olympics can still write their feelings of the games?

    Commercialism has taken something that was supposed to unite many countries and turned it into something ugly fast. Salt Lake City bribes, bans on free speech from Oz... I think it's time we find a new event to bring the countries together, or rehaul the Olympic Committee.

    Dragon Magic [dragonmagic.net]

  • Why stop there... (Score:5)

    by waldeaux ( 109942 ) <donahue@skepsREDHATis.com minus distro> on Saturday September 02, 2000 @06:54AM (#809321)
    Let's emblazon the medals themselves with the logos of the sponsors!

    ...And now for coming in first for the high jump, we present you with this gold Coca-Cola medallion! Just scratch the surface and you might win a free meal at McDonalds!

  • You know, the root of all evil.
    Go back and check that quote. It's love of money that's the root of all evil, not money itself.


    I checked in the Official Slashdot Readers' Reference [google.com] and the top ten results tell that the root of all evil is:
    1. A category in The Guardian
    2. Women
    3. A Role Playing campaign
    4. Lawyers
    5. A TV series episode
    6. An anti-feminist
    7. A preacher gives the actual quote: "For the love of money is the root of all evil, which, while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows."
    8. Money
    9. ??
    10. Money

    So it's not so clear. And I guess that, in my contest, it could mean "love of money" as well.
    __
  • Way too much commercialization of sports spils everything. Take a look at where the greed of the South African cricket caption - Hansie Conje - took him. Instead of playing sports for the sake of the game, plyears have become walking talking billboards of their sponsers. Sheesh!
  • Did these athletes sign some form of agreement when they entered the competition to refrain from these actions? If not, there's no way this can be enforced at all. Also, what struck me about the ban on non-sponsor clothing while recieving medals was what happens if an athlete cannot get a sponsor for a particular article of clothing? And how long do they intend to force athletes to not put their diaries online? During the games? Until the next games? Forever?

    And while we're on the subject, has anyone else here seen _Without Limits_, and recognized the similarities between the then-AAU and the IOC?

    -----------------------

  • yeah, but professional athletes have better skillz. you're trying to keep people out just because they've got skillz. who wants the olympics to sux0r? I like the olympics almost as much as i like pepsi... mmmm... pepsi.
    ----------------------------
  • What the IOC doesn't realize is that these amateur athletes desperately need their sponsors to survive. Sure, Michael Johnson has close to a basketball player's salary with Nike, but I'm talking about the little guys, who compete in the sports that NBC refuses to televise. The competitors in sports like biathlon and sharpshooting need their sponsors, like Remington, Colt, and Smith & Wesson, so they don't starve like dogs in the Olympics.

    Also, I think that the IOC has become a group of technopobic Luddites. They fear the Internet in all its forms. The highest form of technology that they wish to have in the Olympics is that camera on a rail parallel to the track, so you can easily see who's ahead in the 100 meter dash.

    If the IOC is like this in 2012, I think that the popularity of the Olympics will have degraded to the popularity of Mickey Rooney today.

  • Boycott! (Score:3)

    by zairius ( 54221 ) on Saturday September 02, 2000 @06:48AM (#809327) Journal
    Well I was going to say that now I was going to boycott the olympics and not watch it on television, but I already don't watch television so nothing is really changing.
  • Due to the extremely international nature of the Olympics, it is functionally impossible to take any action against the IOC outside of their own procedures. International law doesn't deal with things like this. I also doubt there are many countries in the world where any action could be taken in the courts. Ultimately you'd have to take it to the Australian courts, in all likelyhood, but that wouldn't settle the issue for future games in other countries.
  • Did you read the article? Athletes have to sign it to compete. If they break any rule of the contract they signed, they get thrown from the Olympics.
  • As if commercialization in the games nowadays wasn't bad enough. We don't even cheer for athletes anymore, we cheer for uniforms and colors. I used to watch baseball, then I discovered computers, then I discovered StarCraft. End of baseball. It was still interesting to me, but a good Zerg Rush isn't brought to you by McDonalds. A Protoss Battleship attacking isn't sponsored in part by Nike. And a Terran getting reamed isn't paid for by the good people at Coca-Cola, who want to remind you, that when you are playing Terran and getting slammed in the ass, it's always Coca-Cola.
  • Screw the Olympic Commitie. Its all a commercial thing now. The Olympics is supposed to be the countries of the world coming together to pit their best amature athletes against each other. Problem is, the Olympic commitie is only interested in making money.
  • . In the NCAA, athletes aren't allowed to accept anything more than a scholarship and some equipment.

    Awww, tough shit. All they get is a free ride, free room and board for 5 years of college? They should be grateful... half of them would be out working anyway since they wouldn't be in college in the first place otherwise....
  • Well, if anyone else (like me) hasn't heard of the guy, it seems he is in quite a lot of trouble due to a charge of match-fixing. Take a look at http://uk.fc.yahoo.com/c/cronje.html [yahoo.com], which has a long series of short news briefs on him. Lea

  • When Baron Pierre de Coubertin "reinvented" the Olympic Games in 1896, amateurism was one of his dearest principles, and he ruled that professional athletes would not be permitted. I don't remember when that rule was suppressed, but it seems like a looong time ago.

    On the other hand, Coubertin's ideas were sometimes very dubious, if not outright fascist (pardon the anachronism) so one should not be too eager to rant about the (g?)Olden Days.

  • free speech? (Score:3)

    by semis ( 14252 ) on Saturday September 02, 2000 @07:55AM (#809335) Homepage
    hang on.. doesn't this warrant a violation of free speech?
  • The guidelines seem easy enough to circumvent.

    From the article: "In other words, if the text is a question and answer format rather than a personal diary, than that's not likely to raise a flag, said Condron." [Condron is USOC's media services director]

    So on your personal web site, where you previously had a diary, you now have a daily question and answer: "Fan John Dough writes, 'So, what are your thoughts today?'," followed by your no-longer-a-diary entry!
  • Don't they have it yet? That's a real shame. After all, they pay money, not? So why Coca-Cola can't have a small logo on that medals? What? Who told of olimpic spirit? What the hell, deCubertain's dreams are long dead, Coca-Cola rules the world.

  • Athletes = Jocks (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    These athletes you're admiring come from the same nerd bashing jock population (yes, it does exist in every country) that kicked the shit out of you in the high school.

    Can't put my diary on-line? Well, cry me a river...


  • Commercialism has taken something that was supposed to unite many countries and turned it into something ugly fast.

    I disagree. Commercial interest in the games is a healthy and crucial source of support. The problem lies with the incometence, shortsightedeness, and corruption of the IOC. It's up to the IOC to uphold the reputation of the games, support new technologies, provide complete, timely, multi-faceted methods of event coverage and reporting, and strike a balance between commercial interests and propriety. The Salt Lake City fiasco, the persecution of websites with domain names containing forms of the word Olympic, the banning of non-Sponsor Internet broadcasting, the manipulation of event broadcast times to capture peak time slots, and now the muzzling of the Athletes themselves are all proof that the IOC, as it's now structured, is incapable of providing proper direction of the games.

    Another part of the problem: other than the Salt Lake City affair, how much of this sort of thing makes the evening news? News outlets need to let citizens know about the IOC's many bad habits.
  • Stupid communist restrictions?

    Bad news, dude. This one is a stupid capitalist restriction. The reason they're doing it is, as it says in the original post, that they've sold exclusive coverage "rights" to big news organizations for big money.

    What an idiot.

    And I say that as a capitalist.

  • :) (Score:1)

    by volsung ( 378 )
    Hah, hah. That's a good one. :)

  • The back of the medals for Sydney 2000 were originally planned to have a depiction of the Sydney Opera House. I imagine (though don't know) that they're a sponsor of the 2000 Games.

    This was nixed, in favor of a more historically significant and less sponsor-oriented back image: the Roman Coliseum.

    Of course, the Roman Coliseum was where Christians were put to entertaining death, not where the Olympic tradition started some hundreds of miles away.

  • The Olympics need to change their name to the Corruption Games. Don't watch them.

    Crispin
    ----
    Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
    Chief Research Scientist, WireX http://wirex.com
    Free Hardened Linux Distribution: http://immunix.org

  • How about "Bribes Accepted" with the logo :-)
    Too bad that will get you sued.

    How about "No scandals Today!"

    Unless what you say is very neutral, it won't be seen on TV. Support for a team member is always good and will get shown. If it has other words that take a few minutes "to get it", it will be out on the TV before the control ops think about it.
  • I knew someone who coached a not-so-popular track & field sport in the 1996 Olympics. His book on his sport was a standard used to teach people the sport all over the world. However, I never saw him *once* on mainstream TV. His sport was considered too "unpopular" to be covered by the US media.

    In the United States, the opening ceremony television coverage showed general views of all of the other Olympic delegations *but* that of the United States. When they got to the US, they went from star athlete to star athlete to star athlete, and when they ran out of star athletes they went back to the first. I do not recall even a single person involved with a track & field sport (discuss, javalin, etc.) being shown. Without the ability for an independant media source to cover the event, these "minor" competetions might as well not even be run. That would save money and time for everyone.

  • ...A bunch of computer nerds dont like the olympics. (I am a computer nerd too.)

    Be honest, a lot of you people wouldnt watch it anyway. You aren't interested in the olympics, like a lot of other people around the world. The IOC has become what it has become out of necessity, to compete in the rating race in the modern world. It slowely grew into such a huge monolith organisation, just like Coke, and Microsoft.

    Get over it. If you dont like how it will be presented, your real bone of contention will be with NBC, or whoever is broadcasting it over there.

    Im ok, ill be going to see it. Yeah.

  • Re:Athletes = Jocks (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Insightful, my ass.

    Just because fuckwits like you could not adjust in high school doesn't mean we were all like that. I'm so sick of this "we nerds are so repressed" shit.

    The fact of the matter is that you have the social skills of a fucking dung beetle, and were (and are) too fucking lazy and stupid to ever excel at anything.

    I'm an athlete and a coder with an engineering degree. Quit your fucking whining, little nerd. Lazy stupid whining little fucks like yourself aren't worth the time of this response.

    but enough of this. I need to go out and enjoy the weather...running, swimming, cycling, skydiving...you know...all those things you've never had the courage, stamina, or intelligence to pursue.

  • this show, 'The Games' is an absolute classic, much in the vein of "Yes Minister' for our english viewers.

    I have a relative who is involved in organising the Sydney Olympics, and comments on how accurate this show really is.

    You must check this out. I am really surprised that they have it on ABC, the government station.
  • In Australia, one of the cable stations (Fox 8) is running a 17-day Simpsons marathon. I know I'm not going to be watching much of the olympics... Well, maybe picture-in-picture.

    Kris J. (proud member of the Sydney 2000 Olympics club -- seriously)

  • Fuck those losers, the olympics sucks. Bunch of wanna-be-greek-entry types if you ask me.
  • Personally, I'de love to see an american gold metal winner listening to the national anthem, with a tear in her eye, rip off her shirt and reveal a sports bra with MICROSOFT SUCKS across each tit.

    Or maybe you would like a Japanese athlete with "Whale - nutritious AND tasty!" Or perhaps a North Korean athlete with "Nuke an imperialist today!" A Rwandan athlete with "Hutus take it up the ass"?. While I think the IOC have a lot to answer for, this restriction is necessary to avoid turning the Olympics into any more of a political bunfight than it already is.

    It's quite a significant political issue in Australia at the moment, because Australia's only realistic chance for a track gold medal is Aboriginal, and will possibly wish to carry the Aboriginal flag as well as the Australian flag on her victory lap if she wins. While it will be a terrible shame if she is prevented from doing so, or suffers consequences if she does, to be fair on the IOC, how is it supposed to decide what political statements are acceptable, and which aren't?

  • at least we know weed isn't a performance enhancing drug.

    the whole olympics deal is just commercial schlock. Perhaps once it was about sports and sheer athleticism, but it hasn't been for a long time. Oh well, a sign of the times i think, as i sip from my gatorade thirst quencher with my michael jordan nike's on, and a big fucking swoosh on my chest. - oh well. at least i still have my black adidas warm-up pants.




    FluX
    After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network

  • AAARGH (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This shit has got to stop!!

    Olympic Games used to be about who is the best athlete, with or without doping (yes it's true, there's only so much a human body is capable of without "enhancements").

    How do you practise full-time round the year without money? You need money. The concept of sponsors evolves. Okay, enter the corporations. That's when it really began to hit the fan. The "rights" to transmit live video from the Olympic Games became a big-money business too. It's not about making the sporting event itself available, it has to make the best profit ever seen!

    Now if they could only get rid of the athletes themselves, then everything would be perfect.

    Citius, altius, fortius indeed... Greed, money, corruption more likely.

    Oh well, it's been like this since the 1960s or so.

  • Re:Record labels (Score:3)

    by Money__ ( 87045 ) on Saturday September 02, 2000 @07:05AM (#809354)
    You're talking about athletes that spend their entire day, everyday, every week, every month preparing and training to compete in the olympics. They're a little hungry to win, and they'll sacrifice just about anything to get there.

    It reminds me of so many bands in the music industry who sign any record deal that comes along. Many of these agreements give full control over the music to the record company, and that's what's going on with IOC.

    I would imagine that most athletes would willingly give up their right to update the journal at BonnieBlair.com [bonnieblair.com] while competing in order to achieve international fame and glory for years to come.

  • Things they get up to at the olympics. (Score:4)

    by Dollyknot ( 216765 ) on Saturday September 02, 2000 @07:09AM (#809355) Homepage
    I'm not surprised they are keeping them offline, I came across this the other day, who knows what else they get up.

    SPORTING CHANCE

    GUT REACTIONS: Understanding Symptoms of the Digestive Tract by W. G.
    Thompson, Plenum Publishing, pp 337, £1725/$2295

    Did you know that in preparation for the 1976 Olympics, German swimmers
    suffered the indignity of having 18 litres of air pumped into their colons
    to improve buoyancy? Thompson says: "It apparently helped crawl and
    backstroke specialists, but a breaststroker complained that the gas-filled
    gut caused his feet to stick out of the water. Perhaps sports authorities
    will need to test athletes for flatus, as well as steroids."
    (13 January 1990

    This is just a sample of what can found at.

    http://www.nsplus.com/weird/bizarre2.html

  • Wake up and smell the Olympic coffee (Score:4)

    by Enoch Root ( 57473 ) on Saturday September 02, 2000 @07:11AM (#809356)
    Are there still people who think that the Olympics have anything to do with amateur competition and brotherly rivalry among fellow humans? Raise your hands? You do? Moron.

    Let's face it, no event of this magnitude can be deployed without huge-ass amounts of money. And to get that huge-ass amount, you need the whole marketing and publicity machine. As a matter of fact, the only reason why the whole spirit of competition remains is that it's the main selling point of the marketed product.

    Why do you think athletes still make pitful salaries? It's part of the Olympic image that smalltown athletes would make a pitful salary and compete in the Olympics anyway. It's good for the sales.

    The athletes and sports organizations don't run the show. Corporate sponsors do, and they're the ringmasters. To think otherwise is crass idealism. So get over it already... It may not be cool, but it's normal.

  • Better Journalists (Score:4)

    by mmca ( 180858 ) on Saturday September 02, 2000 @07:12AM (#809357) Homepage

    The organizers are taking every precaution they can to ensure that their broadcast partners, which have paid $1.32 billion for exclusive TV rights, don't get scooped by the Net.

    The networks should get better journalists... ones that know how to find information on the web so their networks can be the first with the information on TV. So what if some obscure website has the piece... the journalist should take that (give credit) and report it if they find it 'newsworthy'. And then people who want more then just what the major TV networks feel is 'newsworthy' can read the websites.
    ...or something...
  • I know the IOC is a corrupt board that imposes some pretty bad rules here and there -- especially those that make the Olympics look so commercialized -- but let's not let that ruin the experience.

    I've had the opportunity to talk with a fair number of olympic hopefuls through my rowing and contacts in swimming, and the amount of personal sacrifice these guys have to go through is amazing. Let's face it, unless you're in a major sport (football, basketball, hockey, etc) then you will NOT make any money in sports. When was the last time you heard about a rower making it big? Yet, the time required to train for the olympic level, the money required to pay for coaches, leading edge equipment, and just basic life functions is high among all sports and becomes a real financial strain for families. It doesn't matter where the athlete came from -- competing at the international level is expensive and requires endorsements and a lot of hard work.

    I still believe it's possible to look past the commercialism and see what's really there, a large number of athletes busting their ass so they can show that they are indeed the best in the world. Some of the technological things may be a little questionable (body suits in swimming, etc) but if you ban technology, you look technophobic, let it in and you slight the countries that don't have money for their athletes. The IOC just can't win in the public eye.

    I will be watching the Olympics with great interest to see some outcomes of these questions. But I also think the athletes deserve it. If we didn't watch, then there would be no Olympics. I'll also be choosing some stores over others based on who supported the athletes. When stores like Home Depot pay fulltime wages to parttime Olympic hopefuls so they can compete, I think it's worth the few extra cents to help them out.

    Say what you want about the commercialism of the Games and the corruption or short sightedness of the IOC, but let's not ignore the real reason the games exist. It's still there, you just have to focus on the goal.

    My $0.02 -
    --Oarsman

    Go USA!

  • serves them right (Score:3)

    by fishbowl ( 7759 ) on Saturday September 02, 2000 @08:21AM (#809361)
    They pass these fascist rules and enforce them...
    and the teams don't walk out, and the people calling the shots get rewarded, and are even encouraged to become more strict and greedy.

    If you ask me, the athletes are getting what they deserve.

    It would only take a couple of major events being blacked out to destroy the credibility of the Olympics forever.

  • Check the history of how Amateur athletics became so popular in the International Arena.

    It started in England in the 19th century when the dilettante landed classes wanted to have athletic competitions and not have to compete in feats of strength against laborers.

    Being aware of such competitions only since the 60's, I can't remember a time when International "Amateur" athletics was a sham because the Soviets and other totalitarian regimes had their full-time "Amateurs" who lived better than 99% of the general populace in those countries.


    -Jordan Henderson

  • So much for the olympics as a great event to pit man against man (and woman against woman) in different physical events.

    It's now about countries, politics, technology, and now, nothing but money.

  • What's it all about, Mr Natural? (Score:3)

    by Ungrounded Lightning ( 62228 ) on Saturday September 02, 2000 @08:25AM (#809365) Journal
    I thought the Olympics were about amateurs (some of 'em) doing their best in front of thr world, about striving for the ultimatre glory.

    Actually the Olympics (both the original and the restart around the time of the World Wars) are a way for nations to show off the warrior skills of their citizens, for prestige and to intimidate potential opponents.

    Consider events such as "biathlon": Cross-country skiing while carrying a rifle and target shooting along the way. (This was used very effectively against the NAZIs by resistance movements.)

    I guess the IOC is like the NCAA: Exploit those amateurs for $$$$. How sad.

    True. But they've got to fund it SOMEHOW if they're going to do it at all. (And successful athletes get to make big bux from endorsements.)

    Some things that bug me:

    - The suppression of the shooting events in the news coverage (especially in the US - which takes most of the gold in these events).

    - The move to eliminate politically incorrect competitions (like biathlon) so gun-unfriendly countries (like Japan) can avoid citizen unrest when their people see the athletes training and realize that people in other countries are freer than they are.
  • Once the IOC figured out they could make money off amateur athletic competition, they sure wasted no time making sure they squeezed every last red fucking cent out of their little racket, didn't they? (Suing anyone with "Olympic" in their name? Come on!)

    I'm not watching a minute of the olympics this year. If someone asks why, they're gonna get an earful.

    - A.P.
    --


    "One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad

  • Remember the 1992 "Dream Team"? Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson? Beat the fuck out of every other team by 50 points per game? Other countries send their pro athletes to the Olympics -- I'm sure the best Cuban professional players will be on their baseball team, as always. The only reason we don't send all our pro athletes is they either don't want to go (basketball players), or are too busy (baseball, football). The hockey players, of course, represent their own countries in the Olympics, so you might see some NHL players on the French, Finnish, USA, Canadian team.

    It's all about selling the game to people. The IOC knows that; for this reason, they haven't banned "professional" athletes from competing because they put asses in seats and get others to buy "triplecast" subscriptions. (Remember the Triplecast? Hehehe!!)

    - A.P., boycotting the Olympics.
    --


    "One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad

  • Yes, I don't disagree that many athletes would sacrifice everything to be at the Games, but there are many people in smaller events who can't get big name advertisers to sponsor them. Like those who do the events which are just printed in newspapers the next day with just stats instead of a story, among others. These types of events really don't get smothered by the high-money sponsors.

    Then there's the thought of competing sponsors. Maybe Coca-Cola gains exclusive rights to be the only drink sponsor. Then Pepsi wants to support say one of our pole-vaulters. Well, Pepsi and that pole-vaulter are suddenly out of luck at the Games. All because of commercialism restrictions. It could also be that Kraft can't be allowed to sponsor the games because they're owned by Phillip Morris, and PM is not allowed to sponsor the games due to their cigarette brands. Who knows where this will all end?

    My thought is, if you're going to allow sponsors, allow them all or none. Just because they're not approved, means that there's a sense of elitism in the Games, and those who need those sponsorships are stuck without funds they deserve. The sponsors have plenty of money and don't lose much by not sponsoring, and the Games already get money from the other sponsors and merchandising. Let's think about the little guys for a change, eh? They're representing our countries, NOT a specific list of corporations.

    Dragon Magic [dragonmagic.net]

  • Pro Sportsman AND journalist? (Score:3)

    by faichai ( 166763 ) on Saturday September 02, 2000 @07:14AM (#809377) Homepage
    I remember when the Olympics used to be a spectacle of human endeavor, and the teams which attended a symbol of national pride.

    Now look at it. We have media interests paying upwards of a billion to get the rights to broadcast and report on the event. The corrupt IOC seems to just fsck everyone over, using the draw of participating in a world class event to silence and abuse the basic human rights of the contenders.

    A friend of mine, Dave Millar, is likely to be cycling in the Olympics, however he also writes a column in a cycling magazine which is essentially a diary of his experiences and thoughts as a professional cyclist. As such he IS both a sportsman AND a journalist, and the IOC is effectively barring him from another professional activity.

    All I can say is screw the olympics, I don't have a TV to watch it on anyway, I think it is about time some international legal juristiction be devised under which the IOC and other international events must operate, simply to tell them to fsck off when they get too big for there boots.

  • Well, although sports has virtually nothing to do with my life...

    I'm glad the Olympic games are going to resume their tradition of stupid, communist restrictions on their athletes in the name of... well, who knows? For a while, I thought that they might actually be trying to operate rationally. I can't understand why they are doing this, except out of that twisted restrictive stubbornness that only entrenched bureaucrats are capable of.

    These are obviously the same people who ran the Campus Printing Center in the Good Old Days.

  • Too much commercialization and the inevitable and eventual use of genetic therapy to say put cheeta muscles in humans or what not so they can run faster is going to result in the ultimate demise of the olympics which is already a freak show because all it does is exploit genetic advantages existing people already have. There is also no way to test for genetic alterations and if there is there will be ways around them, which only means that these olympiads will just be made of more and more different parts of different animals and such on the inside to improve performance in every aspect of their particular sport but still resemble humans so that they can trick the testing. Inevitably every sports game turns into a technology race.

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