The Web And The Olympics

Anonymous Coward writes: "Here is a nice article about how the IOC (International Olympic Committee) is banning the Internet from the Sydney Games. Here is the link: http://www.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/08/15/olympic.ban.idg/index.html". This story came from the Industry Standard, but since on their site it's an unfriendly multi-page format, we'll link to CNN. Are the Olympics nothing more than eyeballs to be sold to the highest bidder? Very thoughtful article. (A mostly-unrelated aside: Don't use the e-mail kiosks at the 2002 Olympics.)

Comments

Official Sydney2000 site not ADA/w3 Compliant

[Cy Guy]

Last week ZDNet Australia ran a story noting complaints from the sight impaired community that the official site for the Games www.olympics.com failed to provide a significant amount of information formatted in ways that can be read by text only (and therefor text-to-speech enabled) browsers. Examples of non-text friendly data include "the sport index, which provides event schedule information for 36 Olympic sports" and the results of competitions, "Something which [a representative for the site] claims will cost AU$4 million and take 368 days to do," according to one of the complainants.

This also means that the site is not meeting guidelines laid out by the WWW Consortium.

The combination of not providing a site meeting the needs of all users, and then censoring what others can report from the Games, means a total blackout of Internet information for these users.

International broadcasts.

[Joao]

The main problem I have with this is that any it makes it just about impossible for those of us who want to follow other countries' events here in the United States to do so. If NBC's broadcast is similar to the previous Olympics' broadcast, only the events where American athletes and teams compete AND are likely to win medals, will get any coverage. If web broadcasting was allowed, those of us who are foreigners living in this country should be able to follow our nations' events via webcasts from our national news and sports online sites. But without these webcasts, all we can do is read the results in the next day's papers.

Not Watching Much Anyway

[hughesma]

Personally, I'm not going to be watching much of the Olympics. Why? Cuz I like to see the events, not the two dozen "Life Stories" that take up 90% of the broadcast time. Sure, it's great that Bob the Sprinter overcame but I wanna see him race. Not that I don't have feelings for the guy, but I seriously doubt said problem is on his mind when he's neck and neck with Sam the Speedy. These guys and gals aren't here because of commercials. They came here to do their best. TV on the other hand... Anyone remember that much hyped Greene vs Johnson?

My personal off topic rant - I'm a distance runner. Have been for almost 16 years now so I do enjoy watching those races that aren't over in a matter of seconds. Unfortunetly, anything that takes more than 5 minutes to complete, the Networks don't see fit to broadcast. I want to see who wins the 10,000 or the Marathon. These are my idols and heroes. These are the people who don't have huge endorsement contracts. They work their 9-5 jobs, fit in time for training, and pull this all off with very little financial support from anyone else. But unless I go to a speciality site (www.runnersworld.com for instance), I can't find out if my idols managed to pull off their life dream. The Networks don't care.

So what else is news?

[softsign]

The IOC has long made a mockery of the ideals it pretends to preach.

For the 1992 Games in Barcelona, the IOC decreed that athletes from the breakaway nations of the former USSR were not in fact entitled to be recognized as such. They were forced to play for the "Commonwealth of Independent States". Just another throwback to the glorious days of Soviet domination and a slap in the face to athletes who were robbed of the opportunity to represent their native countries.

Why was this permitted to happen? Because the IOC is the epitome of a greedy, self-serving, multinational corporation.

For the link impaired, here is just a brief summary of the article:

• NBC has paid $3 570 000 000 for rights to the Games through to 2008
• Juan Antonio Samaranch
  • Joined the Youth Fascists in Spain during his teenage years
  • Later went on to become a member of Franco's rubber-stamp government
• While the IOC's 106 members have only 7 women among their ranks, they do manage to find room for:
  • a former operative of Korea's brutal intelligence service
  • a onetime ally of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin
  • an Italian businessman who presided over medal rigging at the 1987 track and field world championships in Rome, and
  • a reputed arms dealer
• the IOC is in no way accountable to the athletes or to national Olympic committees worldwide for how it disposes of the $2 billion in receipts it pulls in every four years

These are the people who proclaim to represent the ideal of amateur sport: of fair play and of the innocence of honest competition.

These back-stabbing, power-hungry bastards.

Considering this, that the IOC is making another power grab and shutting out the Internet, is not surprising in the least.

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