Van Gaal in line for a senior managerial position at Anfield
22.05.2012, 22:02:00
o Dutchman under consideration as club's new sporting director o Expected to work with the new team manager when appointed Louis van Gaal is in line for a senior managerial role at Liverpool. The Dutchman was linked with a move to Anfield in the wake of Damien Comolli's dismissal as director of football in April. However, while it has since been decided to change the management structure at Liverpool, Van Gaal has remained under consideration for a revised role and is the leading contender to become the club's first sporting director. He is understood to be keen on a move to Merseyside and his appointment could herald the arrival of several new faces at Anfield, including the successor to Kenny Dalglish. The club are also set to name Billy Hogan, currently the managing director of Fenway Sports Group, as the their new commercial director. FSG are conducting an extensive search for a manager since sacking Dalglish last week and their ideal criteria of a young coach with title-winning experience would fit alongside a sporting director of Van Gaal's experience and expertise. That plan led to approaches for Jürgen Klopp of Borussia Dortmund and Ajax's Frank de Boer, both of whom declined the opportunity to meet John W Henry and Tom Werner, Liverpool's principal owner and chairman respectively, and to interest in the former Porto and Chelsea manager, André Villas-Boas. Villas-Boas and Roberto Martínez of Wigan Athletic are among several candidates for the manager's post and whoever is chosen will, it seems, have to accept working with Van Gaal, who has won league titles with Ajax, Barcelona, AZ Alkmaar and Bayern Munich, plus the Champions League with Ajax in 1995. The 60-year-old was due to return to Ajax in a director's capacity this year until a legal challenge from long-time adversary Johann Cruyff derailed the move. His last managerial role was at Bayern, who he led to the Bundesliga title and the Champions League final in 2010 before being sacked in April 2011. Van Gaal's work with Ajax and Barcelona undoubtedly appeals to Liverpool's owners as they conduct an overhaul at Anfield and look to imprint a playing philosophy throughout every level of the club. That strengthens his claims for the proposed sporting director role, although Van Gaal has not yet called time on his managerial career and was linked with PSV Eindhoven before their recent appointment of Dick Advocaat. FSG's method of replacing Dalglish has attracted criticism due to the number of rejections it has prompted. Brendan Rodgers was the first to decline the offer of an interview but it is understood the Swansea City manager would not reject an offer of the job if it was forthcoming. Henry and Werner have still to reach a decision on a new stadium but, in an indication they favour a redeveloped Anfield over a new build on Stanley Park, the club's managing director, Ian Ayre, has revealed that progress has been made with local residents regarding the existing stadium. The "right to light" is one of the major obstacles in the way of a redeveloped Anfield, as the necessity to build upwards would have an impact on nearby housing. That has been the focus of protracted negotiations between the club and residents in recent months, with the possibility that the "right to light" can be sold offering Liverpool hope of staying at their historic home. Ayre said: "People assume that because we haven't made a major announcement, or can show any spade in the ground, that nothing has gone on and no progress has been made. There is progress. The most important thing for us, especially under this owner, has been about certainty on the stadium. We are not going to make comments that we're doing something until we've got certainty. And that certainty quite often is in other people's hands. "In the case of staying at Anfield that certainty is with residents in and around that area that we would need to convince. We're having some great dialogue with them. When we have that certainty we will make the announcement and move on it. It's all right for people to say Liverpool is a big football club - 60,000 seats, why don't you just go and get on with it? But look at the economics of that, of a £300m build for 15,000 new seats. It's pretty hard to make that stack up. The work is going on and a decision will be announced when we've got certainty." Ayre has not ruled out a new development on Stanley Park, for which naming rights would have to be sold. "We are fairly well down the line with a couple of major brands who have shown significant rights in naming rights for a new stadium." Liverpool Fenway Sports Group Andy Hunter guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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City fans to face 9% ticket price hike
22.05.2012, 22:31:55
o Cost of some Etihad season tickets to jump by £60 o Fulham, Tottenham and Everton also increase prices Manchester City have increased season-ticket prices by an average 9% for next season. The hike, which follows a 6% rise 12 months ago, means that some City supporters will have to pay £60 more to renew their seat at the Etihad Stadium to watch the Premier League champions defend their title in 2012-13. Although City are not alone in increasing the cost of season tickets, research by the Guardian shows that only three other established Premier League clubs have raised their prices across the stadium, with Fulham the next highest at 5%. Tottenham Hotspur fans will pay an average of 3.6% more next season while Everton supporters face an increase of 3%. City say that the increases have been staggered in a way that those in the cheaper seats will not face the same rises as those at the top end. A standard adult season ticket in level one of the family stand under their gold membership scheme now starts at £425, rising to a maximum of £745, for platinum members, in level two of the Colin Bell Stand. Adults will pay 5-10% more for a season ticket in 2012-13, over-65s will have to pay an average of 2% more, under-21s face a 4-10% rise and under-16s need to find about £1 more per game. The club also offer an undisclosed and limited number of "value gold" seats. These cost £275 and are the second-cheapest seats in the Premier League, although the club chooses where the season-ticket holder sits rather than the other way round. Although City's prices remain competitive in relation to their rivals, the fact that season tickets have gone up by 15% in the last two years suggests that there are some limits to Sheikh Mansour's generosity after all. The City owner has invested more than £1bn since taking control of the club and, in all likelihood, few supporters will be complaining at the prospect of paying more to watch a team who won the title for the first time in 44 years. Across the rest of the Premier League, many fans will see little change in the cost of their season tickets. Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal, Aston Villa, Sunderland, Stoke City, Newcastle United and Queens Park Rangers have all frozen prices. Norwich City and Swansea City fans will have to pay at least 10% more to watch Premier League football for a second successive season, although their 2011-12 prices were set when they were Championship clubs. West Ham United season-ticket holders will pay the same as they did when the club was last in the Premier League, in 2010-11, while some Reading supporters, because of a similar situation to what Norwich and Swansea were in before, will watch Premier League football at Championship prices. Wigan have increased prices for adults by 2% on average but significantly reduced the cost for youngsters. West Bromwich Albion have made the most notable change, dropping adult prices by £50 and making cuts of up to £70 in their youth categories. A City spokesperson said: "Our pricing structure has been reviewed this summer and we are confident that Manchester City membership for 2012-13 represents superb value for money. Last season we provided the best product for supporters on and off the pitch. We won the Premier League by winning 18 out of 19 home games and were voted the No1 club for supporter experience in a survey conducted by Visit Britain for the Premier League. "We achieved all this while having on offer some of the most competitive ticket prices in the Premier League. For 2012-13 we have adult season tickets from £275 on offer, which equates to less than £14.50 per game to watch the champions, one of the best value packages in the top four tiers of the league. "This year we have introduced a new 'City Kicks' junior membership scheme for youngsters and have season tickets available for under- 16s from £110. We are also providing season-ticket holders with the opportunity to sell unwanted seats via our 'Ticket Exchange' scheme, giving extra value to our supporters." Premier League Manchester City Business Stuart James guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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Pietersen vows to keep tweeting
22.05.2012, 21:09:53
o Batsman could be disciplined for his comments on Nick Knight o ECB expected to deal with the matter in next couple of days There was good news and bad news for Kevin Pietersen as he attended a promotion for the Chance to Shine charity in central London on Tuesday. He will presumably be pleased to hear that Nick Knight, the former England opener and now Sky pundit, will not be in the commentary box for the second Test that starts on Friday at Trent Bridge, having tweeted that his involvement in the first Test at Lord's was "ridiculous" - a comment that has landed him in trouble with his employers. Pietersen, however, has become the first England player to express his disappointment at Chris Gayle's continued absence from the West Indies team, conceding by implication that without their explosive opener the tourists offer far less attractive, or competitive, opposition. There were hopes that Gayle, who is due to make his first international appearances for more than a year in the Twenty20 and one-day matches that follow the Test series, might be able to bolster the West Indies batting in the remaining two Tests after completing his commitments in the Indian Premier League at the weekend. However, a source close to the former captain dismissed any possibility that he could play at Trent Bridge, explaining that he is instead heading home to Jamaica in an effort to resolve the "residual matters" to which the West Indies Cricket Board referred when welcoming his availability for the one-day fixtures. "If he comes back, that could be brilliant for the series," said Pietersen, who fell out with Gayle when he criticised Shivnarine Chanderpaul during the last West Indies tour in 2009 but now describes him as "one of my real good mates in cricket". He added: "I love the way he plays. People want to watch entertainers. They don't want to watch people blocking the ball." He was unapologetic for his comments about Knight, who has been a Sky regular since his retirement in 2006 but more often in their coverage of county rather than international cricket. "No, not at all - I won't stop [tweeting], no," he said, having run into disciplinary trouble previously in 2010 when he described his omission from the one-day squad as "a fuck-up", thinking he was sending a private message rather than a public tweet. Pietersen said he was unaware of, and unconcerned by, suggestions that he will be fined for his latest outburst. But the England and Wales Cricket Board later confirmed that the matter will be dealt with internally in the next couple of days, suggesting that he will at least be forced to explain his comments. Meanwhile Sky stressed that Knight's absence at Trent Bridge had nothing to do with Pietersen, and that he will return for the third Test at Edgbaston. Pietersen, who dropped below Ian Bell to 18th in the official world Test batting rankings after scores of 32 and 13, described the successful run chase at Lord's as "a very good win for us at the start of the summer", and said that he was "more happy" when Andrew Strauss ended his long run without a century "than I have been for any other team-mate when they have scored a hundred. I loved the fact that he did that," added Pietersen, who was at the non-striker's end when Strauss reached three figures, and threatened to crush his captain in his enthusiastic celebrations. Kevin Pietersen Chris Gayle England cricket team West Indies cricket team England v West Indies 2012 Cricket Andy Wilson guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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'My blood is blue and I won't change'
22.05.2012, 22:02:00
Winning the Champions League provided the striker with the perfect send-off after eight successful years In the end the timing just felt right. Didier Drogba had long since set himself the target of hoisting Chelsea's first European Cup so, in the boisterous celebrations deep in the bowels of the Allianz Arena on Saturday night, his decision was made easy. It was the Bayern Munich coach, Jupp Heynckes, who had tempted fate on the eve of the final by suggesting the striker was "a good actor", so no one should really have been surprised that events played out as if lifted from a Hollywood script. "It was like a movie," says the Ivorian. "Given what he said, maybe I should just play myself." For Drogba the dust is still settling on the most glittering night of Chelsea's history. His farewells have been delivered to team-mates, most of whom have since dispersed around the globe, and staff. On Wednesday the 34-year-old will be cheered as he runs through the streets of Swindon carrying the Olympic torch with the weeks to come to determine whether his future lies in the Chinese Super League, Major League Soccer or elsewhere. New challenges await a forward who departs as a free agent with 157 goals, three Premier League titles, four FA Cups, two League Cups and, most coveted of all, a Champions League as plunder. He also leaves a figurehead of the Roman Abramovich era at Stamford Bridge whose status will endure. None of this would have felt possible in 2004 as he laboured through the first few months of his Chelsea career, adjusting to life in a new country after his £24m move from Marseille. Eight years on and the parting of the ways has been emotional. "Telling my team-mates was very difficult because, while I wouldn't say we 'created' Chelsea, we did start a new era here," he said. "We helped build something really strong in terms of identity. Now we go everywhere in the world and everyone knows about Chelsea. You go to Africa and people speak about Chelsea. I've seen kids wearing shirts in the streets, in India, everywhere: Chelsea is a brand and we are very proud to have achieved what we have. "None of this would have been possible without the Big Boss, Roman Abramovich. So the best way to repay him was to win the Champions League. We made history. We spoke after that game and he said he understood my feelings, respected my choice and that I would be a Chelsea player forever. He's a very good man and he gave me and my family everything, a chance to have comfort and a nice lifestyle. I didn't have these things in the Ivory Coast. My family can now benefit. Maybe he doesn't know it but he has helped a lot of people. "I could have stayed at the club for as long as I was performing and they wanted me but it's the right time. When you have been trying to win the Champions League for eight years and finally achieve it, what's next? I wouldn't play for anyone else in England. I owe too much allegiance to Chelsea. My blood is blue, I won't change, but I want a new challenge. Even a few weeks ago I would have described this as the worst season of my Chelsea career. But things change in a second in football. Back in the 2008 Champions League final I hit the post just before extra-time. I ended up being sent off and we lost on penalties. This year, two minutes from the end, I scored a header and, from the worst season, it became the best ever." There have been plenty of frenzied highs and desperate lows in the past eight years, enjoyed or endured under seven different managers, with the feats of his first and last coaches drawing particular praise. "The man who gave me strength was José [Mourinho]," he said. "He gave me this winning attitude, this desire to make history. He's a winner and we have it in our DNA now. It would have been nice to have won the Champions League for him but this European Cup is for all the managers who have chased this trophy with us. "Then there is the manager [Roberto Di Matteo] who spent the least time in charge but is the one who won the Champions League. He is a Chelsea legend and the job he's done has been exceptional. The way he changed the attitude and mentality of the players is enormous because we were not in good shape mentally. That's why I always say communication is important. You can put a player on the pitch and give him 30 games but, if he doesn't feel the belief or communication is right, he will never perform. Bobby told us we had to do everything to save our season. Everybody had to look at himself and change the way he behaved and his attitude for the good of the group." What made that mid-season slump even harder to accept was that André Villas-Boas, whose tenure unravelled after barely nine months, was "a friend". "It feels strange that he's gone and didn't give to Chelsea what he really wanted to. We are all responsible for this - the players, the club, the team." If those toils arguably represented the team's most traumatic experience, then there have been personal stutters as well, from life on the fringe under Luiz Felipe Scolari to his infamous reaction to elimination by Barcelona in the 2009 semi-finals and the performance of the Norwegian official, Tom Henning Ovrebo. "I feel bad as, in a way, it was because of me that people speak about this guy, Ovrebo, and it was a bit difficult for him after that game. And it is only football. Sometimes we attach too much importance to it, as I did that day. I had something in my head - I wanted to win so much that, when it went wrong, emotions got the better of me. With Scolari, there were a few moments in my head when I thought I would have to leave, but I wasn't mad with him. I'm a professional. I always respect a manager's decision. I can be upset, but it's with me: if I'm not performing or on the bench. But I respect the manager's job and he decides whether a player is good or not. I have learned a lot from all these managers." Management may be a role to consider for the future - "I would come back and cut the grass here if they asked me to" - but, for now, it is memories of a giddy last month as a Chelsea player that dominate. He reflects with surprise at suggestions of theatrics against Barcelona in the Champions League semi-final. "Anyone who has played in that position as a lone striker will understand why I was on the floor so many times," he says. "But, in the end, our desire was stronger than Barca's qualities. That's why we won. "When it came to the final, and the last penalty, I knew we'd done it. Walking up it was like there were green lights everywhere. Petr [Cech] had saved three penalties so, for me, it was ours. I knew. I've felt more 40 than 24 for the last few days but I can be proud of myself. I'm just happy that I had the chance to make a difference. "The expectation at this club now, and from the owner, will be to repeat Saturday. We've set something up and people coming here will have to try, as a minimum, to get into more Champions League finals or even win it. That's what the club has to do to be a Barcelona, AC Milan or Real Madrid. We have one Champions League and we need more." Any further successes in Europe will be achieved with the Ivorian on the outside looking fondly in. The last eight years have been momentous. Now Drogba is moving on. Didier Drogba Roman Abramovich Chelsea Champions League Champions League 2011-12 Dominic Fifield guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. 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Drogba: I'd have stayed if we had lost
22.05.2012, 22:01:03
o Shanghai Shenhua are favourites as his next club o 'Fernando Torres will improve next season' - Drogba Didier Drogba would have sought to stay at Chelsea had the club been thwarted in their pursuit of the Champions League and the team's success in Munich on Saturday provided the perfect denouement to his eight-year career at Stamford Bridge. The Ivory Coast forward has confirmed his intention to leave the European Cup winners upon the expiry of his contract next month, after 157 goals in 341 appearances, and will now deliberate with his family over where he will play his football next season. The money-flushed Chinese club Shanghai Shenhua, managed by his former Chelsea team-mate Nicolas Anelka, remains his most likely destination. While the London club's hierarchy had anticipated a parting of the ways this summer, the 34-year-old's decision was determined only after Bayern Munich were defeated at the weekend, with his last touch for the club proving to be the decisive penalty in the shootout at the Allianz Arena. "I would have stayed if we hadn't won the Champions League," said Drogba. "That was my challenge, what I wanted to achieve. It would have been very difficult to leave if we hadn't won the Champions League because we have been chasing this trophy for eight years, since I have been here, and we were always close to it. "We even saw the cup in Moscow [in the 2008 final against Manchester United], walking by it, and we could not touch it. That was the challenge for the boys who were in Moscow. We wanted to go back and win it. It is important not only as a player, but as a man, to fix targets and try to achieve them. We wanted to win the Champions League." Drogba believes Fernando Torres, who has endured life in the Ivorian's shadow since his £50m British record move from Liverpool 16 months ago, will now flourish in his absence as the veteran seeks his "new challenge". "Everybody knows Fernando is a very good player, an international player," said Drogba, whose goal against Bayern had been the first either has scored while both on the pitch as Chelsea players. "He's been through difficult moments here. It happens to everyone. "The good thing is he has our support and I know, next season, he will improve and he's going to be better. Now I can't complain but my first few seasons here were very difficult. It's not easy to play for Chelsea. But this club is in good hands with Fernando. Of course we will need new strikers but Torres will do the job, he will do it. He will do it, no doubt. "The club tried hard enough [to keep me] but I want a new challenge. It has been a fantastic eight years. It's been a pleasure and an honour to wear the blue shirt and to achieve everything we did here, all these trophies. The best for me was to finish on a high with this Champions League final. "It was the best of the best, the crème de la crème . Now I will have time to make a decision on where I go next." Didier Drogba Chelsea Dominic Fifield guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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Ticketing system faces final challenge
22.05.2012, 19:53:00
London 2012 organisers hope Ticketmaster technology can cope - and that football fans show interest in 1.4m available places When London 2012 organisers put their final batch of tickets on general sale on Wednesday, they will again confront two issues that have dogged the fraught process so far. On one hand, they will hope Ticketmaster's technology, a constant source of concern, can cope with the final onslaught of demand. On the other, having made bold assertions that the Games will sell out, they face an uphill challenge to shift 1.4m remaining football tickets. Football tickets have sold so slowly that it is almost certain fans will be able to buy them for many matches on the day, while Lord Coe, chairman of the organising committee (Locog), has refused to rule out giving them away. At the start of the most recent sales window, only 11,000 tickets had been sold to the opening action of the Games - Team GB's women taking on New Zealand at the 72,500-capacity Millennium Stadium in Cardiff on 25 July. However, while football sales have been sluggish, competition to see rhythmic gymnastics, handball and the other 23 Olympic sports has been fierce - at prices of £20-£2,012. That demand has created huge challenges. Aside from technical problems, the loudest criticisms have been over ticket allocation and transparency. Locog claims the allocation of tickets to officials and sponsors that angers many members of the public is one of the conditions to which London had to agree to stage the Games. In all, 6.6m of the 8.8m available tickets will go to the British public. Of the remainder, about 1.1m are sold overseas and the rest go to sponsors and hospitality providers. Coe and his executives have been resolute in the face of public and political pressure. They say there is no point giving a venue by venue breakdown of how many tickets are available to the public in each price category until after the Games. It is a movable feast, they argue, due to the constantly shifting seating configurations. And besides, they say, it depends how you define "the public" - some British buyers have secured tickets from European sellers and many sponsors are giving away their allocations in competitions. But the overriding impression remains that the real reason they will not divulge the numbers is because they make for pretty embarrassing reading. For the 100m final, for example, just 29,000 seats of the official capacity of 80,000 are made available to the public. There are only actually 58,000 tickets available in the first place once "seat kills" for the big screens, media positions and the like have been catered for. Around half go to the British public. The situation is similar in the velodrome, but the numbers much smaller. On the biggest nights when Sir Chris Hoy and Victoria Pendleton will be aiming for glory, as few as 2,250 tickets will be taken by the public. In the face of their continued refusal to break down the figures, London Assembly members accused organisers of running a "closed oligopoly" with a "chronic lack of transparency". The problems were exacerbated by the fractured relationship between Locog and Ticketmaster, the world's biggest ticketing company. When the ticketing platform fell over in January, Locog was quick to blame Ticketmaster. Insiders at the company have claimed Locog has been an erratic client. The original ballot, which saw 1.9m people make 22m applications, highlighted the scale of demand but also provoked criticism. Although the statistics proved otherwise, it gave the impression the rich could spread their bets by applying for dozens of tickets while others missed out. Then came technical problems during a hastily arranged "second chance sale" in June during which an unwieldy Ticketmaster system first crawled to a halt, then took payment from 20,000 people but assigned them no tickets. The most embarrassing technical snafu came at the start of this year when a resale scheme flagged by organisers as a customer service coup turned into a PR nightmare. Locog was forced to close the website after it collapsed as hundreds of thousands of people chased handfuls of tickets listed for resale. Even the most recent batch of sales, offering 928,000 tickets to those who missed out in the opening two rounds, drew many complaints - despite organisers claiming it proceeded smoothly. Some were annoyed they had to play "hunt the ticket" - endlessly clicking on apparently available options until their payment was accepted. Others believe Locog is hiding behind its status as a private company to avoid handling complaints properly. There is potential for further embarrassment when the 500,000 remaining tickets go on general sale on Wednesday on a first come, first served basis. Organisers warned that customers could wait more than half an hour in peak periods. On Tuesday night a Ukrainian Olympic official, Volodymyr Gerashchenko, was suspended following allegations by the BBC that he offered to sell up to 100 tickets for cash. Ukraine's committee received about 2,900 tickets in its official Olympic allocation. It is illegal to sell the tickets on the black market, with fines of up to £20,000. Gerashchenko said he never planned to sell tickets in the UK. Ticket resale site Viagogo predicted the Wednesday sale would provoke the biggest rush since the Take That reunion tour, with 25,000 tickets a minute being snapped up. To guide potential buyers, Locog released a list of sports that have sold out, including events in the aquatics centre, the main stadium and the velodrome. Aside from paying for a hospitality ticket (at up to £6,500) or one bundled with a short break from Thomas Cook, the only way to see those sports will be to try to secure one of the 200,000 tickets to be released for sale through public box offices once the final seat configurations are decided. Attention will then turn to the battle to shift those football tickets and the embarrassing possibility of swaths of empty seats. There is also the technical complexity of ressurecting the resale scheme that caused all the problems earlier this year and ensuring unused sponsors' tickets find their way into the hands of the public. Not to mention inevitable issues around touting and scam websites. Coe and Locog chief executive Paul Deighton have expressed sympathy for those who missed out and suggested disappointment was a simple case of supply and demand. Yet some of the errors were avoidable. Sir Keith Mills, the Locog deputy chairman who owned a large ticketing company in the late 1990s, admitted Ticketmaster had "struggled" and confessed communication with the public could have been better. "When you're selling 10m tickets for a thousand different events and you've got massive demand, the technical complexity is enormous," he said. "Ticketmaster did struggle. They had technical glitches and software glitches and difficulty dealing with some of the high volumes. But relative to the overall project they were really quite small." Ultimately, Locog will point to the plaudits they have received from the IOC in selling out stadiums for sports that traditionally struggle to draw crowds, while hitting its revenue targets with ease. Tickets contribute about £650m towards Locog's £2bn privately raised budget for staging the games. Privately, they say they would far rather deal with the consequences of overdemand than be struggling to balance the budget. Mills, like Coe and Deighton, believes they have made it through with public goodwill intact as tickets start arriving this week. "Do I think we have delivered the fairest possible system? I absolutely do. We got it about as right as we could. We wanted to hit our revenue targets, we wanted full stadiums and we wanted to treat everyone as equally as we could," Mills said. What are your chances? Good (10,000+) Archery, badminton, basketball, beach volleyball, boxing, canoe sprint, diving, fencing, football, handball, hockey, Olympic Park, table tennis, taekwondo, volleyball, weightlifting Medium (up to 10,000) Athletics (race walk), mountain biking, gymnastics (artistic), judo, rowing, sailing, water polo, wrestling (freestyle), wrestling (Greco-Roman) Low (less than 1,000) Gymnastics (trampoline), shooting No availability Athletics, marathon, canoe slalom, cycling (BMX), cycling (road, track), equestrian (dressage, eventing, jumping), gymnastics (rhythmic), modern pentathlon, swimming, swimming (marathon), synchronised swimming, tennis, triathlon, opening and closing ceremony Olympic tickets Olympic Games 2012 London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (Locog) Olympics 2012: football Owen Gibson guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. 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London Olympics legacy: defining success
23.05.2012, 06:27:00
The post-games regeneration vision has remained steady over time but its true tests still lie in the future I've been trawling YouTube for regeneration aspiration clips down the ages. Here's a punchy CNN summary from June 2009: Thanks Jim. See how we've moved on - and maybe slightly back again - with the stadium. Note that promise about "affordable" homes and how the meaning of the word "affordable" has, well, gone upmarket since David Cameron moved into Number 10. Now fast forward to last February and a short speech by Andrew Altman, chief executive of what was then called the Olympic Park Legacy Company. It's now called the London Legacy Development Corporation and will have overall control of the evolution of the Olympic Park and its immediate surroundings after the Games themselves have been and gone. I've seen Altman deliver several versions of this speech. He sets out the big, future picture: a long-term shift in the focus of London's growth towards the east; accelerating and unifying the regeneration process; "unlocking potential" in the form of 500 catalysing acres with fab amenities in an incredible, transport-linked location; fuelling the dynamics of place-making, and so on. That's what the long game looked like 15 months ago. Now, we have four contenders to become tenants of the stadium , two to transform the press and broadcast centres into a thriving commercial hub in the post-Games era and a blueprint for providing up to 8,000 homes. The park will begin to re-open from July 2013, and the LLDC promises that it will be "for all of London." The Olympic Park is, perhaps, the ultimate test case for grand scale urban regeneration. I hope it passes. But how, I wonder, should we define success? Regeneration Dave Hill guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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Olympic torch route, day 5: meet Cheltenham's unstoppable golden girl
23.05.2012, 06:00:01
Lizzy Davies is put to shame by Miss Wixey - the retired games mistress who can't stop competing, at 91 As the torch sweeps into Cheltenham late this afternoon, past the Coade stone caryatids of regency Montpellier and the Gap store on the Promenade where David Cameron did his Christmas shopping, Mary Wixey, 91, will be warming up. This will hardly be the most testing event in her athletic career - that may have come last month, battling through the Finnish cold for a medal at the World Masters, or the year before when, at the European Championships, she triumphed in the veterans' shot putt and discus and brought home a bag of gold medals to add to her collection. But the 300m stretch up Evesham Road towards the Pump Room and the Racecourse may prove the most emotional run of the retired games mistress's long and active life. Nominated for torch-bearing duties by a former pupil who thinks she's "marvellous", Wixey will be running not only for herself, but for the town in which she was born, bred and has lived all her life. "I feel now I've just got to be relaxed," she tells me, in a broad Cheltonian accent, sipping tea from a china cup amid her medals, sashes, award ceremony photographs and geraniums. "I'm excited, but I wouldn't say nervous." The torch will wend its way near much of the Cheltenham beloved of outsiders: the Racecourse with its media types down from Chipping Norton, for instance, and the Ladies' College with its lavish sporting facilities and fern green jumpers. It will not encroach on Hesters Way, where Wixey lives in a modest semi-detached bungalow and where the last school she taught at on a full-time basis - then known as St Benedict's - lies empty, awaiting demolition. Its sports hall, to her chagrin, has been closed "for the foreseeable future". Wixey, who began teaching (and fire watching for second world war bombs) in 1941, taught games to generations of Cheltenham girls throughout her career. Jane Evans, who had her at Charlton Kings Secondary School (now Balcarras comprehensive) during the late 50s and early 60s, remembers the indefatigable teacher winning over the girls with her "very enthusiastic, very fair, very strict" style of teaching. Did Evans like games with Miss Wixey, as she still calls her? "Loved it." I wonder what Miss Wixey would have made of me. She and I attended the same school - Pate's, the local grammar school - but there the parallels end. Never an aspiring Olympian, throughout my school years I maintained a vigorous pursuit of sloth; I would bunk off swimming to go and spot boys in McDonald's. What would she have done with girls like me? "I would get your friends to encourage you," she says. Nice idea, I think, but you never met my friends. For plenty of other girls who did like hockey and rounders and the long-jump, however, "Magic Mary" - as the Gloucestershire Echo has dubbed her - was clearly an inspiration. For 30 years she taught in three different schools, and remembers fondly the trams, the country dancing, the traipsing to the playing fields ("they even had their own groundsmen then"). Nowadays she remains chipper, if a little hard of hearing, and focused on her church-going (every Sunday) and her exercise (even more often: she competes in as many tournaments as possible, such as last month's Tipton Open Games in which she won three gold medals). The doctors, she says, had a simple message for her the last time she paid a visit. "Two words at the end," she says. "'Carry on!'" Olympic torch Olympic Games 2012 Lizzy Davies guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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