One thing any decent marketer will tell you is that is that markets have splintered. Mass markets now exist only for needs, not products. Even utility markets are starting to splinter. But it is we as consumers who are now getting harder and harder to target and identify.

And so it goes for politics. The mass market strategy of a one brand fits all approach is no longer relevant or applicable to modern politics in a consumerist society. Leaders who cling to some old fashioned life raft of an idea of a holistic value concept in the stormy seas of the modern market/electorate are likely to find themselves adrift or at the mercy of the sharks of social media.

Instead the value that is sought by us in a political dimension is something along the lines of the co-creation of value logic that…

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One of the purposes of my trip to the London Games was to investigate the concept of Olympic Houses – something most Australians would not know about.

Basically these are temporary Embassies of Sport that are set up in the host games city by most of the larger national Olympic committees (NOC). These venues are set up for various reasons but mostly to be a “home away from home” for a nation’s Olympic athletes, NOC officials, sponsors and family and friends of the athletes.

It is a place for sponsors to network and showcase their products, celebrate medals won, for athletes and supporters to socialise, to host special functions, entertain…

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Some of the celebrations witnessed at these Olympics have been sensational. The bewildered surprise of Mo Farah as he took gold for the second time in the 5 000 metres; Sally Pearson’s shrieking relief after a cruel 32 seconds of the unknown and of course the heart rending, raw emotion exhibited by many as they achieved their lifelong goals.

And one cannot forget the antics of the German discus thrower Robert Harting. After flinging his implement more than 68 metres he went all ‘incredible hulk’, ripped his shirt asunder in front of the assembled cameras and then proceeded to delight the crowd by hurdling his way down the main straight.

Later, after partying hard, he fell asleep on a train and was relieved of his athlete…

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Once again, the myth of natural talent rears its ugly head. This pernicious myth suggests that Black athletes are better at sport that White athletes, and also that White athletes have to be cleverer and more hard-working than Black athletes to succeed in sport.

The myth situates the successes of Black athletes as due to innate ability, downplaying the focus and hard work they have done, while simultaneously situating the successes of White athletes in the opposite way, celebrating their ‘unlikely’ achievements.

This myth, though always present, frequently emerges at great sporting competitions. Here it has been bandied about in the context of the great success of the Jamaicans and African Americans in the athletics…

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That I can comment on the Olympics is only possible because media organisations pay journalists to report on them. I get my Olympics information from the mainstream news media. I interpret it through a sociological lens, but I am not there and can only interpret what I have access to, which is the news coverage.

I mention this because the mainstream print news media is undergoing major changes at the moment. The Australian media, already very concentrated, is further ‘streamlining’ its news operations. More shared stories and journalists are on the cards, less local news. The popular discourse is that the Internet has killed the news. Why pay for content when you can get it for free online?

For…

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Rudisha

It was perhaps billed as the hors d'œuvres before the main event. But it was far from a second billing with David Rudisha winning the 800m in a World Record (1:40.91). It was perhaps the greatest 800m in history with all 8 men either running national records, personal bests or seasons bests. Even more impressive was that second and third places were teenagers – the future of 800m running looks bright. Rudisha lead from gun to tape running 49 s for the first 400m and 51 s for the second – setting the first athletics world record of the Olympics.

Bolt

The main event was, of course, Bolt in the 200m. He was going for the Double/Double. The first sprinter ever to defend both the 100 and 200m at…

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I am just going to throw this out there. In a radio interview last week I was asked if Australia should continue to participate in the global sports arms race and increase its investment in elite sport. For a whole range of reasons (elite investment can lead to some societal benefits that can be justified scientifically) that we can debate off line I personally feel that elite sport funding should not be cut, maybe even increased (see later).

However, what could happen first is to bring federal funding of grassroots sport in line with elite sport. Again, the implications and origins of such a statement are much more far reaching than can be discussed in a blog such as this, so please take the following anecdotal comparison…

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Competition has ended, and so I find myself able to set my own schedule. This may sound like a normal human enterprise, but for an athlete who has known what he has had to do every morning for the last three years, this is a revelation. Today I played soccer, and while that may sound like a normal pass-time, there’s a bit more to it.

You see, I was invited to play last night during a midnight snack run at the Village dining hall. A friend of mine from the German eight invited me to play with him, and when I showed up, they were already in full swing. Aside from a Canadian rower, I was the only other native English speaker.

If I hadn’t, by accident of fate, studied…

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Since racing in the Olympic final, the notion that, “it’s not if you win or lose, but how you played the game” has taken on a new dimension. I thought that this phrase was simply an injunction against cheating, but as I was coughing and sputtering and wandering around in a pain-daze after my race, another meaning of it struck me.

On a personal level, the process of rowing well, of emptying myself, of eradicating all my doubts with every stroke was a reward in itself. I may have crossed the line in fifth place, but in my heart I know that I rowed the best race that I could have.

Since that time, I have been enjoying the Olympic Village and spending time seeing family…

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The past twelve days have seen me happy as the proverbial “pig in mud”. I’ve gone nocturnal, camped on the couch desperately trying to stay awake in the midst of an onslaught of sporting fare the like of which I’ve never seen before!

I am lucky to have pay TV which gives me two major advantages. Firstly, I don’t have to put up with the inane, ill-informed comments from some of the Nine commentary team and their ridiculous scheduling decisions. Secondly, I have eight channels at my disposal – alas this means have to put up with the inane, ill-informed comments from some of the Foxtel commentary team! As if eight options aren’t enough I also have…

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Keeping in line with my wish to cover the other side of the Olympics beyond the pure performance side and the medal count I have been thinking about the vast majority of the more than 200 nations at the Games. Let’s refer to them as the “Minnow Nations”.

They obviously cannot compete with the likes of the USA, China, Great Britain and Australia. Many of these nations would be happy with a single medal. The winner of this medal would no doubt be a sporting hero in their native land and be a fantastic role model.

I had a meeting last week at Olympic Park in East London with Dr. Akhtar Nawaz, the Director General of the Pakistan Sport Board and an…

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Last week I had a somewhat heated discussion with a work colleague. I was bitterly disappointed at our standing on the Olympic ladder with only one gold medal (at that point) and thought we should be performing better. His view was “why does it matter?”

My rationale was that one gold medal doesn’t reflect well on our country. We are meant to be an athletic nation and for me a key indicator of that is number of gold medals and standing in comparison to other countries at the Olympics, a key international sporting event.

My colleague’s view didn’t waver. His thoughts were that the Olympics happens every four years and it was not that important to spend…

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Great moments for Australian sport this morning as Anna Meares and Sally Pearson added to Tom Sligsby’s individual gold of 24 hours earlier.

Firstly in the depths of the Australian night, Anna Meares took gold in the women’s cycling sprint. After a controversial and emotional victory Meares was simply class personified. Not for her the posturing and abject dismissal of her opponent, the so-called “Queen” Victoria Pendleton (who was also magnificent in defeat). Far from it … she was forgiving and magnanimous.

In an interview later I was struck by what a complete person Meares is. Her language was measured and her pride obvious but she seemed remarkably well balanced, believing this was…

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The tears, the laments, the massive sadness over Australia’s ‘disappointing’ performance at the Olympics. Drew Ginn of the Oarsome Foursome looked so very disappointed at his team’s second place finish, almost as disappointed as Emily Seebohm, who was so distressed that she might have let her family and country down with her silver medal performance that she was in tears.

What pressure we put on our athletes to perform, so much pressure that they are crushed by a second or third place performance. In his book Winning, sociologist Francesco Duina argues that the American obsession with winning is not about winning…

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For decades Jamaican sprinters have punched above their weight. Jamaica has won at least one medal for sprinting at every Olympic Games since 1968. Jamaican men and women have both excelled, but the women have had the edge in numbers of medals since the 1980s.

The current Jamaican Olympic sprinters are the best Jamaica has ever fielded. Jamaica won the gold and bronze in the women’s 100m sprint on Saturday, and last night (this morning Melbourne time) won the gold and silver in the men’s 100m sprint, with Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and Usain Bolt both successfully defending their 2008 Olympic crowns. With Veronica Campbell-Brown and Usain Bolt being the previous winners…

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It has taken too many silver medals to raise the issue to the top of the sport policy agenda.With a big thank you to the President of the Australian Olympic Committee John Coates, this morning from London – the federal government needs to raise the importance of sport (read physical education) in the national curriculum in order to ensure that we increase the Australian talent pool.

Of course, to most of us this statement is an open door, not only in context of ensuring that we carry on to perform on the world stage, but more importantly, that we not continue to decline into a nation of obese couch potatoes.

It is unfortunate that where the writing has been on the wall for at least a decade (yes, since the Sydney…

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All this fuss about how disappointing these Games are for Australia. How we are well down on the medal tally with countries such as New Zealand, North Korea and Borat’s Kazachstan ahead of us – on the gold medal ranking that is. Let’s put this in perspective and credit the athletes with the honor that is warranted.

Kazakhstan got 6 medals in total – all gold – 4 of which in weightlifting. North Korea got 4 of its 5 medals (4 of which are gold) – also in weightlifting. And New Zealand, god bless their focus, got 5 of its 7 medals (3 of which are gold) in rowing.

They occupy positions 7, 11 and 14 on the (gold) medal Olympic performance ranking. Poor old Australia on the other hand, way back in position 24…

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I was never in doubt that Bolt would regain his 100m Olympic title. But what made this race intriguing was the will he / won’t he win hype surrounding it – especially after the Jamaican trials. Bolt wanted to defend his title to cement himself as a sprinting legend – this he has done.

The race itself was fast – 9.63s – with all but Asafa Powell (who pulled up injured) running under 10s. It was one of, if not, the greatest 100m race in history.

Bolt didn’t get a great start, but it didn’t matter because the field wasn’t ahead of him by enough to capitalise on it. Once Bolt hit 50m and unfurled his legs and hit top speed the race was over. Blake finished second (9.75s) and Gatlin (9.79s) pipped Gay to third.

Will…

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Australian basketballer Liz Cambage has made history as the first woman to slam dunk at an Olympics.

There was much praise for her athleticism and for the impact that this single move would make on the game’s spectator appeal.

But is this the sort of game manoeuvre we really should be seeing more of?

According to the official rules of the international basketball Association Fédération Internationale de Basketball Amateur, or FIBA, a dunk is when the ball is forced downwards into the opponents' basket with one or both hands.

This is an allowable manoeuvre in the sport but there are also rules around the dunk to protect the player from injury. For example, a technical foul is called when the player hangs onto…

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Are you as fascinated as I am by the helmets that the cyclists are wearing, particularly in the Olympic velodrome events?

Do you like their futuristic design?

Are you wondering why they are designed to look that way?

Well, the number one factor is safety. The helmets are there first and foremost as a safety device.

If a cyclist is unfortunate enough to fall off their bike, the helmet would prevent severe head injury. Because the cyclists are going so fast, the speeds at which they crash or fall all contribute to making large energy transfer forces during any impact their head would make with the ground. This is compounded by the fact that their head would essentially fall from their seating position to the…

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I’ve taken a few hours to write this blog piece as I am still recovering with gobsmacked astonishment at the Olympic sport of the last 24 hours. ‘Super Saturday’s’ often become oxymoronic but with 25 gold medals up for grabs the portents were excellent for this version. As it played out however, Super is simply not enough to describe what happened.

As I mentioned in an earlier blog I was born and bred in the United Kingdom before packing a rucksack and heading around the world trying to play rugby union where ever I went. But you didn’t have to be British to appreciate the unbelievable feats of individual and team brilliance…

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I had my ticket, jumped on a train and who would have thought that the day would have ended up with Gold, Gold, Gold. I was at the morning session of the athletics. The Olympic park is I have to say an amazing place…and actually passing through security was a very smooth and quick process.

The stadium was packed for the morning session as it has been for all morning sessions. The crowed was kept entertained not only by the performances but also by ‘stadium TV’. Of course whenever a Brit appeared the crowed did indeed go mad. There was Jessica Ennis in the long jump and Javelin of the heptathlon. The latter event was the last event of the session and the stadium was still almost full.

Then…

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Hard to believe but it is only 18 months to the next Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. It therefore is not uncommon for the next host to start a massive promotional campaign and that is exactly what the Russians are doing in London.

In Kensington Gardens two huge areas have been set up one called Russia Park and the other Sochi Park. Both are huge tented areas with some of the biggest marquees that I have ever seen. Russia Park has free public admission and one can buy their local tucker, hear Russian music or watch entertainers, go to areas to test hockey or curling skills,there are several smaller promotional pavilions and a relaxing open area with large bean bags to sit in.

Attached…

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The second week of the Olympics is almost upon us, bringing on the athletics competition. Caster Semenya, a talented middle-distance runner, carried the South African flag at the Opening Ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics. The road she travelled to get to this Olympics was a particularly challenging one as not only did she have to qualify, she also had to prove that she was a woman.

I’ve learned two things about gender testing and sport that I found interesting. First, there is no definitive gender test. And second, only women’s sport worries about gender testing.

I’ll take the second point first. Because men are considered advantaged…

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Our very talented Melanie Schlanger just missed out on a medal in the 100m freestyle final in London overnight, finishing fourth in a tightly contested race. Aside from the fact that I am a little surprised by just how many outside medal finished Australia has had in the pool (ok, so maybe we have been a little spoilt by previous games where our swimmers have always done well), the comment that got me thinking the most was made by Melanie in her post swim interview where she said “I’ve just come here to have fun”.

Granted, it was said in the context of her swim, her finish and how she just missed a medal but still, while you are competing at…

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You would think starting a track race with a pistol would be a simple thing – but no. It appears that no longer will there be a ‘B’ of the Bang but a ‘P’ of the Ping as a new starting pistol is reportedly to be used at 2012 which was first wielded in anger at the Vancouver 2010 Olympics games. The need for this pistol is to take into account the speed of sound.

When hand timing was used at athletic meetings (it still is at most club meetings) the timekeepers started timing when they saw the puff of smoke from the gun with the bang arriving approximately 0.3s later (if the starter was 100 m away). Quite clearly this can also be a problem for the athlete…

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As discussed below by Anthony Bedford, eight doubles badminton players were disqualified from the Olympics yesterday for trying to lose their matches. The players, from South Korea, China and Indonesia, purposely played badly in attempts to lose their matches to get a better position in the draw in the following round.

Their behaviour has been described as being “against the spirit of the Olympics”, and the players have been comprehensively criticised for their behaviour, but was it cheating, or were the teams were using the rules of this competition to maximise their chances of winning?

Apparently this was the first time the badminton competition at the Olympics was organised using a round-robin format. In a round-robin, teams are placed…

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After a week of ups and down for our Australian Badminton players, we face an unbelievable scenario where players from China and Korea (countries in our group) in the women’s doubles have been disqualified, pending an appeal, from the doubles contest.

In a farcical display, the pairs in four matches were “playing to lose”, with the aim of improving their position in latter stages of the competition. While the result is still pending the outcome of an appeal, we should see our girls, Renuga and Leanne, play in the quarter finals.

Many are to blame here. The Badminton World Federation (BWF…

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Andrew Bolt in his Herald Sun column today argues that we, as a nation, need to work harder – not only as Olympians, but as a collective of Australians. He quotes US-based research that with an increase in Gross Domestic Product per head of population, the amount of medals won at the Olympics also increases.

If only the past Australian Olympic medal tally was a result of being a genetically well endowed people, but the reality is that with 22 million citizens, the talent pond we are fishing in is limited. I guess Bolt’s point – Andrew, not Usain – is that if we are more productive as a nation we also improve our ability to be successful at major sporting…

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It just hit me when one of the commentators on Channel Nine dismissed a dramatic fall of horse and rider by merely uttering: “Oh, bad luck”. Here was this incredibly dedicated athlete (and his horse) who probably had paused relationship, professional, family, and social life, in order to peak perform at this one event – the Olympic Games. Only to be dismissed by a well paid reporter who was flown to London courtesy of the network, to provide expert comments on a sport that he loves to watch in the first place.

This is not bad luck… this is utter disaster, 4 years of dedication, blood, sweat, tears and focus down the drain.

Is it worth the risk of not succeeding…

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While the Australian public and the media that feeds them continue to lament a lack of medals, the celebration of victory will be all the more meaningful in the context of the hard work and tremendous application of all the 10,000 or so Olympians in London.

In his book Fat, Forty and Fired Nigel Marsh relates a story about wine gums. He loves wine gums but “for every packet I bought, I had to eat ten or so sodding green, orange or yellow ones. Now everyone knows the best wine gums are the red or black ones”. Just about to embark on a hike with his brother and cousin he spied wine gums in a lolly shop with a difference – every packet was only of red and black…

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Sociologist Kieran Healy posted this fun diagram on the Crooked Timber blog, a two dimensional model of Olympics sports by whether they are good (or bad) sports, and whether they belong in the Olympics (or not). Along with making me laugh, the diagram made me think of what makes a sport appropriate for the Olympics, and why we have these particular sports and not others.

For an activity to be a sport it needs to be organised/have rules, involve skillful use of the body, and be competitive (have winners and losers). On top of these criteria, sport is fundamentally organised through social processes that shape who gets to play and the resources…

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This is my first Olympics as an Australian. Yes, I’ve lived here for 15 years, and been a citizen for more than a few, but this is the first Olympics I’ve actually felt Australian in my heart of hearts.

I realised this while watching the swimmers on the first day and desperately wanting the Australian 4 x 100 women’s swim team to win, and being thrilled when they did. In the last couple of Olympics I’ve felt torn between Australia and America. Australia is actually my third nation. I started off Jamaican, but became American in my childhood. I moved to Australia much later, when I was 30. By that point I felt settled into my American identity. And I still feel very American, though an Australianised version.

The Olympics is all…

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It appears that my guide to the 100 m has turned into a trilogy. My last two postings covered some stats about sprinting 100 m in 9.58 s and the what the limits of 100 m performance may be based on historical models.

The science of elite sprinting

What do we know about the biomechanics of elite sprinting? When I refer to elite sprinting I’m talking about running at speeds of 10 m/s plus i.e. below 10s for 100m. At these speeds the answer is very little. Because sprinters hit top speed from the 60 m mark and are more likely to run at top speeds in competition we need to look at sprinting in competition. So what do we know about that? There is a wealth of data about split times etc (similar to my first post) which provides interesting…

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I was, like many of you, intrigued by the title of David Bishop’s article “Sex before sport: does it affect an athlete’s performance”, that he published on the Conversation website recently. It just happens to be the most read article of the last few days, and I suspect it is because he used two words in the title of his article that are prone to draw a large crowd – use them in combination and you have a winner.

Although Professor David Bishop is a sport scientist at Victoria University’s Institute of Sport, Exercise and Active Living (ISEAL), he does know a thing or two about marketing as well. Share a few interesting – not earth shattering…

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It was the worst possible timing ever! I was moving house on the day of the opening ceremony. For years I have been set up with Foxtel to ensure that I was not going to miss any sporting event of great significance.

It was good old Rupert Murdoch who presciently proclaimed that sport was going to be the battering ram for the uptake of his pay television subscription service during the late 1990s. Some 8 channels that would cover all gold medal events, and more, were ready for me to indulge in Olympic and Paralympic uninterrupted and overexposed sport of the kind that I would never watch on any other day.

And then we had to plan for the move from Port Melbourne to Albert Park, cancel…

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The reality is that whenever and wherever athletes meet in competition, to push their bodies to the limits of their physical performance, then musculoskeletal injuries will occur.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC), and its International Sports Federation members, has long recognised this and there is a very strong history of efforts to reduce the frequency and severity of these injuries. But how do we know this?

The answer is … the injury tally.

While injuries have been recorded to some extent at most Olympics over the past few decades, at the Beijing Games a commitment was made to implementing a robust injury surveillance system. The aim was to record the details of every injury incurred during the competition for…

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Equestrian events have been part of every summer Olympic Games since 1912. Yet there are still some who question their status as a sport. After all, they have nothing to do with a person running faster, swimming stronger, throwing further or tumbling with better control.

But there is something quite unique about equestrian events, something that no other Olympic sport shares. This being that the essential equipment is not an inanimate object. Think about hockey sticks, gymnastic hoops, swimming caps, archers’ quivers,a basketball, and the like. All are manmade objects. In equestrian sport, the key equipment is a horse. A living, breathing animal.

Actually, this comment understates the importance of the horse. In equestrian events…

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About three weeks! At least in 2012.

Ramadan is a holy month each year during which Muslims from around the world take time to reflect on their lives and their spirituality. It lasts for 30 days and is characterised by fasting from dawn until dusk. This includes, amongst other things, a sustained period of abstaining from eating food and consuming liquids.

In 2012, Ramadan commenced on July 20th. Yes, just seven days before the Olympics. The entire 2012 Olympics will therefore be played out over this year’s Ramadan.

Whilst fasting generally has few ill effects, it is known that to perform well athletes need…

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The London Olympic Games has been dubbed the Socialympics by many. It is the first to be held under the microscopic deconstruction provided particularly by Twitter but also by Face book and others.

The upsides are many and varied including the fast dissemination of information and the advent of so called second screen technology. But it also has a downside.

Once upon a time it was comparatively easy to avoid any mention of sporting results until you were able to watch the (usually) delayed telecast. You’d simply not turn on the television or sing loudly when the scores came on the radio. However, if you are in any way connected via social media you face problems of the highest magnitude. Simply, your network will see to it that you are kept up to date and informed whether you like it or…

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There are numerous satellite events at the Games that can keep you as busy as going to the actual sporting competitions. Saturday night it was Austrade’s Australia Unlimited Event taking place at the impressive Australian High Commission that had a collection of over 300 guests.

This business style reception was designed to promote Australia’s major sporting capabilities to those international people responsible for running future major sporting events. There was a signicant introduction and business matching program.

The Federal Sport Minister Kate Lundy addressed the guests, the av show was first class as were the nibbles and drinks. There seemed to be lots of networking and and there were several unis including Victoria University, UTS and Griffith making contacts and networking. Yes…

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Well that’s the opening ceremony done and dusted! We can now get on with the real business of the next fortnight or so. Oh yes the birging and corfing! Although you may never heard of these terms, let alone used them in a sentence I can assure you that if you possess even a passing interest in sport you most certainly have indulged in either or both!

Birging is in fact ‘basking in reflected glory’ whilst corfing (cutting off reflected failure) is at the opposite, glass half empty end of the scale.

Put simply if you were a supporter of the women’s 4 x 100 metre freestyle you’d be birging for the rest of the week! Phrases such as ‘I knew they were…

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Just when you think the Olympics is all about gold medals, you come across an athlete who defines what being a champion really is.

Kieran Behan is only the second male Irish gymnast to qualify for the Olympic games who, if you missed the overnight action, probably didn’t have his best day out in competition. But it is the story behind this athlete that makes him remarkable. Battling a benign tumour in his leg, following removal and subsequent complications from the surgery, he was confined to a wheelchair at age 10 and told he wouldn’t walk again. He not only did, but returned to gymnastics.

He was then involved in a horrific incident when he fell off the high bars, sustaining a brain injury that affected his balance…

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One of the very first blue ribbon events to be contested this Olympics is the men’s cycling road race, contested over 250km, including 9 laps of the Box Hill circuit.

One look at the profile map, and you can see that the climbs on the route are not something from one of the classic Tour De France high mountain stages in the Alps or the Pyrenees.

The race profile is very similar, in terms of climbs, to the Tour of Flanders or Gent-Wevelgem, 2 of cycling’s biggest one day events. What this means in terms of the race is that a small bunch sprint or breakaway group is likely to win the day. And that brings us to the Australian team and the contenders on a course like this.

With only a maximum of 5 riders, compared to the usual 8 or 9 in World Tour events such as the Tour or Paris-Roubaix…

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Yesterday I wrote a blog that panned opening ceremonies as a jingoistic waste of money that left me cold. Please ignore it!

The one I have just watched was life affirming, a celebration of everything! It was culturally significant and doffed its hat to the things that made Britain Great. It was also self deprecating and superbly creative. For many a Pom (and plenty of others besides) it was a walk down memory lane from school bound history lessons brought to life to very real experiences now bubbling back to the surface. Spine tingling, tear jerking but far from the nationalistic, chest beating poppycock it could so easily have become.

Forget the touted economic benefits this will propel psychic income skywards for the next…

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While all the action in the last few days has been focused on just who would carry the Australian flag at the Opening Ceremony, the global interest has been in the event itself.

And why not. An Olympic Opening Ceremony should be one of the must see’s of life. It certainly is on my list. The money spent on one is probably the same as the Australian Government will spend on promoting female sport in a decade. Tens of millions. Well 27 million pounds.

And although they go for a bum numbing 3 hours plus, they are really worth the watch. Well okay, maybe not the bit of 190+ countries walking into the stadium, other than Australia, the UK and the lone athlete from the South Sudan, Guor Marial, whose nation is so new they don…

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Our International Convention on Science, Education and Medicine in Sport in Glasgow ended on a high note with a great closing keynote address by US medico Robert Sallis, former President of the prestigious American College on Sports Medicine. His talk on “Exercise is Medicine” was excellent and his recommendation for the IOC to have a broader outlook beyond high performance sport was well received. Now to get the IOC to act on this will be the big challenge.

Next cross country stop was a far more intimate style of satellite conference for Olympic scholars at Loughborough University in the East Midlands. The Olympic hype and security was everywhere as this uni is the official Olympic Training Centre…

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From the outset let me say I am no real fan of the opening ceremony genre. I can stomach the lighting of the cauldron by an athletic legend of yesteryear via harebrained method but the rest of the nationalistic frippery leaves me well… a little cold.

I once attended the opening ceremony of a major global event as a member of the media corps and whilst I was ecstatic at the free seat, desk and media pack chock full of goodies, it was a harrowing experience. I knew we were in for trouble when a spiral bound tome thicker than a telephone directory thumped onto the table in front of me. It described in intricate and unnecessary detail every aspect of what was to follow. Surely this shouldn’t be required…

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We are about to witness an extraordinary sporting carnival, made possible only by much preparation. London has been busy building new housing, road and transport infrastructure, state-of-the-art sports stadiums. The British police, ambulance and other emergency services have combined to ensure that the games will be safe; that plans are in place to avert major disasters and that their responses will be very quick, when needed. For several days now, volunteer sports medicine professionals have been staffing polyclinics to provide essential medical and allied health services to athletes from all countries in their final preparations.

And the athletes themselves have been honing their physical skills and mental strengths to ensure…

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Yes the opening ceremony is on Friday night but Olympic competition quite literally kicked off yesterday with the GB women’s football team beating NZ 1-0 at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium. This was the first time a women’s GB team has competed at the Olympics – usually football in UK is divided into the home associations (England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland).

Men’s football kicks-off today with the GB team taken on Senegal. This is the first time since 1960 that a GB team has competed in the Olympics but it hasn’t been a smooth process with not all the home nations seemingly happy with a unified team

There was a slight faux pas yesterday at the start of North Korea vs. Colombia. The organisers showed the…

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We are really rather fickle about our Olympic athletes. Stirred by the feeling that it is our hard earned that funds their pursuits as if it’s pinched from our pocket on pay day, we have an expert opinion about each and every one of them!

As sportsfans with ‘skin in the game’ we feel entitled to express our views at every turn. Despite personal dubious athletic abilities viewed through rose tinted glasses and a total lack of experience in high performance sport, quite simply we know better.

And what a knife-edge they exist on. On the one hand we love them like close relatives for their tweeting, writing and talking so long as they toe the fine line that doesn’t upset our sensibilities. Be a…

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Is anyone else feeling slightly disturbed about the headlines regarding Leisel Jones? This is one of our own, who sure, had a couple of unflattering pictures taken (who hasn’t!), and we think we have the right to now question her ability as an athlete. Wait, not just an athlete, a four time Olympian.

As a physical activity practitioner I am a huge advocate for being healthy but I also know that being healthy doesn’t necessarily mean that we look like models.

I shook my head in disbelief this morning when I read those headlines and was thankful that not one of my 3 girls (all under 5) are old enough to read. What sort of example are we setting for our youth of today if we…

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So this is quite an interesting if slightly pointless question, but nevertheless it pops up every now and again…so let’s give it a stab and see what the research says.

The 100 m has progressed from a stately 12 s in 1896 to a phenomenal 9.58 s in 2009. It is the progression of the 100 m over the last 100 plus years which have been used to predict future performance.

Researchers have added various curves to extrapolate these data points to come up with a time which will be the limit to sprinting performance. I’m not a mathmatican, therefore I’ll leave explaining the different curve fitting methods – unless any of the other team bloggers wish to…

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The Olympics. An experience of a lifetime. The flame. The atheletes. The venues. The events. The winners. Those athletes who leave nothing behind on the track, even if they place last because years of hard work and sacrifice should mean something at the Olympics. The crowds, thousands of happy people from all over the world, gathering together in the one place at the one time to celebrate the better side of humankind. The experience of a lifetime. A positive experience of a lifetime.

And so then it should come as no shock to anyone that every brand that has paid handsomely for the right to have the Olympic logo next to theirs wants to be part of your experience of this event. After all, the IOC itself has some nice wording…

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You’ve got to love London’s Mayor and chief Olympic booster boy Boris Johnson. Foppish, Oxford educated, Conservative types with dodgy haircuts do not normally resonate with the Australian egalitarian ideal. But Boris does.

He possesses many endearing qualities but primarily he gets that sport (to paraphrase former Liverpool manager Bill Shankly) is far more important than life and death. Everything he says and does at the moment emphasises this abiding love of sport, what it stands for and what it can achieve.

He has of course been lampooned frequently but seems to take it all in his blustery stride.

Johnson acknowledges…

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When I arrived in England last week, the big news was that thousands of security staff, employed by a company called G4S, had not been showing up for work. Thousands! Where the heck were they? Had someone tweeted the weather was nicer in Spain and sparked a mass migration south? I mean it’s one thing to ‘chuck a sickie’ but when thousands do it every day, that’s taking ‘skiving off’ to a whole new level.

The head of G4S was hauled up before a parliamentary inquiry and asked why it was that with the Olympic Games just days away, a great many of his staff appeared to have made the Guinness Book of Records for ‘bludging’. His answer of, “Well um, you see, ah, it’s like this…” saw the army and local police from across the UK brought…

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Having been in the Rowing Village at Royal Holloway since Sunday, I have begun to settle in to a new/old routine. It’s new in the sense that all the facilities are shiny and new, and that the moment of the Olympics means that there are more volunteers and security than at your normal world championships. There is also this look in the eyes of the volunteers, an eagerness to help, as if they’re really excited to have an excuse to speak to me. I almost want to look over my shoulder and see if there’s somebody famous behind me — surely they can’t care this much about little ol' me?

Beyond the atmosphere, however, we have started to settle into village life. We get up…

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I was talking to a reporter of the website Euronews the other day, and he asked me why we, as a species continue to be so obsessed with sport. Why is it that irrespective of the increasingly dramatic changes of the times, people all over the globe align their focus for a few weeks per quadrennium on physical combat, and uncertainty of outcome?

I cannot come up with a more simple, logical and probably scientifically defendable answer than that the sporting contest comes as close to a universally understood and practiced human behaviour as anything. The competition between humans to survive (win) influenced by the (uncertain and often hostile) elements combines instinctive…

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This Olympic Games has been touted as the Socialympics where social media will reign supreme and medals will be earned for tweets per second. However it should be renamed the glossylympics as it is from newsstands and Coles and Woolies where many of the stories are coming from.

‘News’ about athletes has focused not on their performance but on off field indiscretions and aspects far from the athletic arena, all the time fuelled by Facebook and Twitter.

Swimmers brandishing rifles and pistols, outrage at the use of Stillnox and a subsequent reeling in of its use; seating arrangements on planes as a measure of gender equality; gay rights in the village; married rights in the village; the flag as a measure of gender equality; Stefenssen…

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One of the greatest honours for an Olympic athlete is being selected to carry the flag in the Opening Ceremony, and who will be selected is the subject of great debate. This year the debate has focused on gender. Only three women have ever carried the flag at the summer Olympics for Australia: sprinters Raelene Boyle (1976) and Denise Boyd (1980), and most recently diver Jenny Donnet (1992), who was flag bearer 20 years ago.

Five-time Olympian Ric Charlesworth has been reported as calling for a woman to carry the flag in 2012. Australia sends many excellent women to the Olympics, and it is troubling that honours such as this are not evenly…

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Aussie academics in all fields are used to travelling around the globe to attend conferences, network, sight-see and participate in social and educational pursuits. Before every Olympic Summer Games it is traditional to have a multi-disciplinary major international conference covering areas of sport and exercise science, sport medicine, sport coaching and related areas.

So here we are at the Scottish Exhibition and Convention Centre with over 1900 registered delegates at the International Convention on Science, Education and Medicine in Sport. It is five days of presenting research, networking, meeting with publishers to disseminate research and engaging in other collegial activities. Scottish hospitality has been a treat after…

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Stop acting like idiots and get down to business is what Eddie McGuire advised our Olympic athletes to do in his Sunday Herald Sun column. And Eddie is right in so many ways!

There is nothing wrong with Olympic athletes trying to cash in on their (mostly) short lived successes. They do put their lives on hold in order to draw the best possible physical and mental performances out of their (mostly) youthful bodies.

But is is exactly that – peak performance of the athletic kind – that made the Greeks put on the Olympic Games in the first place. And Baron de Coubertin – irrespective of his slightly biased upperclass conception of the new world – also saw sporting prowess as the means to…

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You write some papers on the mechanics of Bolt’s sprinting and what happens? – You end up doing media stuff. The questions I’m always asked are “how fast can Bolt run” or “how fast can humans run 100m”. I will go through the science answer at a later date. But here are few interesting facts to wet your whistle…

Bolt at the World Championships in 2009 ran 100 m in 9.58 s – with an average velocity of 10.4m/s and an average velocity during the 60-80 m split of 12.3m/s. He was running faster than 12m/s from 40m until he crossed the line.

He took 41 steps to cover the 100m (most sprinters take 45). His foot was on the ground significantly longer than either Tyson Gay or Asfa Powell – why is this important? I’ll cover this in the…

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For the last five years, Anthony and a team of RMIT University researchers have been analysing video to develop statistical models for training and tactics used with Australian badminton Olympians. RMIT researchers are also developing Olympic ratings and rankings to help in the evaluation of opponents, and likelihood of Olympic qualification.

After 1000 of hours of tagging and coding our footage of hundreds of our badminton teams potential opponents, we are ready for our next challenge: the draw.

Our team of statisticians has been working with the Australian badminton team for the last five years, with a gradual improvement in our analytical methods helping the team…

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It’s one of the most intriguing questions asked prior to the Olympic Games Opening Ceremony. Who will carry the country’s flag? Whilst some countries have already chosen their bearer for the ‘Parade of Nations’ the vast majority are yet to publicly anoint their representative.

Each country utilises different methods to choose. Some possess so few athletes that it’s not much of a race, whilst others use methodologies that would make the Vatican proud.

In the UK there is some manner of democracy, however the system is as complicated as any mixed member proportional or biproportional apportionment system.

Some countries go with the big name athlete rather than a wizened Olympic veteran that only trivia aficionados and close family…

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A heady day of excitement here for the Australian Rowing Team. We got up reasonably early this morning, bid farewell to the European Training Centre, and boarded coaches for the Milan airport. After one last coffee and a quick rid-yourself-of-euros session (read: impulse shopping), we boarded our British Airways flight for London.

From the moment we stepped off the flight, teams of pink-and-purple shirted volunteers were ushering us around, through designated customs lines, Olympic accreditation, and into waiting coaches. A quick bus ride (only 10 minutes to the rowing village) and we were in our secure, isolated venue and ready to start…

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As I checked today’s national papers, I was relieved to see that most had special coverage of athletes to watch at the 2012 games – Hooray! My initial blog that I wrote a few days ago went as follows:

Almost a week out from the 2012 Olympic games and is it just me, or has there not been that much press about potential athletic performance? Sure, I know loads about the “shambles” that is the security provision, a little about some athletes and their despondency at not being able to select their room mates, heard about the threat of boycotting the relay by the Australian sprinter and who can forget about the discussions around the “inappropriate” pictures posted on Facebook by a few…

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I was reading through the Olympic posts on The Conversation when I came across Brian Stoddart’s critique of public funding of sport. Being a recipient of some of the funding that Mr Stoddart would seek to re-direct, I was, naturally, opposed to his thesis that public funding for Olympic sport should be scaled back. This in and of itself is not a problem for me — public funds are limited, and there will always be calls to move money from one pile into another. What inspired me to respond to his article was Mr Stoddart’s characterisation of the rationale behind Olympic funding.

Mr Stoddart states that elite sport got, ‘additional cash from governments on the back of no better an argument than, “it is a good look internationally for…

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Forget the medal count. It seems the real competition for London is the amount of whingeing that can be achieved even before the flame has been lit. In deference to stereotypical norms, my adopted country (yes a former Pom am I) has tried hard to top the podium, with AOC head honcho John Coates taking the lead with persistent moaning about the apparent lack of financial support for Australian athletes. He topped it all off when a busy PM chose a really quite important UN summit in Brazil over an athlete farewell dinner in Melbourne.

Then Ric Charlesworth, coach to the Kookaburra’s, chimed in, complaining incessantly about the bounciness…

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I really enjoyed reading Simon Outram’s balanced, realistic assessment of the impact on legalised doping in sport. And, if the health impacts of it were possible to avoid, then I’m sure that the usage of it would be a much more reasonable prospect.

As an athlete, there are two things about the legalised usage of performance-enhancing drugs that bother me. The first is that I would feel like I was required to take them in order to be competitive, and that if I missed a dose or a cycle then I would be behind my competitors. Even if the drug might not have helped me that much, the fact that I may perceive that I was at a disadvantage could pile a psychological limitation…

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I’m generally not too fussed about packing. Most of my packing is done haphazardly the morning of my flight, or the night before in the most extreme cases, with clothes tossed semi-folded or wrinkled into a giant duffel. No lists, no planning, as little forethought as can just be managed. And, aside from a few forgotten toothbrushes and way too many pairs of socks, it’s served me rather well, all things considered.

The reason this matters is because I find myself looking at my bed and desk in my room in the AIS European training centre, and all I can see is two full duffels and a neat pile of carry-on things. You might think that my flight to London for the Olympic games was tonight, or if I was feeling particularly inspired, tomorrow…

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This morning Sam Lane reported on the front page of the Age that the Australian women’s basketball team flew premium economy to London while the men flew business class. On the one hand, this sounds like a first world problem. As a person who pretty much always travels economy, I’d be happy to travel in either. However that the higher ranked women’s team is being treated systematically differently from the men is interesting. Why would this be the case? I’d argue that this is yet another example of the lack of esteem we have for women’s sport in general. It is part of the larger pattern that places women’s sport below men’s sport in the sporting hierarchy, and the pattern holds…

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This will be my seventh Olympics. There is huge amount of activity associated with the Olympic Games that is often not well known as it is peripheral to the Games but important to various interest groups.

For example, I will be off to series of pre-Olympic Sport Conferences that are traditionally held just before the start of each Summer Olympics. My two conferences will be in Glasgow and Loughborough, where I will be joined by hundreds of other academics from around the world (including a number of Aussies from various universities) who will be attending these events to present sport-related research, network, set up research collaborations…

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A global event for global sponsors and global media barons. All the rhetoric about the Olympic Games delivering a lasting and local legacy for the (socially disadvantaged) of London and the people of England to me is a public relations smokescreen. The mass sport participation legacy to be achieved through the Games, for example, seems out of reach when Sport England reported modest participation growth but a drop in participation among young people (16-19) and women since the announcement of London as the 2012 host.

I am sure many are making money as a result of the Games, and billions of people derive short term pleasure from watching the spectacle, but it is time that owners and operators of this mega event acknowledge…

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Amid concerns that security around the London Olympics was compromised following the admission by contactor G4S that they were unable to supply the majority of the personnel they promised, there remains one area that will be rigorously and ruthlessly policed.

One could almost sense a collective sigh of relief from spectators as they plan their attack on rain soaked, snaking queues longer than country lanes. VIP’s and other members of the ‘Olympic Family’ can also now rest easy on plumped up pillows in their over inflated hotel suites.

All’s right in the sporting world as the ambush police of the Olympic Delivery Authority commenced their patrols the streets of London bedecked in purple. Their mission? Simple – to seek out evil wrongdoers…

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As I’m writing this I have just finished a radio interview about Usain Bolt and it is now nine days nine hours and 33 minutes to go before the start of the Olympics.

What will the opening ceremony be like? (It can’t and won’t compete with Bejing).

Who will light the cauldron? – According to the press it appears to be between Daley Thompson and Steve Redgrave, and how will it be lit?

Will it rain? – I wouldn’t be surprised this is the UK summer. We have gone through a very wet drought here in the UK with hose pipe bans.

All will be revealed in nine days nine hours and 30 min from now. I got my ticket – you will notice the singular – scarcer than Willy Wonka’s Golden ticket. But I’m off to the Olympics for the 100m heats.

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Despite their good intentions, The Modern Olympics tend to polarise the general public. Like many other brands of their magnitude, people have become emotionally attached, or detached, to the Olympic brand. As a consequence, some people, and even destinations, will pay just about anything to get to the Olympics.

If Olympic ‘devotees’ can’t be at the events, they will set themselves up in front of their television and at LiveSites. And this year, for the first time in the history of the Olympic Games, regular punters will be able view the competitions, events and stats from any number of apps on their smartphones.

Devotees love the sport, the competition and the spectacle, and just about anything about the Olympics. Others…

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The Olympics are again upon us, and Australia has some excellent and prominent women athletes. Stephanie Rice, Sally Pearson and Anna Meares, for example, are all at the top of their game and likely to do well. I wonder, though, if women’s Olympic sport will receive a similar amount of news coverage as men’s. I wonder this because very little sports news is ever about women’s sport.

I am a lecturer and this last semester I gave the students in my sociology of sport class an assignment that asked them to choose a local newspaper and analyse its sports coverage by gender. They had to count the number of articles on women’s, men’s and other types of sport and measure the amount of space devoted to each category. Now it’s clear when…

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As we come to the end of our Olympic preparation camp at the AIS European Training Center in Varese, Italy, I find myself thinking about the meaning of what we do here.

Sport occupies a unique place in Australian culture, simultaneously providing entertainment as well as creating national heroes. The veneration of sports stars is derided somewhat by those who would prefer that our scientists or doctors or artists were recognised, but rather than throw my weight behind sport in this debate, I would rather suggest something that unites these heroes.

When I look around my team at all the exceptional athletes that I have trained with over the months and years, there is one common factor: devotion. I chose that word very carefully, for…

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