IAAF Pres Rides Olympic Train; Heiberg on Sponsors, YOG, European Games

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Athletics Chief Takes Train to Olympic Park

IAAF President Lamine Diack rode the rails Friday to the Olympic Park in east London. London 2012 chair Sebastian Coe tells Around the Rings he travelled with Diack to show him the route from the IAAF’s Olympic hotel to the Olympic Stadium.

Diack will lodge with his IAAF colleagues at the newly-refurbished Renaissance Hotel that rises above the St. Pancras Station in the center of London. The Javelin high speed train connects St. Pancras to the Olympic Park within 10 minutes, a journey that can take 30 minutes or more by car or Tube.

"He’s impressed that he can walk out of his hotel, onto the escalator, to the train, then on to the Olympic Park in six minutes, the stadium in three more minutes," Coe tells ATR.

"He’s pretty happy," said Coe.

Diack is in London this weekend to attend the Samsung Diamond League event at Crystal Palace.

IOC Marketing Chief Meets McDonald’s, Heading to Taiwan

IOC member Gerhard Heiberg tells Around the Rings he hopes to renew McDonald’s worldwide Olympic sponsorship soon.

Heiberg spoke to ATR in Chicago where he is attending the World Olympic Collectors Fair. And while in Chicago, he also spent time with McDonald's at its world headquarters.

Heiberg, who chairs both the IOC marketing and collectors' commissions, is also going to Taiwan at the end of this month to discuss sponsorships in Asia. Taiwan is home to Acer, the computer firm that’s also a candidate for TOP sponsor renewal.

Heiberg acknowledges that the IOC probably will not get a 12th sponsor for the 2014/2016 quadrennial. "So we will stick to the 11 we have now."

Heiberg says that many of the companies are asking to extend their agreements beyond 2020, but the IOC has so far refused.

"Nobody is going beyond 2020," he says. "It is because wemay decide to change the (TOP) program. It started in 1985 and it is still on. Maybe we should look for other possibilities after 2020, or maybe we stay with it."

Youth Olympics for Lillehammer?

Heiberg says he thinks the chances are very good that the Olympic world will return to Lillehammer for the Youth Olympics in 2016. "The ball is now in the court of the Norwegian government," he says.

Because of the monetary guarantees required, the venture has to be approved by Parliament. He expects that to happen in September or October after national elections on Sept. 12.

He says Lillehammer will be ready for another big event22 years after it hosted the Winter Games.

"I think it will be good for Norway, It will be good for the Olympic Movement and I'm sure it will be good for the young people coming to Lillehammer for the Games."

European Games up in the Air

While the Youth Olympics have been a rousing success, Heiberg is not sure there is room on the Olympic schedule for another big event.

IOC member Patrick Hickey of Ireland has tirelessly promoted a European Games. Other regions, like the Americas and Asia, have regional events.

"He works very hard on that," Heiberg says of Hickey, "and so far there have been two countries having said no, that's Norway and Sweden. I think it's a good idea, but of course we have to be careful that there are not too many Games, that we don't use the athletes too much -- at too many international events, so athletes get tired. So it's a question of rationing."

The Pan American Games, which will be held in October, will not have all of the top athletes from the region. The United States sends a "B" team in some sports. "We cannot demand that top athletes should be in top form 365 days a year," Heiberg says, "so that is also what we are a little concerned about."

Written by Ed Hula and Karen Rosen.