Olympic Day Celebrations; Drama at U.S. Athletics Trials; Coe, Bubka Join IAAF Hall

Bubka, Coe Latest IAAF Inductees

IAAF vice president Sergey Bubka and LOCOG chair Sebastian Coe will be among the 24 inaugural members of the IAAF Hall of Fame.

The announcement was made Monday by IAAF president Lamine Diack.

"With the creation of the Hall of Fame we set out to honor the lifetime achievements of our greatest athletes, and heighten public awareness of our sport and its rich history," Diack said. "In Sergey and Seb we have two great champions and record breakers whose contribution to our sport’s success cannot be underestimated."

Five more names will be announced ahead of the IAAF Centenary Gala on Nov. 24 in Barcelona, where Bubka, Coe (himself an IAAF VP) and their 22 classmates will be officially inducted.

Russia, Japan Celebrate Olympic Day

Olympic Day celebrations were held around the world Saturday, including 2014 host country Russia and 2020 candidate country Japan.

Main events in Moscow included the organization of a sports village near Luzhniki Stadium and the chance for participants to watch a football match between Summer and Winter Olympic athletes.

In Sochi, host city for the 2014 Winter Games, Olympic Day was celebrated with a variety of games including an Olympic quiz, a roller-skate relay and a tug-of-war competition.

The Japanese Olympic Committee organized an "Olympic Day Festa" in Iwaki, Fukushima to encourage Olympism in the communities affected by the March 2011 earthquake.

Olympic athletes helped school children to compete in tug-of-war competitions and games of tag.

This is the 16th Olympic Day Festa organized by the JOC as part of its "Smiles Come from Sports" campaign. The JOC plans to hold a total of 60 festas by the end of 2013.

Marking the founding of the IOC, Olympic Day is celebrated annually around the world.

McDonald’s Celebrates One-Month Mark

In recognition of the final month to go before the London Olympics, McDonald’s announced a preview of its flagship Olympic Park restaurant.

Three years in the making, the flagship restaurant will employ water-saving features and energy-efficient kitchen appliances. Additionally, the flagship Mcdonald’s will recycle used cooking oil to fuel its delivery vehicles.

Once the Games finish, the restaurant will be dismantled and all building materials will either be reused or recycled.

Drama at U.S. Trials

Lynx, the timing system provider for the USA Track and Field Trials, confirms to Around the Ringsthat Alyson Felix and Jeneba Tarboh "arrived at the point in space at the same time."

Giles Norton, the timing company’s Director of Marketing, said Lynx backed his claim up, saying: "We were timing to 3/10,000ths of a second. We’re timing to a greater level of precision than any other timing company in the world. The inescapable truth is these two people arrived at the same point in space at the same time."

The two sprinters ran a photo finish for third in the trials for the 100m on Sunday. Originally, Felix was found to have lost by .001 seconds. Lynx then appealed its own decision.

"Our initial result was based on projection of where we estimated her right collar bone to be, but we couldn’t actually see it because her own head was obstructing it," Norton explained. "So we read it, estimating that position and immediately protested our own decision so that we could get the referee and explain we were making an interpolation of a known place, but there was no evidence to back up our decision and said that if we were going to have to defend it, we would prefer to call it as a dead heat and the referee agreed."

Norton says that while Lynx is able to have even more precise measurements it would be unnecessary to implement them in races.

"We have cameras to record at 10,000 frames per second.But at that point, the speed runners are running, we are then measuring an accuracy that is greater than the length of the track--than the accuracy with which it is possible to measure the length of the track."

Timekeepers, Norton said, do see these results on occasion, "probably one a month" he estimated.

"What’s unprecedented is you now essentially have a quart and you're trying to squeeze it in a pint pot because you’ve got one position."

Both sprinters must now decide how the qualification will proceed. If one chooses a coin flip, that will select the third member of the women’s 100m team for London. However, if neither want that, a runoff will be held.

A decision is expected later in the week.

2012 Lausanne Summit

The 2012 Lausanne Summit, organized by the World Union of Olympic Cities, will take place Sept. 30 through Oct. 2.

"How to use the hosting of the Games to contribute to the social wellbeing of a city’s inhabitants" is the theme of the meeting.

Speakers are yet to be confirmed, but the provisional program lists representatives from Singapore 2010, LOCOG, the IOC and others.

Registration closes Aug. 30.

Written by Hannah Reid.

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