Busy Building Schedule in Toronto; Rogge Says Cycling Stays in Olympics

Busy Building Schedule in Toronto

Toronto 2015 tells Around the Rings "we’ve had a busy fall" after breaking ground on their first venue and preparing to break ground on another five in the next month.

With fewer than 1,000 days to go until the Pan American Games, work is clearly accelerating in the Canadian host city.

Construction on the Aquatics Centre and Field House in Scarborough, the first and largest brand new Pan Ams venue, kicked off Sept. 27.

Welland International Flatwater Centre will be the next to break ground Oct. 26, followed by Etobicoke Olympium this Friday and the Field Hockey Centre at the University of Toronto on Nov. 2.

Work on the Milton Velodrome and York University Athletics Stadium is also scheduled to begin in November.

Meanwhile, the Toronto 2015 sport program, which will feature the Parapan Am debut of wheelchair rugby and the return of football 7-a-side for the first time since 2007, was just approved by the International Paralympic Committee.

Rogge Says Cycling Staying in the Olympics

IOC President Jacques Rogge downplays calls for cycling to be dropped from the Olympics.

Following the U.S. report presenting evidence that Lance Armstrong’s cycling team doped, critics had called for cycling to be dropped, citing widespread use of performance-enhancing drugs.

"It would be unfair to penalize the huge majority of clean athletes by banning UCI from the Olympic Games and we believe there are a number of ways by which cheaters can be kicked out of the sport," Rogge said in a statement to London’s The Daily Telegraph. "These include for example imposing tougher sanctions which can have a serious deterrent effect."

All Olympic sports are up for review at the IOC Executive Board meeting in February.

RIOU Opens English Language Admissions

Admissions are open for the Russian International Olympic University’s first Master of Sport Administration program taught in English.

"The first intake will be particularly prestigious for students as they will have the unique experience of learning through the preparations for and staging of the Sochi 2014 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games," said RIOU CEO Professor Lev Belousov.

The curriculum draws heavily on Olympic legacy will feature the following modules: "Economics of sport and the Olympic Games", "Management, politics and the Olympic Movement", "Research in sports management", "Sport and the Olympic Games as a business", and "Sports marketing and communications".

The cost of one year’s tuition, including fees and on-campus accommodation in Sochi, is $30,000, though Interros will soon present grants to 20 students in the first intake.

Lectures begin in September2013 with the first diplomas awarded in July 2014.

Diack Confident Over Beijing 2015

President Lamine Diack says the IAAF need not worry over Beijing’s organization of the 2015 World Athletics Championships.

"With a TV audience of 8 billion and more than 200 countries (regions) and 2000 athletes likely to compete, the IAAF world championships is the most attractive property in international athletics and I have every confidence that our Chinese colleague will do everything in their power to make the 2015 edition unforgettable," the IOC member from Senegal was quoted Wednesday by Xinhua.

Diack is in Beijing as part of an IAAF delegation inspecting the Bird’s Nest – venue for 2015 – as well as hotels for athletes and officials.

He also met Monday with Duan Shijie, vice minister in charge of the General Administration of Sport of China and president of the Chinese Athletics Association, as well as Liu Peng, sports minister of Chinaand president of the Chinese Olympic Committee.

Commonwealth Awards

Olympic and Paralympic champions are among the winners of the 2012 Commonwealth Sports Awards.

Hometown hero Keshorn Walcott, 19, who became the youngest ever javelin gold medalist in London, was named the Outstanding Young Achiever in a ceremony Saturday on the island of Trinidad.

Vivian Cheruiyot of Kenya, who won 5,000m silver and 10,000m bronze, won Outstanding Female Athlete, and 400m champ Kirani James of Grenada is Outstanding Male Athlete.

On the Paralympic side, javelin gold medalist Alphanso Cunningham of Jamaica took home Outstanding Male Athlete With Disability, and double Paralympic champion swimmer Ellie Simmonds of England is Outstanding Female Athlete With Disability.

Michael Fennell of Jamaica, Jamaica Olympic Association president and former president of the Commonwealth Games Federation, won Sports Administrator of 2012.

IOC Member Honors

Rio 2016 president Carlos Arthur Nuzman was awarded the title of Grand Officer of the Order of Aeronautical Merit by the Brazilian Air Force on Tuesday. The award is the highest honor the air force gives for civic contributions to Brazil.

Craig Reedie received an honorary doctorate from Konhuk University in South Korea. Present for the ceremony was Korean Olympic Committtee president Y.S. Park, and the presidents of the world badminton and taekwondo federations, Yeong-Jong Kang and Chungwon Choue, respectively.

Media Watch

Online architecture community Archinect features photos from the ongoing construction of the Tianjin-Samaranch Memorial Olympic Museum in Tianjin, China. According to Danish firm Holm Architecture Office, "the initial design scheme has undergone some adjusting and fine tuning since HAO won the international competition" last year. The project, spearheaded by IOC member C.K. Wu of Chinese Taipei, is scheduled for completion by the end of 2013.

Written by Ed Hula III and Matthew Grayson

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