London 2012: Adam Gemili may give Olympics a miss despite fast time - The Guardian
Young sprinter Adam Gemili may skip the Olympics due to a fear that competing at the Games may harm his development.
The 18-year-old ran a time of 10.08sec at the Sparkassen Gala in Regensburg, Germany last weekend, putting him at the top of the British rankings and securing the Olympic A standard. But his coach, Michael Afilaka, said Gemili is still aiming for the World Junior Championships in Barcelona in July rather than London 2012.
Competing in both as it stands presents some difficulty as the trials are less than a week apart.
"If there is leeway to get us to the Olympics we'll consider it, but right now the aim is stick to going to the World Juniors," Afilaka told The Daily Telegraph. "The management of our junior guys is something I've been really concerned about. We don't manage them very well and we do too much too soon."
Gemili, a former footballer who spent time in Chelsea's youth setup, has seen dramatic improvements since choosing to concentrate on athletics earlier this year and the teenager seemed keener than his coach on competing in London. He said: "My focus so far has been the World Juniors, but following this my coach and I will definitely be sitting down to discuss options. It's a great opportunity and a nice dilemma to have."
London 2012 Olympics: Craig Bellamy breaks silence to reveal he has been selected for Team GB's football squad - Daily Telegraph
“I had a difficult season with Liverpool but the Olympics is a one-off,” he continued. "It’s a different challenge."
Pearce will confirm his 18-man squad later this week and Ryan Giggs, Joe Cole and David Beckham have been touted as other players over 23 who could join Bellamy.
London orchestra to mime Games opening - ABC Online
Updated
There is outrage in London about the decision by Olympic Games organisers to have the London Symphony Orchestra mime its performance at the opening ceremony.
It has emerged the world renowned orchestra will pretend to perform while a recording made six weeks ago blasts out of the stadium speakers.
Considered to be one of the best orchestras in the world, it was awarded the contract for the 2012 Games.
But when the athletes walk in to the stadium in front of a worldwide audience of 4 billion people, the orchestra will in fact be pretending.
Twitter has been abuzz with outrage.
"What a bloody joke," one person said, "The London Symphony Orchestra told to mime at games opening."
"You'll see the London Symphony Orchestra at the Olympics, but you won't hear it - how ridiculous, what a farce," another posted.
The decision was made by the London Games organising committee, which is worried about the acoustics and the uncertainties of the British weather.
"Due to the complexity of everything involved in staging the ceremonies, it's not possible for all the music in all the shows to be live," a committee spokesperson said in a statement.
"There will be live musical elements, but many of the songs will be recorded to track in advance of the shows.
"This is standard practice for an event of this scale, and the performers have no issue with it."
The music to blare out of the stadium at the opening games ceremony was recorded at the famous Abbey road studios.
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra operations director Lou Oppenheim says the decision to pre-record the music is not unreasonable.
"Performances such as the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games are incredibly complex from an operational perspective," she said.
"The inter-relationships between a whole lot of different elements, including the musical elements, the pyrotechnics, the announcements, the lighting of the cauldron - everything has to be done to split-second timing."
Ms Oppenheim says a whole lot of different things can influence what can happen with the timing which is calculated to the tenth of a second.
"The wonderful thing obviously, the audiences will be still hearing the sounds of the fabulous London Symphony Orchestra, so it's not as if they're miming to, you know, another orchestra," she said.
"But if that's what's happening I would understand that that's possibly why that might be the case."
What might come as a surprise to many is that the Sydney Symphony Orchestra mimed its performance at the opening of the Sydney Games in 2000, and the backing tape was recorded, in part, by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.
Ms Oppenheim says live outdoor performances are difficult to manage and it is important that nothing is left to chance.
"I think it's important that we hear orchestras in the best fantastic light and if they've actually had to make a call that that's the way they've got to do it for this, I think you know, some understanding around that and to make sure that all of the elements of the ceremony can come together as smoothly as possible," she said.
Topics: music, olympics-summer, england
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