Congratulations to a former colleague of mine, Alex Balfour, on his appointment as Head of New Media for the London 2012 Organising Committee - the body which is responsible for staging the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2012.

Alex, whom I worked alongside (in a cyberspace manner of speaking) with CricInfo between 1996 and 2001, will be responsible for London2012.com, according to the LOCOG press release issued last Friday. Answering to the LOCOG Director of Communications and Public Affairs, Alex will lead the creation, development and management of online structures and facilities for London 2012 over the next six years.

I am sure Alex will excel in his new role and I wish him all the best. Nonetheless, I should draw attention to a factual howler that appears in the LOCOG press release and has found its way into the headings of a few reports on the appointment:

As co-founder and Chairman of CricInfo Alex built one of the world’s largest sports websites from scratch with 20 million customers.

By no stretch of the imagination can Alex be considered a “co-founder” of CricInfo. Alex first became involved with CricInfo in 1995 as a volunteer, a few months before I did, at which time it already had an established presence on the internet as a gopher database hosted on a server at the University of Oregon. CricInfo was founded by Dr Simon King in 1993, and while a number of US-based Indian expats came on board in those formative days of IRC, telnet and gopher, Alex’s involvement was still two years away.

Alex was, however, a foundation member of CricInfo’s board of directors when it became a corporation towards the end of 1999, when he was employed by us as Head of Business Development. (Does this make him a “co-founder” of CricInfo? I’m probably one too, having been one of 53 foundation shareholders in the business when it was corporatised.) He became chairman of CricInfo Ltd towards the end of 2001, after a financial near-death experience saw the departure of Dr King from the company and the retrenchment of a large number of its staff, including me.

The contribution of Coca-Cola to the Olympic Movement has always been the model of a true partnership.

- Jacques Rogge, 1.8.05

This just in from the media desk of the International Olympic Committee:

The International Olympic Committee and The Coca-Cola Company today announced a renewal of their partnership for an unprecedented 12 years, thereby taking what was already the longest sponsorship of the Olympic Games to a record 92 uninterrupted years. The partnership, which began in 1928, was extended during a signing ceremony on the Great Wall of China. The new agreement, which begins in 2009, will see Coca-Cola supporting the Olympic Movement over a period which covers the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games, the London 2012 Olympic Games, plus the Olympic Games of 2014, 2016, 2018 and 2020.

Welcoming the renewal of the partnership, IOC President Jacques Rogge said, “The contribution of Coca-Cola to the Olympic Movement has always been the model of a true partnership. The Olympic Games would not be where they are today, and so many athletes over the years could not have competed in the Games, without the extensive corporate support pioneered by Coca-Cola as our longest continuous sponsor. Because the Olympic Family and Coca-Cola share the values of Olympism at their deepest level, this is a natural partnership that we hold most dearly.”

The Coca-Cola Chairman, Mr E. Neville Isdell, echoed the President’s comments, emphasising the new atmosphere of Olympic spirit at the world’s leading beverage company. “The privilege of being associated with the Olympic Movement for nearly a century is reflected in this landmark agreement,” Mr Isdell said. “Our investment in the future of the Olympic Games underscores our faith in the Games and how they continue to make our world a little bit better. This long-term commitment comes at a time when those of us throughout the Coca-Cola system are rededicating ourselves to the Olympic spirit. We have recently challenged ourselves not to wait every two or four years to celebrate the Olympic ideal, but to bring to life those values in our everyday lives - to think Olympic, act Olympic, and, indeed, truly live Olympic.” he added.

Also attending the announcement, which was made in China as the country marks three years to go until the Olympic Games of Beijing 2008, was Jean-Claude Killy, three times Olympic Games gold medallist and IOC member, young Chinese diver Wu Min Xia, who won a gold medal and a silver medal at the Athens 2004 Olympic Games, together with a host of guests including leadership from both the Beijing Organising Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad and the upcoming Torino 2006 Olympic Winter Games.

Coca-Cola will start trading on Wall Street today at $43.77.

The IOC meeting in Singapore has decided today that Beijing 2008 will be the last appearance of baseball and softball at the Olympic Games for the time being. They have been dropped from the 2012 games in London, but are theoretically eligible for re-inclusion in the Microsoft Seattle Olympics of 2016 (remember where you hear it first!)

This is a pity from my point of view, as baseball is one of the few Olympic competitions which capture my interest.

A brief IOC announcement is here. Five other sports are candidates for inclusion in 2012: Roller Sports, Squash, Karate, Rugby (presumably the seven-a-side mutation) and Golf! Later today, the IOC Executive Board will decide whether to submit any of the five to the IOC session, which is scheduled to wrap up tomorrow.

Hopefully, the IOC takes a big reality check and admits none of the five - and continues to reduce the Olympics in size in the years to follow.

Well! I was sure Paris was going to win. It was always a two-horse race. Congratulations London. Well!