Gymbrooke (GymWatch.com) is reporting something incredible to this blogger.
To placate TV, athletes and coaches will not be allowed to blog from the Games. No MySpace. No Facebook. No YouTube. No Flickr.
This is ridiculous and unenforceable. The ruling will never hold.
When thousands of athletes from 42 countries meet at the Pan American Games in Brazil in July this year, athletes will be forbidden to update their blogs or websites during the competition. There will also be restrictions on broadcast of live images on the Internet.
According to the Brazilian newspaper O Dia, all sports federations in Brazil have received an official letter signed by Carlos Arthur Nuzman, the president of the organising committee for Rio 2007. In the letter the federations are told that “no athlete and/or officer of the Brazilian delegation of the XV Pan American Games can act as a reporter, produce text or research for publishing purposes, or report periodically or daily for online-sites on the web during the games.â€
The above rules apply to all athletes attending the Pan American Games.
What’s next?
The Olympics?
In Australia, the Australian Olympic Committee has already forbidden its athletes to maintain blogs during the Olympic Games in Beijing. …
IOC discusses whether to allow blogs
For the IOC the blogging by athletes is also an issue of concern – particularly in connection with the Olympic Games in Beijing where freedom of speech is already a major topic.
But the IOC has not made any decision yet on what policy to adopt and is waiting for recommendations from national Olympic committees.
source – Play The Game
GymnasticsCoaching.com will be happy to post content from the Pan Am Games.
Rio 2007 Pan American Games – official website
6 comments ↓
That is crazy! I really don’t understand the rule…I guess TV controls the world.
On the other hand, blogs are very powerful. Rick blogged about my site once and (according to Google Analytics) GymnasticsCoaching.com is my #2 referring website right after Google. Thanks Rick!
That’s rubbish! The whole reason athletes like myself start blogs is to keep people up dated. If athletes are blogging their prep for the Olympics, then they can’t actually update whats happenig whilst they’re there, that’s just maddness!
If they’re going to restrict like that, then they need to make mighty sure that fans at home get more than 15 minutes of gymnastics per 45 minutes of commercials (what we get in the states via NBC of OUR OWN NATIONALS-and we only see 4 or 5 athletes).
Completely ridiculous.
how on earth will they monitor or punish bloggers anyway?! they are anonymous mostly and therefore unstoppable! whoever came up with that rule underestimated bloggers greatly!!
free the people
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