Tag Archives: Olympics

Boxer Michael Conlan at the 2015 Web Summit in the RDS, Dublin

This afternoon.

Meanwhile…

The report states that “approximately nine bouts” were “suspicious beyond the two raised in the media at the time” – one of the latter in reference to Conlan’s controversial split decision loss to Nikitin in a bantamweight quarter-final…

Conlan defeat among 11 ‘suspicious’ Rio 2016 fights due to bout manipulation system (RTÉ)

Pic: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile via Wikimedia

This morning

Cork’s 96FM Opinion Line.

Fiona Corcoran spoke with TJ Ryan of Skibbereen Rowing Club and Trish O’Donovan (above), mother of Paul O’Donovan, who along with Fintan McCarthy took gold overnight at the Tokyo Olympics.

‘From the day he was born he was special’ – Paul O’Donovan’s mother delighted after he wins gold in Tokyo (Independent.ie)

Earlier: Life Is But A Dream

This morning.

Via Sky Sports:

Hubbard will compete in the super-heavyweight category, her selection made possible by updated qualifying requirements.

The 43-year-old, who will be the oldest lifter at the Games, had competed in men’s weightlifting competitions – although not at international level – before transitioning nearly 10 years ago.

Olympics: Laurel Hubbard to become first transgender athlete to compete at Games (Sky Sports)

Meanwhile…

Reuters

Ireland’s Olympic HQ,  Howth, county Dublin

This afternoon.

The athletes and support teams, which number in the low hundreds, will receive the Pfizer jab thanks to an agreement between the pharmaceutical company and the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

The development has been welcomed by the Irish Olympic and Paralympic federations who believe the measure will relieve “very high levels of anxiety that a lack of vaccination was causing among the team”.

Meanwhile…

Meanwhile…

Oh.

RollingNews

This morning.

The World anti-doping agency has voted unanimously to ban Russia from international sport for four years for doping offences.

Russia now have 21 days to appeal the sentence, which would see the country banned from participating at next summer’s Olympics in Tokyo and the Qatar World Cup of 20

Russia banned from Tokyo Olympics and football World Cup (The Guardian)

From top: Tokyo 2020 logo; John Treacy, of Sports Ireland,  Mayor Hideyuki Harada (Fukuroi City) Pat Hickey, former CEO of the Olympic Federation of Ireland

This afternoon.

Sorts Ireland Campus, Blanchardstown, Dublin.

Following the Rio 2016 fiasco…

Via The Olympic Federation of Ireland:

Today at an event in the Sport Ireland Institute the Olympic Federation of Ireland (OFI) signed an agreement with officials from the city of Fukuroi for Team Ireland’s Tokyo 2020 pre games training camp.

The OFI also announced that it has appointed Finnish company, Elämys Group, as its Authorised Ticket Reseller (ATR) for the Tokyo 2020 Games following a rigorous selection process.

Before the final appointment of the new ATR the OFI board asked Grant Thornton to conduct a thorough review of the company. As part of its review Grant Thornton examined the firm’s financial stability, ownership structures, industry checks, regulatory compliance, and consumer protections.

On the basis of the findings of that report the OFI Board were satisfied to appoint Elämys Group as the Federation’s official ATR for Toyko 2020.

Olympic Federation of Ireland

Rollingnews

davidwalshdavidwalsh

From top: David Walsh; The Sunday Independent, March 24, 1996

In fairness.

Few openly challenged Pat Hickey.

Sportswriter and Lance Armstrong nemesis David Walsh was one.

Twenty years ago, in the Sunday Independent, Mr Walsh, wrote:

Is there anybody out there who cares?

On, Friday, March 1 [1996], the President of the Olympic Council of Ireland (OCI) Pat Hickey said that Roy Douglas, chief executive of Irish Permanent Building Society, was his personal guest at the 1990 World Cup in the US.

The trip, according to Hickey, had nothing to do with the OCI. At the time, this newspaper, wrote that Douglas’s hotel bills at the World Cup were paid by the OCI.

On Tuesday morning last, March 19, Pat Hickey admitted in an RTE interview that Douglas’s hotel bills in the US were paid by the OCI. If Douglas was Hickey’s personal guest at the World Cup, why did the OCI take care of his hotel bills?

At a prestigious OCI banquet in December 1994, 48 Irish Permanent people were guests at a function where most of those present paid £30 for their tickets.

Quizzed about this unusually high representation from one company, Hickey says that the OCI were working with the Irish Permanent on a “special deal” to provide permanent headquarters for the Olympic movement in Ireland.

Around this time the OCI were also negotiating with two other companies, AIB and a Shannon-based leasing firm, for the purpose of acquiring permanent headquarters.

Neither AIB nor the leasing company were issued with anything like that number of free tickets: the AIB (official OCI sponsors then and now) got six, the leasing company did not get any.

Hickey has never offered a convincing explanation for the presence of so many Irish Permanent people at that OCI banquet.

Other aspects of the president’s performance raise important questions. Even though the OCI has a marketing subcommittee; Hickey personally negotiated a sponsorship deal with Opel which secured the use of an Opel Omega for himself until the end of the year.

The other elements of the deal are that Opel provide visiting dignitaries with cars while they are in Ireland and Opel, through its parent company General Motors, will provide cars for the Irish team at pre-Olympic training in, Fort Lauderdale and then at the Games in Atlanta.

Questions have also been asked about the OCI’s level of administrative spending. This newspaper sought, details of credit card payments for 1995 (five officers have OCI Visa cards) but the president refused to make them available.

Two members of the current OCI executive committee, former Olympian Brendan O’Connell and hockey administrator David Balbirnie, have asked that John Purcell, the Comptroller and Auditor General, be brought in to examine the accounts of the Olympic Council of Ireland.

O’Connell and Balbirnie insist that administrative spending is not properly recorded and receipted.

Last year the OCI received in excess of £lm of taxpayers’ money. O’Connell and Balbirnie have written to Purcell, formally suggesting that he look at accounting procedures in the OCI.

Given that the Comptroller and Auditor General exists to serve the taxpayer, it would be a surprise if he did not want te examine the OCI books.

Pat Hickey agreed to pay the travel and accommodation costs of Sports Minister Bernard Allen’s children while the Minister was on OCI business in Atlanta last Easter [along with the minister’s private secretary Austin Mallon and his wife].

Hickey insists that the ‘expenditure’ on the Minister’s family was miniscule and that ‘the rewards’ were great but what matters here is not the amount but the principle.

Funded by the taxpayer, the OCI should not be paying for the flights of the Minister’s children and,the Minister should not have allowed it to happen.

In other democracies, this would lead to resignations but not everyone here is overly concerned.

Fianna Fáil, the main opposition party, has not uttered a word of protest. Does this mean they approve of a Minister’s family, holiday being part-funded by the taxpayer?

Hickey’s leadership style has led to many personality conflicts.

As well as alienating fellow executive committee members, Balbirnie and O’Connell, there is a rift between. Hickey and the OCI’s fundraisihg committee in Atlanta.

In a Morning Ireland interview on Tuesday, Hickey stated that the US fundraisers used money they had raised to cover their travelling costs.

Not so, say the Americans, who are considering legal proceedings against the president they are supposed to be helping. Where this ends is anyone’s guess.

That Hickey’s position as OCI president has been undermined by the events and disclosures of the last three months is beyond dispute. Whether he remains on as OCI president is less certain.

His future is in the hands of his own executive committee and in the 28 Olympic federations that he serves. Whatever happens, the Olympic Council of Ireland has been greatly damaged by the current controversies.

Hickey is a battler and in the business of sports politics he is a survivor. Balbirnie and O’Connell, however, have pledged to continue with their fight within the OCI’s executive committee until Hickey resigns.

But they believe that there might be moves to replace them on committee.

Removing the dissident members, though, will not get rid of the OCI’s problems.

On the night, December 6 last, that Balbirnie was forced to resign as Ireland’s Olympic chef de mission, and O’Connell resigned as assistant chief, Pat Hickey said that the controversy would be nothing more than a “seven day wonder.”

The ‘seven day wonder’ is now in its fourth month and shows no sign of ending. Balbernie and O’Connell believe the only solution is the resignation of Pat Hickey.

As of now, with the damage the continuing controversy is causing to the OCI and by extension to Irish Olympians, that seems to me to be the only solution.

Article via Irish newspaper Archive

Good times.

David Walsh

90426689 90426693thg

From top: Pro 10 offices, Main Street, Lucan, Co Dublin; THG logo

Further to the Rio ticket brouhaha

The Irish Examiner reports:

A “close commercial relationship” exists between two firms at the heart of the multi-million euro Olympics ticket touting scandal, it was admitted last night.

…Amid allegations by Brazilian police that THG [part of the Marcus Evans Group] has been involved in a decade-long global ticket touting scandal it has attempted to cover-up by “camouflaging” increased prices by including hospitality services, the company initially denied any connection to Pro10.

However, a THG spokesman last night told the Irish Examiner it has “close commercial links” with the smaller firm.

“There may well have been a close commercial relationship between Pro10 and THG because that is a normal thing when they are doing big things in Rio,” said the spokesman. “These guys [Pro10], I am not excusing it and I do not know the answer, but these guys are a small company, when this news broke they didn’t know how to handle it.”

Meanwhile, The Irish Times reports:

When the Irish Times rang Pro10’s Lucan office this week it was redirected to a voicemail where the message noted that the voicemail was full. It went on to say: “Thank you for calling Marcus Evans. Our office is now closed.”

When contacted, a spokesman for Pro10 Sports Management said it too was “puzzled” as to how the reference to Marcus Evans appeared on a phone line which was supposed to have been run by it.

He said the number in question had been shut down and expressed surprise it was now live again. He stressed that Pro10 was not affiliated to the Marcus Evans Group.

And in a separate article:

Pro10, which was established by two Irish football agents and a Dublin mortgage broker shortly before being awarded the Olympic ticketing contract, says it handled all Rio ticket enquiries itself during Irish office hours.

…“Outside of these hours, and because of the time difference between Ireland and Brazil, the Pro10 phone line diverted to the THG phone line as this phone line was manned round the clock and could deal with any collection queries [in Rio] for Pro10 customers,” it said.

Pro10 insists it has no commercial relationship with THG and the UK company was not paid for manning its phone lines. It also insists neither THG nor Mr Mallon were paid for acting as the point of contact for tickets collection for Pro10 customers in Rio.

Close ties between firms at heart of Olympics ticket touting scandal revealed (Daniel McConnell and Fiachra Ó Cionnaith, Irish Examiner)

What is the story with the Olympics ticketing controversy? (Conor Pope, Irish Times)

THG manned tickets hotline for Pro10 ‘to ensure 24-hour cover’ (Mark Paul, Tom Hennigan, Irish Times)

Previously: Fresh Scalps

Rollingnews