The Big Read

The Olympic Flame: an enduring symbol of the Games that burns forever

By Philip Barker

It is the simplest symbol of the Olympics, but certainly the most potent.

In Ancient Olympia, the flame is lit from the rays of the sun and passes in a relay of many hands that will take it to the Olympic Stadium.

It is where on Thursday (May 10) the journey for the Olympic Flame to London 2012 will begin.

From Russia with love: five outstanding Russian Olympians relive their mostly glory days in London

By Mike Rowbottom

The hushed and swanky surrounds of the Grosvenor House Apartments in Park Lane offered a suitably smart venue for five of Russia's most illustrious Olympians this week.

Invited over by VisitBritain to do what Russian tourists do best for the best part of a week, 2008 Olympic silver medallist and former world number one tennis player Dinara Safina and 1996 Olympic 800 and 1500 metres winner Svetlana Masterkova have been out and about around the capital in company with Alexei Nemov, the all-around gymnastics champion in 2000, Maria Kiseleva, three-times Olympic synchronised swimming champion and Buvaisar Saitiev, the three-times Olympic free-style wrestling champion.

From raising money to activating maximum brand exposure Olympic sponsors are harnessing power of pins

By David Owen

The Olympic pin craze, I get: having whiled away many childhood hours with my stamp collection - which briefly and, with the benefit of hindsight, rather worryingly, diversified into postmarks and, yes I admit it, locomotive number-plates - I can understand the zeal with which people all over the world set about accumulating these shiny mementoes of an undeniably special event.

What I could never quite grasp, until asked to tackle this article, was why some Olympic sponsors took the whole business so seriously.

I mean, were they hoping to sell more, say, Coke – or electricity – to hardcore pin-collectors?

Outspoken, unpredictable and genuine: Dave Bedford, London Marathon's race director, will be a hard act to follow

By Mike Rowbottom

Like the two winners of the first London Marathon in 1981, Dick Beardsley and Inge Simonsen, David Bedford and Hugh Brasher will be hand-in-hand during next week's 32nd running of the event. Not literally, perhaps – but figuratively.

Bedford, who joined the London Marathon in 1986, takes the final step this year towards relinquishing the position of race director which he has carried out so spectacularly well in succession to Brasher's father Chris, who established the event with John Disley and stepped up to the position of Life President in 1995.

It'll take more than an Icelandic ash cloud to halt the power of SportAccord

By David Owen

Remember Eyjafjallajökull?

Anna Hellman does.

The Icelandic volcano caused some of her most stressful days as executive director of SportAccord Convention, which – as Hellman and her colleagues prepare for the 10th anniversary edition from May 20 to 25 in Québec City, Canada – is firmly established as one of the key events in the international calendar for sports decision-makers.

South African sports owes East London a "huge debt of gratitude" says Sam Ramsamy

By Tom Degun

For Sam Ramsamy, the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games will be particularly poignant.

The 74-year-old from Durban is one of the most respected and powerful figures in sport, praised widely for shaping dramatically South African sport and respected in his position as an International Olympic Committee (IOC) Executive Board member.

Ramsamy was one of the most high-profile anti-apartheid campaigners for the latter part of the last century and served as chairman of the South Africa non-racial Olympic Committee (SANROC) during the apartheid years of 1976 to 1990.

Steve Backley shows us how to unleash "The Champion in All of Us"

By Mike Rowbottom
With just over four months to go until the third London Olympics and Paralympics get underway, there are already 59 British competitors who are able to set their sights clearly on how they will perform in the biggest event of their lives, having been officially selected.

For many others, the next few weeks will be suffused with nerves, and uncertainty. Listening to the reaction of Jo Jackson the other day to her Olympic selection was instructive. Given her previous performances in the pool at the Olympics and world championships, she looked – on the face of it – an obvious choice to represent her country in the home Games.

But injury and a persistent problem with asthma had hampered her preparations, and her relief upon actually making the team was palpable. As she said, people had been wishing her luck for London 2012 for months, making the assumption that she would be there – an assumption she could not allow herself to share.

From the Apprentice to rising star in the IOC, Angela Ruggiero is one to watch

By Tom Degun

The Organising Committee for the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics and Paralympics can consider themselves extremely fortunate that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has named a Coordination Commission of huge experience to help the South Korean city with their preparations for the Games.

The 11-person Commission will be chaired by Sweden's Gunilla Lindberg, who was part of the Coordination Commission for the Turin 2006 and Vancouver 2010 Winter Games.

She is also part of the Commission for Sochi 2014, which is still in working mode.