Olympic Blogs

[Sir Rols]

Interesting story I just found:

LAUSANNE, Switzerland, Feb 7 AFP - The IOC is examining what to do about blogs posted by athletes during the Olympic Games, amid fears that they could lead to scurrilous rumours being broadcast on the internet, officials said today.

The issue of blogging was discussed by the International Olympic Committee's Athletes's Commission.

The process should allow Olympic chiefs to produce clear guidelines before the 2008 Beijing Games, an IOC spokeswoman said.

``In principle, the commission is not against, but it's quite a delicate issue and we decided to investigate a little bit more,'' said Athletes commission chairman and former Olympic pole vaulter Sergei Bubka.

``It's a modern way for people who want to express their opinion, but we believe there should be certain rules respected by every athlete who participates in the Games and who is living in the (Olympic) village.''

Under the Olympic charter, competing athletes are not allowed to double up as journalists during the Games, IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davies said.

But blogs - effectively a personal web-based diary that can easily be augmented by pictures and video - fall into a grey area that does not appear to be covered by the current rulebook, Davies explained.

Bubka said blogs raised questions of privacy and potential conflicts with media or television rights, which could be governed by a code of conduct for Olympic athletes.

National Olympic authorities were also approached by athletes who wanted to set up blogs, which are fast becoming a nigh on essential publicity tool.

AFP

Hmmm. Also considering this sites past run ins with the IOC, it does seem like their distrustful of the net. Or at least resent their lack of control over content.

[baron-pierreIV]

What's to stop athletes from posting under aliases -- and still say something unfavorable about their experience? Trouble is, the IOC is such a dictatorial body that they fear these things like blogs.

Even if they took away all internet access from the Village, and banned laptops -- what's to stop the athlete-authors from going to a nearby internet cafe and posting their views? NADA.

[Guardian]

I wonder if the "rants" that Canadian athletes was shown then, by CBC, at Sydney 2000 was one of many factors that led the IOC to go this way. Then, some Canadian athletes showed its displeasure with the way they were treated. When the Athens 2004 was on, it was pretty much the same case. The biggest beef the IOC and the IAAF was reported to have made against the Canadian Olympic Committee then was its decision NOT to send marathoners to Athens 2004. It was due to some ridiculous rules about using world rankings INDEPENDENT of Olympic qualifying rules by the COC. Again, more negative rants from the Canadian athletes about it and the results showed. It concerned the IOC, especially Jacques Rogge, about what happened then that a press conference between him and the COC officials occurred at the final day of Athens 2004 about that very topic.

[Sir Rols]

I think probably the bigger issue to the IOC is more the conflict blogs could come into against the signed up broadcast rights holders. The turf wars over which broadcaster is allowed to speak to which athletes and where has surfaceed a few times in the past few games, and blogging has the potential to by-pass the whole process.

[Fox334]

Well, if the blog is on the broadcaster site, there is no problem (for exemple, CBC could have the blog of some Canadians atlelats).

[Guardian]

Roltel, can you explain this to me?

Link: BBC: Australian Athlete Blogs Banned