Work Resumes on Pan American Games; IOC President Strengthens bin Laden Comments

Guadalajara Resumes Village Construction

Construction of the athletes’ village in Guadalajara is back on after organizers secured a suspension to the court-ordered work stoppage threatening October’s Pan American Games.

"This suspension is based on legality, based on the assumption of truth and good faith recorded through the corresponding administrative acts," Jalisco general secretary Fernando Guzman Perez Pelaez announced late Wednesday at Guadalajara 2011 headquarters.

"This means that there is a valid construction permit issued by the Municipality of Zapopan. This permit is solid and cannot be dismissed by any judge. As long as there is not a definite resolution, the order to stop construction is deemed null. There is no jeopardy that the work being done in the Village will not be ready on time. We are completing the Village on time, and we’re doing it well."

The future of Villa Panamericana, now 84 percent complete, was cast into doubt over the weekend when Mexican magistrate Armando Garcia barred further construction in response to complaints from the townspeople of nearby Zapopan that their supply of drinking water was at risk.

Despite the hurdle, the organizing committee COPAG kept its builders at work throughout the week as its legal team scrambled to secure the suspension finally issued late Wednesday by federal judge Fernando Lopez Tovar.

With 36 sports on the program, Guadalajara 2011 is poised to be the largest multi-discipline event of the year as well as a qualifier for 15 of the 26 sports on the London Olympic program.

Rogge Expands Bin Laden Comments

"IOC's Rogge says right thing, eventually, about bin Laden," is the headline for a column by USA Today’s Christine Brennan about IOC President Jacques Rogge’s seemingly muted reaction to the demise of Osama bin Laden.

Brennan’s column followed one two days earlier by Chicago Tribune Olympic expert Phil Hersh, who put Rogge’s comments into the spotlight. Like Brennan, Hersh took Rogge to task for refusing to be drawn into the fevered response to bin Laden’s death at the hands of U.S. commandos – and for calling the terrorist "Mr. Bin Laden".

"The position of the international Olympic Committee is clear. Mr. Bin Laden is a political issue and I do not want to comment," said Rogge at a press conference in Doha, Qatar when asked about the action against bin Laden.

Rogge said much the same thing about bin Laden Wednesday at a press conference in Amman, Jordan where he said that since the 1972 attack on the Munich Olympics, security has been "the number-one priority for the Olympics".

And he added, without mentioning bin Laden’s death, that there would be no change in that priority for London.

Now there’s more from Rogge on bin Laden.

"My willingness to let political leaders comment on the larger impact of his death should not be taken as a commentary on bin Laden. Like everyone in the civilized world, I was deeply shocked and sickened by the events of Sept. 11, just as I have been deeply saddened by every terrorist act before or since then. I have seen the effects of terrorism at first hand at the 1972 Munich Games, where I competed as an athlete (for Belgium), and again in the 1996 Atlanta Games," says the statement from Rogge, which first appeared in Brennan’s column.

"Needless to say, I wholeheartedly condemn terrorists and their vile acts — it is the antithesis of everything the Olympic movement stands for," says Rogge.

IOC communications director Mark Adams tells ATR he drafted the statement which was cleared by the IOC leader.Adams insists Rogge "has always been tough on terrorism".

UN Chief Thanks Qatar

United Nations secretary general Ban Ki Moon says Qatar was a fitting host for last weekend’s World Conference on Sport and Environment.

"Having travelled to Doha earlier this month, I saw firsthand the Government’s commitment to the United Nations," he said in a statement of thanks distributed Thursday by the Qatar Olympic Committee.

"The United Nations and sporting world enjoy close and productive ties and sport can play a significant role in helping the world to ‘go green’. As the sporting world seeks to do more to rise to this challenge, let us all push harder towards our common goal of a beautiful and healthy environment – not only for the enjoyment of sport, but in pursuit of sustainable development for all."

The two-day conference, a biennial event since 1995, was co-hosted by the QOC and the United Nations Environmental Program.

Among the topics discussed in Doha were how sport can contribute to the 2012 Rio +20 Earth Summit, how sport can help achieve Goal 7 (environmental sustainability) of theUnited Nations Development Program’s Millennium Development Goals and how Olympianscan play a part in promoting respect for the environment.

Slavkov Memorialin Sofia

A ceremony is planned Thursday in Sofia to farewell Ivan Slavkov, the former IOC member and Bulgarian sports leader who died May 1, just 10 days short of his 71st birthday.

Slavkov was dismissed from the IOC in 2005 after he was exposed in a BBC TV report soliciting cash bribes to secure the votes of colleagues for the election for the 2012 Olympics host city.

The ceremony for Slavkov, known by the nickname "Bateto" or Big Brother, will take place at the National Stadium. Despite the disgrace he suffered at the hands of the IOC, crowds of well-wishers are expected at the memorial service.

Slavkov also had served as president of the Bulgarian NOC and the Bulgarian Football Association. He lost both posts in the aftermath of the scandal.

Skirt Mandate for Shuttlers

Badminton’s governing body is busy clarifying a new rule requiring female shuttlers to wear skirts.

"The new ruling seems to have been misinterpreted as to mean that women cannot wear shorts or tights or track bottoms when they compete and must only use a skirt. This is not true," Badminton World Federation deputy president Paisan Rangsikitpho said in a statement.

"Neither are we asking women to play in short skirts. It has never been the intention of the BWF to portray women as sexual objects, and nor is that what we are doing."

According to Rangsikitpho, women can wear whatever they want under their skirts, a method already practiced by many players.

The rule, meant to differentiate the women’s game as well as boost its presentation, takes effect June 1 at the top levels of the sport.

Media Watch

To help improve its performance, the Chinese women’s volleyball team has sough inspiration and encouragement from former Chinese Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong and his poetry.

International Kiteboard Association president Markus Schwendtner responds to charges that his sport is too dangerous for the Olympics. He hopes the sports critics will "consider the facts" of the sport’s relative level of danger.

Written by Matthew Grayson and Ed Hula.