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Olympic Games
This week was something of an Olympic week with meetings at the LSE a partial conference engagement on the Riverbank in London and the All Party Olympic conference at Portcullis House in Westminster. The latter was a fasincating programme of speakers which included Seb Coe, Colin Moynihan, Manny Lewis and its host Derek Wyatt. There is so much more to come
Research seminar for the Center for Olympic Studies Research: 'Human Enhancement Technologies and the Bio-Politico-Ethics of Sport'
Over the last 5 years, the world has encountered considerable developments in human enhancement technologies. Yet, beyond their techical successes and failures, stem-cells, genetics, nanotech, and information technologies have all featured in the everyday sociologies of the future that abound within media and scholarly texts. The world of sport has encountered a wide range of these applications and the positioning of sports medicine in relation to experimental medical technologies invites rich and complex speculations on the development of performance in elite sport. In this paper, I discuss the role of bio(ethics) in cultural studies and its bearing on the human enhancement debate by drawing on Zylinska (2005). Within the UK, the most recent instantiation of this debate is through the public inquiry into Human Enhancement Technologies in Sport (Science and Technology Select Committee, 2006), the first evidence session of which heard from former 100m Olympic chamption Linford Christie. I discuss the political positioning of sports insitutions in relation to these technologies and how they reflect a broader bio-politico-ethical stance against human enhancement (Garnier, 2006; WADA, 2006). Moreover, I suggest that this positioning is broadly indicative of a fundamental tension within the world of medicine over its legitimate role, and the ends of a commercial model for human modification. These circumstances limit the possibility of open debate about the relevance and merit of anti-doping programmes and weaken the credibility of sport's judicial ethos, the latter of which is highlighted by responses from athletes to Linford Christie's involvement with the public inquiry. Finally, I conclude that these characteristics of sport's political economy inhibit nations from developing technoprogressive approaches to the human enhancement debate. References
Garnier, A. (2006). An Open Letter to Those Promoting Medical Supervision of Doping. Lausanne, Switzerland, World Anti-Doping Agency.
Science and Technology Select Committee (2006, March 1). New Inquiry: Human Enhancement Technologies in Sport. Select Committee for Science and Technology, British Government.
World Anti-Doping Agency (2005). The Stockholm Declaration [on Gene Doping], World Anti-Doping Agency.
Zylinska, J. (2005). The Ethics of Cultural Studies. London, Continuum.
Last weekend, Beatriz and I were in Philadelphia, having been invited to contribute to the second meeting of the project developed by Monroe Price and Daniel Dayan exploring the Beijing Olympics. This was another excellent meeting with some great presentations and discussions. It was also my first time in Philadelphia and I really warmed to the place. We were located in the city centre on Chestnut Street, which is a great location, especially for shopping and cultural activity.
In the meeting, our contribution was to discuss the role of new and alternative media platforms at an Olympic Games, which develops our research from the last four Olympics. Beijing looks like an exciting and intriguing case study in this respect.
This was an excellent meeting, which is devloping into a book publication. Beatriz Garcia and I were brought in to this collaboration between the Communication University of China and the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania by Professor Tian (Tina) Zhihui, star blogger and expert on all that is the Web. At this meeting, Beatriz and I gave a paper titled 'The New Media at the Olympics: Citizen Journalists and the Non-Accredited Media'.
At the CUC and Annenberg conference in Beijing, I had the chance to meet Daniel Dayan, who also gave a reprise of his work with Elihu katz on 'media events'. We had an interesting exchange about a range of issues, from Zidane's controversial head butt to what might have happened f if the athletes from North and South Korea had started a fight as they entered the stadium at the Sydney 2000 Olympics. This was a lovely meeting with good strong discussions and great sense of humour. It was a highlight of our trip to Beijing.
Beijing 4th Olympic Cultural Festival Closing Ceremony
Originally uploaded by andymiah.
Wow, a whole month without posting; I was beginning to develop withdrawal systems. So, I went from Lausanne direct to Beijing and China doesn't allow access to some blogging tools, including wordpress and blogspot. It reminded me how important it is to ftp my blog, but I still haven't worked out how to make that step.
There are too many stories to tell about Beijing, I don't really know where to begin. My flickr stream is packed with new content and still more to come, including inside views of the Bird's nest Olympic stadium.
This photograph is from the Beijing 4th Olympic Cultural Festival Closing Ceremony. More about that and other findings later.
This month, Beatriz and I are in Beijing undertaking research for the British Academy with a view to advising the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games on aspects of media and culture. This is our first visit to China and after one week into the trip everything has been superb.
The International Centre for Olympic Studies at the University of Western Ontario, in London, Canada announces its 8th International Symposium for Olympic Research to be held on the Western campus from Thursday evening, 19 October through Saturday, 21 October 2006. This is a call to all scholars interested in presenting a research paper at the symposium on socioculturalOlympic themes, to submit an abstract of their study. The deadline for thesubmission of abstracts is 15 May 2006.
Please send submissions to
Robert K. Barney, Interim Director of ICOS, School of Kinesiology, University ofWestern Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada N6A-3K7, and/or by email to<rkbarney@uwo.ca,
and/or by FAX--519-661-4148.
Notification of those submissions accepted for presentation will be rendered by 15 June 2006. Afully completed and final text of those submissions accepted forpresentation must be in the hands of the Symposium organizers by no laterthan 1 September 2006.
The fully refereed and edited Proceedings of the Symposium, entitled "Cultural Imperialism in Action---Critiques of the Global Olympic Trust: Proceedings of the 8th International Symposium for Olympic Research" will be available to participants upon arrival at the Symposium.
This notice is also an advance announcement that ICOS's 9th symposium will be held in 2008 in Beijing during the week preceding the opening of the Games of the 29th Olympiad.
I had hoped that this page would let me embed a You Tube video, but it doesnt seem to be happening. Instead, here is a link to some recent uploads from Torino. (LATER SAYS:hurray, thanks wordpress guys.)[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWlQB9tAaDw]
On July 9-10 this year, the Humanistic Olympics Studies Center in Beijing hosts its 4th meeting. The Beijing Games is particularly interesting for my own research as it has signalled that it will be a 'Hi-Tech Olympics'. Professor Jin Yuanpu from Renmin university of China recently submitted a paper for the programme of the University of East London meeting on the Olympics, which details some of these points. The manuscript of this paper presents an advanced thesis on the various uses of technology in sport, its challenges and potentials. The theme for this year's meeting is cities and this will be particularly interesting for London 2012, which just this week signed agreements with Beijing to promote exchange and collaboration. As part of this, there is also interesting news for us academics. Quoting from the BOCOG site press release:
"Livingstone will promote London as a tourist destination and academic center during his three-day visit to China"
Tomorrow, Beatriz is speaking at a meeting at the University of East London. One of the keynote speakers is
I must confess to not having heard of this Union and found little advice from google. Even the IOC website says nothing about this initiative. I wonder if anyone can shed any light on this initiative. It sounds very interesting! The Athens Environmental Foundation has some details and a copy of an original lette from Avramopoulos and it sounds like one of the major initiatives Athens took on when it hosted the Games in 2004. Here is the copy from the AEF site:
"AEF has received a letter of strong support by the World Union of Olympic Cities (WUOC), an international organization that has been formally sanctioned by the International Olympic Committee. The WUOC has been created to join cities as international centers for the development of sports, cultural and international activities that symbolize the deeper meaning of the Olympic Movement.
In the letter to AEF, WUOC Executive President Dimitris L. Avramopoulos congratulates AFF for its efforts and encourages everyone to actively participate and support the foundation's global activities."
The B2008 website now boasts images of the landmark bulding - known as 'Water Cube' - for the Beijing 2008 Olympics, its National Swimming Centre.
While in Torino for the Games, I gave a lecture via some new software we are piloting at the University. Thanks to Kris, Boris and Robert for making this happen. After the death of one laptop and impossible firewalls at the Media Center, British Columbia Canada Place was really the only option. Thanks also to Daniel who convinced the pc to play ball.
Andy Miah gives a remote university lecture
Originally uploaded by bmann.
I returned from the Torino 2006 Games yesterday with the finger wagging advice of the Bryght guys. So here I am. I want to use this place to gradually replace the static look of my website. It would be nice to post all the material I usually include within my website here. Frequently, new elements of my website don't fit into any other research blogs I write, so this should be where all that goes. In essence then, this should give an impression of my week to week activities rather than function as a snapshot of my life.
In case you missed it, Torino's slogan is 'Passion Lives Here' and it certainly does seem true. Yesterday, we spent 3 hours queuing for the 400 tickets to the medal plaza that were made available for free to anyone. In the end, we missed out by about 20 places, but the experience was enlightening. Many of the people in the queue seemed more aware of and interested in the artist who would be performing, than the athletes who would be receiving medals. That night, the first, it was Andrea Boccelli, so the italians were particularly passionate about obtaining tickets. A few arguments broke out and people soon became strategic in their attempt to obtain a ticket. We overheard some people talking about buying them from others and a couple of times, we saw people offer their tickets to others.
The frustration came in the evening when seeing many of the seats empty. It is clear that the sale of tickets does not rate particularly highly for an organising committee, but it seems that it would be wonderful to avoid these situations, which seem to happen over and over again.
I think today, we will go direct to the Plaza in the evening and see if we can benefit from someone's generosity. Who can spend 3hrs queuing in Olympic Fortnight? I'm just glad i had my LifeDrive and a stack of reading.
I am writing from the Torino Media Centre within the City after having read and heard a lot more about Repoxygen. Over the last few days, there have been a number of journalists getting in touch wanting to find out about this. On Thursday, I interviewed for the Canadian Broadcast Corporation's evening news. I spoke with Tom Harrington, whom I first met in Toronto when Genetically Modified Athletes came out. It's so good to speak to Tom, as he is genuinely interested in the broader philosophical questions that the development in technology provokes. I am also interviewing for CBC's The Hour on Monday, which will take place at the Main Media Centre in Torino. From what I have seen, doping has been high on the news agenda for Torino. There still seems a lot of confusion about whether genetic doping is taking place and there are no confirmed cases. However, there does seem to be a lot of uncertainty about the circumstances here, which is quite different from Athens where nearly no discussions emerged during Games time about whether gene doping might be happening.
From what I have read, there is also less clarity about how best to deal with genetic doping. While WADA and others wish to treat it as just another form of doping, i believe that there is also a philosophical uncertainty about the future of doping and its bearing on humanity. This ambiguity relates to the broader changes within society through technology. In the end, we appear to live within a culture of enhancement and, in this environment, the relevance of prohibiting genetically modified athletes is weakened. All that remains is the medical interest to protect its integrity and the safety of athletes.
If any journalist would like to call me for interview while in Torino, I can be contacted on:
0034 6365 0302
The cauldren is about to be lit here in Torino. The city squares are full of people watching big tv screens and the final arrangements to the city are over. The Olympic Truce moment in the Opening Ceremony was spectacular, creative and poignant. Beatriz and I are now in the Media Centre among around 30 other journalists. The city has become progressively busy today, though still no major queues around ticket offices.
We learned that the medals plaza will be open to non-residents and that 400 tickets will be available each night for those who try to obtain them.
A couple of nights ago, we saw the dress rehearsal of the opening ceremony, but they didnt include the amazing ferrari moment. The red lookof the city is in clear coordination with the TOROC look of the Games. There seems to be a good collaborative branding to both elements and the Cultural Olympiad has a strong, subtle and stylish presence around the city.
Tickets were hard to obtain today. The website was unavailble for some time and although cheapest options were shown available, it was not possible to select them. WE eventually accessed some from the ticket office near Medal Plaza where a very small queue had formed. Typically, each customer took around 20mins to serve as they had to pick which days they wanted to visit venues.Not simple.
Last week, a new gene doping story broke just as I was preparing my final grades for the end of semester and desperately trying to finalise details for the the research trip to the Torino Olympics. Repoxygen has been billled as the first case of genetic doping. Naturally, the media has gone crazy trying to understand what this means and sports officials already claim that a test is already under development. Interestingly, the claim about this new method of doping using 'repoxygen' was discovered through heresay:
"The springboard for these dire pronouncements was an email German police found on the computer belonging to former east German coach to Katrin Krabbe, Thomas Springstein, who is on trial at the moment for doping under-age female athletes. The message complained how "difficult it is to get hold of Repoxygen. Please give me new instructions so that I can get hold of the product for Christmas". Michael Butcher, Scotland on Sunday [who, by the way, didnt bother to call me for an opinion!]
I'm off to Turin tomorrow and already have interviews lined up on this subject. On the approach to Athens, scientists were claiming that Beijing might be our first Gene Games, but it seems Turin might have that famous title.
The next research trip will take place at the Torino Games where Beatriz Garcia and I will continue our work looking at media and culture. This visit is funded by the British Academy and links with some research planned for Beijing 2008. View the flickr photos.
