Olympic Torch Relay, Islamabad

[Alexander The Great]

To redress the debate…

In 2004, just before Athens, Zain Hasan made a series of posts on GamesBids.com regarding the content of the Athens Olympic Ceremonies, in particular about the lighting of the cauldron his posts were detailed and very accurate and when I saw them I was in total shock because of how accurate they were (he posted drawings which described exactly how the cauldron would be lit). I have since been monitoring him for some time.

I used another fake profile to interrogate him and try to work out if he was in athens or who his sources were. He remained tight lipped, saying “I am right. Wait and see.” His posts were forwarded to higher authorities in the Athens Ceremonies hierarchy for further investigation.

In February, he announced on the GB forums that he had been selected as a torch bearer for the Beijing 2008 relay in Islamabad, posting a scanned image of his acceptance letter. Having leaked such confidential info into the public domain during the run up to Athens, I took the view that someone like that did not deserve the honourable position of an Olympic Torch Bearer and took it upon myself to send an email protesting his selection to the President of the Pakistan Olympic Association, which I sent at the end of March.

The email is detailed as follows:

Dear Lieutenant General Syed Arif Hasan, HI (M), (Retd),

I am writing to protest against the inclusion on Mr Zain Hasan, of 2 D 8/6 Nazimabad, Karachi - 74600, in the Beijing 2008 Torch Relay in Islamabad.

Mr Hasan is a member of the website GamesBids.com and has been known in the past to have publicly posted confidential information on the website's forums, with regard to Opening & Closing Ceremonies (namely those of the previous Olympic Games in Athens). There are a number of reasons why confidentiality is so important to the people behind ceremonies:

1. The Games/Ceremonies represent considerable investment. They are assets for organisers and broadcasters which can become severely compromised if the element of surprise is undermined.

2. If news of an ideas or approach leaks into the public domain before it has had a chance to be fully researched, challenged and developed internally, an ill-informed public debate can kill a fledgling concept dead before it has ever been given a chance to prove its integrity and value to the production. This has happened before and has caused untold upset, disappointment and frustration. Many wonderful ideas have had to be binned because of what amounts to gossip.

Mr Hasan posted a number of details of the Athens 2004 Opening & Closing Ceremonies onto the website, including information that only people working within the ATHOC/Jack Morton Public Events organisation would have known, such as the method as to how the Olympic Cauldron would be lit in the Opening Ceremony. Mr Hasan has already began to discuss gossip in the website's forums with regards to the Beijing 2008 Opening & Closing Ceremonies. It would appear at the moment that he is only speculating what will happen, like everyone else, however I do sincerely hope that he does not become involved in the Beijing Ceremonies in any way.

I find it greatly disappointing that the Pakistan Olympic Association would reward and encourage someone who works against the spirit of the Games and the Ceremonies themselves and feel that a youth ambassador with more sporting credentials would be more suited to the honourable role of an Olympic Torchbearer than Mr Hasan.

There are also a number of discrepancies in Zain Hasan’s very emotional comments on here. He states that he told a POA official that was a volunteer in Athens, then later claims that he was not a volunteer in Athens as everybody in Pakistan failed security checks. This is incorrect because a ) there WERE volunteers in Athens from Pakistan, b ) if every volunteer from Pakistan failed security checks, surely the POA Official would have been aware of this and would not have asked if he was a volunteer in Athens.

Judging by his date of birth in his profile (which I would strongly stress was only added sometime after the above email was sent to the Pakistan Olympic Association), he would have been 15 years old in May 2004 and therefore ineligible for selection as a volunteer (unless he was a member of the cast).

So on the basis that he had leaked confidential information during Athens, information which participants who are aware of this info have to sign legal confidentiality agreements (particularly as companies - such as Jack Morton - have to pay money to organisers as a security deposit for such confidentiality), I felt that the role of Olympic Torch Bearer should be given to someone more deserving.

The fact remains that in 2004 he posted confidential and privileged information onto a public website, without explaining his sources. The email was sent on the basis of the information that was known at the time, with the intention of informing the relevant authorities about Mr Hasan’s activities. The final decision rested with BOCOG/the POA.

I would like to stress that I do not work for the Pakistan Olympic Association, Jack Morton Public Events, the Organising Committee of the Games of the XXIX Olympiad Beijing 2008, the Organising Committee of the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad Athens 2004 or any of their agencies, partners or associates.

I reserve my right to anonymity and will not be discussing this matter any further.

[Olympian2004]

That's heavy stuff. I only want to say that I just sent Zainhasan a PM requesting him to comment on those allegations.

But a question to the other "cauldron maniacs" here on GamesBids: I actually can't remember that Zainhasan or any other member told us about the lighting mechanism of the Athens cauldron before the first pictures of the cauldron appeared and we guessed somehow on our own how it would be lit. But my memory isn't good enough to say that with absolute certainty. So does anyone else here remember better what happened back then?

[zainhasan15]

Oh my God!

Alexander you cant' understand what you have done, .......................my fingers are shaking and I can just want to tell you that I will never never ever forgive you.

[zainhasan15]

uffff............................. I cant understand that some one can go so far in jealousy,

YOU HAVE MADE MY VIEWS TOTALLY CHANGED ABOUT WESTERN WORLD.

what should I write now? to whom should I complain? But there is always a God to justify our issues.

You know I was waiting for this event since start of the Beijing bid, I was sure that Pakistan will be a part of this torch relay but you smashed my dream, you don't know what you have done,

Can you return that event back? can you bring the torch back to pakistan? can you bring my excitment and ultimate passion for torch back to me?

Are you the court? Are you the jury? Are you Lord? who gave you responsibilty to make judgments for torchberars, but I will not let you leave on judgment day, I will not make you go safe becaues there Lord will be judge there.

[zainhasan15]

I hope when someone will snatch your biggest succses and achviment than you will come to know how it was difficult for me to remain alive at that time

[Citius Altius Fortius]

This issue is totally strange and I'm at a loss what I should think about that all...

On one hand I wonder why somebody creates an profile as "Alexander the great" and tells us how he allegedly informed the Pakistani Olympic Committee that somebody, who created a profile as "zainhasan15" here, has to be removed from the torchbearer list (and that two month after the "incident") on the other hand I wonder, if someone really told us 4 years ago, how the cauldron will be lit in Athens (I don't remember it).

Edited June 24, 2008 by Citius Altius Fortius

[zainhasan15]

This issue is totally strange and I'm at a loss what I should think about that all...

On one hand I wonder why somebody creates an profile as "Alexander the great" and tells us how he allegedly informed the Pakistani Olympic Committee that somebody, who created a profile as "zainhasan15" here, has to be removed from the torchbearer list (and that two month after the "incident") on the other hand I wonder, if someone really told us 4 years ago, how the cauldron will be lit in Athens (I don't remember it).

Dear it is all becaues of personal jealousy, you will find mentally sick people like Alexander all around you, they all need serious care from their families.

Who gave him authority to evaluate torchbearers? who made him judge? There are thousands of torchbearers who will/have carried the flame but why he was espacially intersted in my case?

And if he think that I revealed the Athens 2004 lighting plan than it is well known that Cauldron was already in public and everybody was making their imaginations that how it will be lit. It is simple cauldron and we were all sure that it will bent towards the stadium bowl or It will lower (slip) down to the pool. So it was easy to predict the lighting style and I think its not a crime.

16 April, Islamabad torch relay will never come again and it is a loss of a lifetime.

[Sir Rols]

Alexander,

I find it hard to believe such pettiness. Not that I'm totally convinced of your veracity anyway _ I'm not convinced you're anything but a mischief maker anyway, but if what you say is true, what gives you the right to be judge and jury over who or who can't carry the Olympic torch? Even if Zain guessed or leaked the method of the Athens torch lighting (like Olympian, I can't remember _ there was so much speculation anyway no-one would have been able to tell a true report from guesswork before the actual lighting), so what? The torch lighting, and who is going to do it, is always the subject of tremendous speculation and detective work anyway, and not just from the liked of us fans who pick up on any tid-bit of gossip _ on most occassions there'll even be paparazzi from most of the world's major media agencies camped outside Olympic Stadiums hoping to catch the big secret before the event anyway. I hope you can live with your mischief, Mr Alexander the Prig, it strikes me as just plain nasty.

Zain,

Life goes on. Put your disappointment behind you. I think if this Alexander is true, he's demonstrated far more his own misguided sense of self-importance than shown any embrace of the true spirit of Olympism.

Edited June 24, 2008 by Sir Roltel

[Faster]

WTF, Baron and I (along with two of the Greeks) provided all the details of how the cauldron would be lit. The Greeks provided pictures, baron provided the mechanism and I provided the pictures of the cauldron lit from the rehearsal. I don't even remember Zain from that far back.

[zainhasan15]

Alexander,

I find it hard to believe such pettiness. Not that I'm totally convinced of your veracity anyway _ I'm not convinced you're anything but a mischief maker anyway, but if what you say is true, what gives you the right to be judge and jury over who or who can't carry the Olympic torch? Even if Zain guessed or leaked the method of the Athens torch lighting (like Olympian, I can't remember _ there was so much speculation anyway no-one would have been able to tell a true report from guesswork before the actual lighting), so what? The torch lighting, and who is going to do it, is always the subject of tremendous speculation and detective work anyway, and not just from the liked of us fans who pick up on any tid-bit of gossip _ on most occassions there'll even be paparazzi from most of the world's major media agencies camped outside Olympic Stadiums hoping to catch the big secret before the event anyway. I hope you can live with your mischief, Mr Alexander the Prig, it strikes me as just plain nasty.

Zain,

Life goes on. Put your disappointment behind you. I think if this Alexander is true, he's demonstrated far more his own misguided sense of self-importance than shown any embrace of the true spirit of Olympism.

Dear Sir Rotel, your sympathetic messages are full of energy for me, and I am feeling proud to say that members of Gamesbids.com understood my pain more than my relatives and real life friends, all your messages gave me courage and stamina to go forward, because this world is full of mentally challenged people like Alexander. But we should never take them seriously and there is a lesson for all that we should not expose our documents on public forum and we should not tell our secrets to strangers because this could lead to disasters.

Months after that accident he again poked a dagger into me, I was not fully out of that disaster and again he refreshes all those days when I was soaked in tears, when there was nothing in my hand.

It is very painful when someone snatches something just from your mouth, everything was ready, NOC was about to send me a ticket, my accriedation card was ready but .......

Ahh...... this is not his victory nor my defeat, there will be Olympic Games after every 4 years and I can get a chance to carry flame in future but will happen with that man? can't he feel the guilt? this guilt will scratch his soul through out his life.

Jealousy is the art of injuring ourselves more than others. [Alexandre Dumas ]

Leave it, becaues someone has said that The greatest test of courage on earth is to bear defeat without losing heart.

Live and let other stay alive.

Thanks dear.

WTF, Baron and I (along with two of the Greeks) provided all the details of how the cauldron would be lit. The Greeks provided pictures, baron provided the mechanism and I provided the pictures of the cauldron lit from the rehearsal. I don't even remember Zain from that far back.

Dear Faster,

You are right, cauldron was on public since its construction and trial, even pool design was also in news before the big night, so Athens 2004 opening was not a big secret. But Alexander just made a reason to raise objection because otherwise there is reason to show me guilty.

Beijing 2008 torch relay was an extermly big thing for me, for which I had prayed day and night, for which I cancelled my university exam but his jealousy ate up everything.

[zainhasan15]

FOR ALEXANDER: Olympic spirit is a man made thing, it is not a ritual or religion or not something from God.

[Fox334]

I doubt Alex will be incline to give any more details. To be honest, I have no idea what really happened (I doubt anyone here knows for sure, to be honest), but I can understand you pain, Zain. I would be totally mortified if something of the sort would happen to me. But as Rotel said, you have to move on. And hopefully, it won't be the last time the torch goes trough Pakistan .

As for Alexander "the Great" (sic), what you did is at best distasteful and at worst plain cruel.

[Olympian2004]

I see that GBModerator is currently reading this topic: So please, GBModerator, do something about that! It can't be that users like Alexander make up such lies and maliciously prevent other members from important events in their lives.

[Olympian2004]

As for Alexander "the Great" (sic), what you did is at best distasteful and at worst plain cruel.

That's right. Because even if Zainhasan had given away exclusive details of the cauldron lighting (which he obviously didn't -- according to the memories not only of me, but also of other forum members, he only made wild guesses like everyone else on this board), that doesn't give Alexander or anyone else the right to denunciate him and prevent him from something that is not really connected to that Athens thing. It's sad to see what amount of envy and viciousness exists in the world, even if it's related to a completely non-materialistic thing like carrying the Olympic Flame.