Hi everyone...
I have received the email regarding the olympic rings from a number of
sources. Within all these posting was this explanation. I have lifted this
text from the e-mail so apologise that original reference and author seems
to have been lost in the multitude of cross postings it has journeyed
through. Taking up the proposition of the author, I have not checked the
accuracy or voracity of these calims but the message is clear.
Thanks...
Peter
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Dear John,
Here's the deal...
Whilst your Angela's outrage is very noble I'm sure, and I'm not here to
put her down or make fun of her, a little bit of fact checking might not
have
been a bad idea before she started calling the country to arms.
According to my understanding of the situation, which I obtained from ten
minutes of reasearch at www.olympics.com, the paralympic movement and the
olympic movement are entirely different organisations with entirely
different logos and copyrights.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is based in Lausanne, Switzerland
and was (until recently) run by our little friend the 'Waanster'.
The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) is based in Bonn, Germany and
not directly linked to the IOC.
For obvious reasons the two organisations co-operate in a number of ways
but there is no direct contract to hold the games at the same time or even
in
the same place.
The five rings are a symbol which represent the olympic movement and are
owned exclusively by the IOC. Nothing to do with Michael Knight, nothing to
do with SOCOG.
The paralympics are a separate and independant organisation and should be
recognised as such.
The paralympics has its own symbol which is the three curvy lines going
throught the little ring thingy.
Instead of confusing everybody by wrongly using the olympic symbol to
represent the paralympians we should embrace the paralympic symbol. If
Angela had looked up recently she would have noticed that Sydney is doing
that by changing all of the flags hanging around the place from the olympic
ones to the paralympic ones.
Perhaps a more worthy suggestion would have been to ask SOCOG to place the
Paralympic symbol on the bridge, although I suspect that this would have
been extremely difficult due to the difficulty in constructing such a
shape.
So in summary, I think it might be best to politely tell Angela to take a
chill-pill, call off the angry mob, lighten up, buy a ticket and enjoy the
Paralympic games.
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