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Coventry's Millennium Square smoke free for Olympic Games  

COVENTRY has decided to create a 'smoke-free square' for the duration of the Olympic Games this summer.

Last year the Telegraph exclusively revealed how city chiefs wanted to stop smoking in Millennium Place, where they hope families will gather to watch sport on the big screen.

However, it soon emerged the city council did not have the power to ban smoking in an outdoor area. So Coventry's Smokefree Alliance proposed a low cost campaign urging people not to light up in Millennium Place during the Games.

That has now been given the go ahead by Coventry City Council.

Coun Joe Clifford, the council's cabinet member for health and chairman of the Coventry Smokefree Alliance, has been a key supporter of the project and welcomed the news. The Olympics is synonymous with health, fitness and sporting excellence - everything that smoking is not," he said.

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Athletes bringing their own towels, cigarette firm as sponsor, and a budget of £760,000: Britain's shoestring Olympics of 1948 

Viewed through a 21st-century lens, the 1948 London Olympics resembles an Ealing comedy. It also saw deplorable examples of snobbery, sexism, racism and animal cruelty -- not to mention child labour and forced labour. The sponsors, horror of horrors, even included a brand of cigarettes.

And nobody gave two hoots for that sacred mantra of the modern Olympics -- 'legacy'.

The only piece of purpose-built Olympic infrastructure still in existence today is a pedestrian walkway outside Wembley Stadium . . .

Back then, as now, sponsorship played its part. Ovaltine, Guinness and Martell Brandy were among those who signed up, while Craven A cigarettes bought advertising space in the programme.

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• Tobacco sponsorship of sports could doom Japan's Olympic bid 

Japan risks losing its bid to host the 2020 Olympic Games because of growing local and international opposition to the national tobacco corporation's sponsorship of World Cup volleyball, which attracts millions of women and schoolgirls.

A United Nations agency, an international group of nongovernmental organizations and hundreds of antismoking activists and doctors in Japan are calling on Japan Tobacco, the world's third-largest cigarette maker, to halt its sponsorship of World Cup matches, which includes players from the United States and other nations that forbid tobacco advertising at sporting events.

A group of 2,500 doctors here also says tobacco sponsorship could hurt Japan's bid to host the 2020 Olympic Games.

Japan Tobacco insists it is doing nothing wrong under Japanese law and points out that it is promoting the corporation's beverage division, not its cigarette products, at the monthlong volleyball tournament, which ends Sunday.

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• Olympic fans to stub it out 

OLYMPICS chiefs are sparking controversy by banning smoking in outdoor areas.

The ban will cover spectators standing up as well as those in seats.

And it is expected to cover the entire 102-hectare London Olympic Park.

Fans in non-covered areas watching events including rowing at Dorney Lake, Bucks, and sailing off the Dorset coast will also be forbidden from lighting up.

An Olympics spokesman said last night that smoking would not be allowed in any ticketed areas.

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• World Health Organization welcomes Sochi 2014's decision to make next Winter Olympic Games smoke-free 

The World Health Organization has welcomed Sochi 2014's decision to support the non-smoking policy during the next Winter Olympic Games. It will make the Sochi Olympics the twelfth Olympic Games to be free from tobacco smoke, with a blanket ban that will protect over 155,000 athletes, sports delegation representatives and volunteers from the harmful effects of smoking. The best lessons learned from other international events were recently discussed at a working meeting in the city of Sochi, attended by representatives of the World Health Organization (WHO), international non smoking foundations, the Administration of Sochi and Krasnodar region, and the Sochi 2014 Organizing Committee.

During the working meeting, those present assessed the efforts of Organizing Committees from past Games in the fight again smoking. In particular they looked at the example of Beijing . . .

The meeting set out a framework which states that all the Olympic venues in Sochi during the Games and all public areas without exception will become non-smoking territory. The only place that smoking will be permitted during the Games is in specially marked areas outside the Olympic and Paralympic venues, which have been designed to minimise the impact on those who do not smoke. There will also be a ban on smoking in the bars and restaurants situated in the Olympic Park. Visitors will be unable to purchase cigarettes in any of the Olympic venues

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World Health Organization welcomes Sochi 2014’s decision to make next Winter Olympic Games smoke-free 

The World Health Organization has welcomed Sochi 2014's decision to support the non-smoking policy during the next Winter Olympic Games.

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Abbott calls for smoke-free Olympics 

THE SHADOW Public Health Minister, Diane Abbott MP, has urged people in Hackney to back her campaign to make the London 2012 Olympics smoke-free.

Ms Abbott has pressed the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games to commit to a unique tobacco-ban across the entire Olympic park during the 2012 games, tabling a question in the House of Commons and writing to Lord Coe and Boris Johnson.

Ms Abbott said: "I think it would send out a great message if the Olympic Games were completely smoke-free. We have worked hard to bring the Olympic Games to Britain. It should be a time in which we take a lead and showcase what Britain is about to the rest of the world. Hackney will host a third of the Games area, and I am determined that this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity is something that the people of Hackney will be proud of.

"I think that people can manage without a fag for the few hours that they are in the Olympic Park. Some people do not get to smoke all day because their offices are smoke-free zones.

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Sports Legend Revealed: Was a cigarette lighter once used to re-light the Olympic Flame? 

STATUS: True.

While the interlocking rings that make up the Olympic flag are undoubtedly the most recognizable symbol of the Olympic Games, the Olympic Flame is certainly a close second. Representing the theft of fire from the Greek Gods by Prometheus, a fire was kept burning throughout the ancient Olympic Games. This tradition continues today, with a relay of the flame (typically via torch) from Olympia, Greece (home of the original Olympics) to wherever the current Games are being held. The handling of the Olympic Flame almost always goes off without a hitch. In 1976, however, at the Olympic Games in Montreal, Canada, there was one notable slip that was magnified by the well-meaning efforts of a quick-thinking plumber with a cigarette lighter.

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Nikolai Andrianov, Gymnastics Icon, Dies at 58  

Nikolai Andrianov, the record-setting Russian gymnast who had won more Olympic medals than any other male athlete before the swimmer Michael Phelps passed him, died Monday in Vladimir, Russia. He was 58.

The International Gymnastics Federation in Lausanne, Switzerland, announced his death, citing a degenerative nerve disease that had robbed him of his ability to speak and to move his arms and legs.

Immensely powerful in the upper body and with a gift for leaping quickly off the floor, Andrianov was especially strong in the rings and floor exercises, but over three Summer Olympics --Munich in 1972, Montreal in 1976 and Moscow in 1980 -- his 15 medals, seven of them gold, included at least one in all four of the other gymnastic events as well: the vault, pommel horse, parallel bars and horizontal bar. . . .

Beyond his physical gifts and technical mastery, however, he was known for his courage and the kind of bravado attributed to fighter pilots and astronauts -- "the right stuff," in the writer Tom Wolfe's phrase. He pushed other gymnasts to match his feats -- attempting triple back flip dismounts from the rings, for example, when everyone else was doing doubles. He also enjoyed his cigarettes and vodka.

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Wait A Minute, Big Tobacco Is Suing Someone? A Country? 

Philip Morris has filed suit against Uruguay, as the country looks to enlarge health warnings on packaging up to 80%, and require the tobacco giant to adjust packaging to plain or solid colors. Uruguay is one of the most economically developed countries in South America, with a high GDP per capita and the 50th highest quality of life in the world.

So what's the skinny on this national tobacco controversy? Dr. Raphael Lencucha, University of Lethbridge, Alberta explains that Philip Morris is exercising law regarding discriminatory treatment of trademarks protected by the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement.

The regulation of tobacco packaging, such as warning labels and plain packaging is an important intervention to both dissuade non-smokers from becoming smokers and encourage smokers to quit. It is also an intervention the tobacco industry has worked to resist in the past. Individuals with an interest in global health governance should follow Philip Morris' case against Uruguay with interest to observe whether, and if so how, international health law is used to support governmental decisions to protect health.

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Richmond man who rose to YouTube fame found dead in Thailand 

A 26-year-old Richmond man who found Internet fame during the Winter Olympics died in Thailand on Tuesday after apparently falling from a train and suffering a head injury, according to local media.

Jordan Krull’s body was found in the Photharam district of Ratchaburi province, about 500 metres from Chet Samian railway station around 4:30 a.m., according to the Bangkok Post. He was carrying his passport, ID card and 8,000 baht, or about $269 Cdn, in cash. . . .

Krull grew to fame during the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, after his plan to light a cigarette off the Olympic torch went awry when he was tackled to the ground by police and a video of the incident went viral on YouTube.

The video, titled Jesus arrested at the Olympic torch relay — a reference to Krull’s scraggly hair and bushy goatee — has been viewed more than 309,000 times to date. He joked at the time that hr had become a "media darling."

Krull’s brother, Jason, recalled with a laugh that he had planned to continue his legacy at future Olympics.

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Man who lit cigarette off Olympic torch dies in Thai train accident  

A man who gained Internet notoriety after lighting a cigarette off the 2010 Vancouver Olympic torch has died in a freak train accident in Thailand.

Jordan Ashley Krull, 26, died after falling from a train in Ratchaburi province, 80 kilometres west of Bangkok. . . .

Krull is the man with straggly, long hair clad in a black hoodie who emerged nonchalantly from the crowd to light a cigarette from the heavily guarded Olympic torch as it made its way through Gastown in February. . . .

His exploit was captured on film and the video, titled “Jesus arrested at Olympic torch relay in Vancouver after stealing flame,” has been viewed more than 309,000 times on YouTube.

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LETTER: McCORMICK: SMOKING: Unlikely allies can work together  

Re: "New law part of the fight to keep kids away from cigarettes" (Viewpoint, 8-13).

Altria’s tobacco companies agree with state Health Secretary Mary Selecky’s belief that the Food and Drug Administration can play an important role in preventing underage tobacco use. However, her comments didn’t account for our tobacco companies’ support of various efforts to keep kids from using tobacco.

Altria’s tobacco companies, which include Philip Morris USA, joined public health groups to support the law giving the FDA regulatory authority over tobacco products. This law includes a number of provisions to address underage use of tobacco products, including regulations requiring retailers to obtain identification from consumers under 27 years of age and prohibiting most “self-service” displays.

Of course, Altria’s tobacco companies market their products to adults who use tobacco.

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• WHO, IOC sign agreement to improve healthy lifestyles 

The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Internationa l Olympic Committee (IOC) are teaming up to promote healthy lifestyle choices, including physical activity, sports for all, Tobacco Free Olympic Games, and the prevention of childhood obesity, according to a WHO statement, obtained by PANA in Dakar, the Senegalese capital.

As outlined in a memorandum of understanding, signed Wednesday in Lausanne, Switzerland, the WHO and IOC will work at both the international and country levels to promote activities and policy choices to help people reduce their risk of non - communicable diseases such as cardiovascular disease, cancers and diabetes.

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Raising VN tobacco prices could save lives: WHO 

The price of cigarettes in Vietnam is extremely low compared to the increase in per capita income, said participants at a World Health Organization (WHO) meeting March 9 in Hanoi on cigarette use in the country.

Cheap prices encourage smokers to use tobacco and purchasing cigarettes is easier than buying vegetables, said Le Vu Anh, headmaster of the Public Medical University in Hanoi.

Moreover, domestic tobacco prices have not risen in the past 10 years, said a World Bank representative at the meeting, and the price of cigarettes actually decreased by 5 percent from 1995 to 2006.

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