Visa Inc.

(pronunciation: /viz/ or /vis/; NYSE: V) is an American multinational financial services corporation headquartered on 595 Market Street, Financial District in San Francisco, California, United States, although much of the company's staff is based in Foster City, California. It facilitates electronic funds transfers throughout the world, most commonly through Visa-branded credit card and debit cards.[2] Visa does not issue cards, extend credit or set rates and fees for consumers; rather, Visa provides financial institutions with Visa-branded payment products that they then use to offer credit, debit, prepaid and cash-access programs to their customers. In 2008, according to The Nilson Report, Visa held a 38.3% market share of the credit card marketplace and 60.7% of the debit card marketplace in the United States.[3] In 2009, Visas global network (known as VisaNet) processed 62 billion transactions with a total volume of $4.4 trillion.[4][5] Visa has operations across Asia-Pacific, North America, Central and South America, Caribbean, Central and Eastern Europe, Africa and Middle East. Visa Europe is a separate membership entity that is an exclusive licensee of Visa Inc.'s trademarks and technology in the European region, issuing cards such as Visa Debit.

Contents

1 History o 1.1 Corporate structure o 1.2 Billing & finance charge methods o 1.3 IPO and restructuring o 1.4 WikiLeaks 2 Corporate affairs o 2.1 Headquarters 3 Operations o 3.1 Operating regulations 4 payWave 5 Trade mark and design o 5.1 Logo design o 5.2 Dove hologram 6 Advertising o 6.1 More People Go with Visa o 6.2 Currency of Progress 7 Sponsorships o 7.1 Olympics and Paralympics o 7.2 Others 8 Legal proceedings 9 See also 10 References 11 External links

History

A 1976 ad promoting the change of name to Visa. Note the early Visa card shown in the ad, as well as the image of the BankAmericard that it replaced.

In mid-September 1958, Bank of America (BofA) launched its pioneering BankAmericard credit card program in Fresno, California, with an initial mailing of 60,000 unsolicited credit cards.[6] The original idea was the brainchild of BofA's in-house product development think tank, the Customer Services Research Group, and its leader, Joseph P. Williams. Williams convinced senior BofA executives in 1956 to let him pursue what became the world's first successful credit card "drop", or mass mailing of unsolicited credit cards (that is actual working cards, not mere applications) to a large population.[7] Williams' accomplishment was in the successful implementation of the all-purpose credit card, not in coming up with the idea.[8] By the mid-1950s, the typical middle-class American already maintained revolving credit accounts with several different merchants, which was clearly inefficient and inconvenient due to the need to carry so many cards and pay so many separate bills each month.[9] The need for a unified financial instrument was already palpably obvious to the American financial services industry, but no one could figure out how to do it. There were already charge cards like Diners Club (which had to be paid in full at the end of each billing cycle), and "by the mid-1950s, there had been at least a dozen attempts to create an all-purpose credit card."[9] However, these prior attempts had been carried out by small banks which lacked the resources to make them work.[9] Williams and his team studied these failures carefully and believed they could avoid replicating those banks' mistakes; they also studied existing revolving credit operations at Sears and Mobil Oil to learn why they were successful.[10] Fresno was selected for its population of 250,000 (big enough to make a credit card work, small

enough to control initial startup cost), BofA's market share of that population (45%), and relative isolation, to control public relations damage in case the project failed.[11] The 1958 test at first went smoothly, but then BofA panicked when it confirmed rumors that another bank was about to initiate its own drop in San Francisco, BofA's home market.[12] By March 1959, drops began in San Francisco and Sacramento; by June, BofA was dropping cards in Los Angeles; by October, the entire state had been saturated with over 2 million credit cards, and BankAmericard was being accepted by 20,000 merchants.[13] However, the program was riddled with problems, as Williams (who had never worked in a bank's loan department) had been too earnest and trusting in his belief in the basic goodness of the bank's customers, and he resigned in December 1959.[14] Twenty-two percent of accounts were delinquent, not the 4% expected, and police departments around the state were confronted by numerous incidents of the brand new crime of credit card fraud.[15] Both politicians and journalists joined the general uproar against Bank of America and its newfangled credit card, especially when it was pointed out that the cardholder agreement held customers liable for all charges, even those resulting from fraud.[16] BofA officially lost over $8.8 million on the launch of BankAmericard, but when the full cost of advertising and overhead was included, the bank's actual loss was probably around $20 million.[16]

One of the former Visa logos, used from 1970 to 2006.

However, after purging Williams and his protgs, BofA management realized that BankAmericard was salvageable.[17] They conducted a "massive effort" to clean up after Williams, imposed proper financial controls, published an open letter to 3 million households across the state apologizing for the mess they had caused, and eventually were able to make the new financial instrument work.[18] The original goal of BofA was to offer the BankAmericard product across California, but in 1965, BofA began to sign licensing agreements with a group of banks outside of California. BofA itself (like all other U.S. banks at the time) could not expand directly into other states due to federal restrictions not repealed until 1994. Over the following 11 years, various banks licensed the card system from Bank of America, thus forming a network of banks backing the BankAmericard system across the United States.[19] The "drops" of unsolicited credit cards continued unabated, thanks to BofA and its licensees and competitors, until they were outlawed in 1970[20] due to the serious financial chaos

they caused, but not before over 100 million credit cards had been distributed into the American population.[21] During the late 1960s, BofA also licensed the BankAmericard program to banks in several other countries, which began issuing cards with localized brand names. For example:[citation needed]

In Canada, an alliance of banks (including Toronto-Dominion Bank, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Royal Bank of Canada, Banque Canadienne Nationale and Bank of Nova Scotia) issued credit cards under the Chargex name from 1968 to 1977. In France, it was known as Carte Bleue (Blue Card). The logo still appears on many French-issued Visa cards today. In the UK, the only BankAmericard issuer for some years was Barclaycard.

In 1970, the Bank of America gave up control of the BankAmericard program.[citation needed] The various BankAmericard issuer banks took control of the program, creating National BankAmericard Inc. (NBI), an independent non-stock corporation which would be in charge of managing, promoting and developing the BankAmericard system within the United States, although Bank of America continued to issue and support the international licenses themselves. By 1972, licenses had been granted in 15 countries. In 1974, IBANCO, a multinational member corporation, was founded in order to manage the international BankAmericard program.[citation needed]

Sample Barclaycard (left), as issued in the UK in the 1960s/70s. Co-branded cards were also issued by affiliates, such as the Co-operative Bank and Yorkshire Bank. The Chargex logo (right) used in Canada, along with the names of the 5 Canadian federal banks that issued Chargex cards.

In 1976, the directors of IBANCO determined that bringing the various international networks together into a single network with a single name internationally would be in the best interests of the corporation; however in many countries, there was still reluctance to issue a card associated with Bank of America, even though the association was entirely nominal in nature. For this reason, in 1975 BankAmericard, Chargex, Barclaycard, Carte Bleue, and all other licensees united under the new name, "Visa", which retained the

distinctive blue, white and gold flag. NBI became Visa USA and IBANCO became Visa International.[citation needed] The term Visa was conceived by the company's founder, Dee Hock. He believed that the word was instantly recognizable in many languages in many countries, and that it also denoted universal acceptance. Nowadays, the term Visa has become a recursive backronym for Visa International Service Association. In October 2007, Bank of America announced it was resurrecting the BankAmericard brand name as the "BankAmericard Rewards Visa".[22]

Corporate structure
Prior to October 3, 2007, Visa comprised four non-stock, separately incorporated companies that employed 6000 people worldwide: Visa International Service Association (Visa), the worldwide parent entity, Visa U.S.A. Inc., Visa Canada Association, and Visa Europe Ltd. The latter three separately incorporated regions had the status of group members of Visa International Service Association. The unincorporated regions (Visa Latin America (LAC), Visa Asia Pacific and Visa Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa (CEMEA)) were divisions within Visa.

Billing & finance charge methods

Initially, signed copies of sales drafts were included in each customer's monthly billing statement for verification purposes--an industry practice known as "Country Club Billing". By the late 1970s, however, billing statements no longer contained these enclosures, but rather a summary statement show posting date, purchase date, reference number, merchant name, and the dollar amount of each purchase. At the same time, many issuers, particularly Bank of America, were in the process of changing their methods of finance charge calculation. Initially, a "previous balance" method was used--calculation of finance charge on the unpaid balance shown on the prior month's statement. Later, it was decided to use "average daily balance" which resulted in increased revenue for the issuers by calculating the number of days each purchase was included on the prior month's statement. Several years later, "new average daily balance"--in which transactions from previous AND current billing cycles were used in the calculation--was introduced. By the early 1980s, many issuers introduced the concept of the annual fee as yet another revenue enhancer. Today, many cards are co-branded with various merchants, airlines, etc. and marketed as "reward cards".

IPO and restructuring

On October 11, 2006, Visa announced that some of its businesses would be merged and become a publicly traded company, Visa Inc.[23][24][25] Under the IPO restructuring, Visa Canada, Visa International, and Visa U.S.A. were merged into the new public company. Visa's Western Europe operation became a separate company, owned by its member banks who will also have a minority stake in Visa Inc.[26] In total, more than 35

investment banks participated in the deal in several capacities, most notably as underwriters. The law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell served as counsel to the underwriters, while the law firm White & Case LLP served as counsel to Visa Inc. in the global restructuring process. On October 3, 2007, Visa completed its corporate restructuring with the formation of Visa Inc. The new company was the first step towards Visa's IPO.[27] The second step came on November 9, 2007, when the new Visa Inc. submitted its $10 billion IPO filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).[28] On February 25, 2008, Visa announced it would go ahead with an IPO of half its shares.[29] The IPO took place on March 18, 2008. Visa sold 406 million shares at US$44 per share ($2 above the high end of the expected $3742 pricing range), raising US$17.9 billion in the largest initial public offering in U.S. history.[30] On March 20, 2008, the IPO underwriters (including JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs & Co., Banc of America Securities LLC, Citi, HSBC, Merrill Lynch & Co., UBS Investment Bank and Wachovia Securities) exercised their overallotment option, purchasing an additional 40.6 million shares, bringing Visa's total IPO share count to 446.6 million, and bringing the total proceeds to US$19.1 billion.[31] Visa now trades under the ticker symbol "V" on the New York Stock Exchange.[32]

WikiLeaks
Visa Europe began suspending payments to WikiLeaks on 7 December 2010.[33] The company "said it was awaiting an investigation into 'the nature of its business and whether it contravenes Visa operating rules' - though it did not go into details".[34] In return Datacell, the IT company that enables WikiLeaks to accept credit and debit card donations, announced that it will take legal action against Visa Europe.[35] On December 8, the group Anonymous performed a DDoS attack on visa.com[clarification needed], bringing the site down.[36] Although "[t]he Norway-based financial services company Teller AS, which Visa ordered to look into WikiLeaks and its fundraising body, the Sunshine Press, found no proof of any wrongdoing, Visa Europe announced in January 2011 that "it would continue blocking donations to the secret-spilling site until it completes its own investigation".[34] The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay stated that Visa may be "violating WikiLeaks' right to freedom of expression" by withdrawing their services.[37]

Corporate affairs
Headquarters
This section requires expansion.

Visa's headquarters are located on the top three floors of the 595 Market Street building in San Francisco.[38] As of 2009, 125 people work at the Visa headquarters. The company's center of employment is its campus in Foster City, California, which as of 2009, houses 2,400 employees.[39] Visa had been headquartered in San Francisco until 1985, when it moved to San Mateo.[40] Around 1993, Visa began consolidating various scattered offices in San Mateo to a location in Foster City.[40] Visa's headquarters were in Foster City, and Visa became Foster City's largest employer. Visa owns four buildings at the intersection of Metro Center Boulevard and Vintage Park Drive. As of 2009, before the headquarters move, it employed about 3,000 people at the complex. During that year, Visa signed a 10 year lease agreement for the top three floors of 595 Market Street and moved its top executives there. Visa continued to keep employees at the Foster City offices.[38] In 2010, SolarCity moved its headquarters to the former Visa offices in San Mateo.[41] Visa also kept its regional headquarters in San Mateo; it occupied a 23-acre (9.3 ha) office complex with six buildings consisting of 270,000-square-foot (25,000 m2) of space, located at California Highway 92 and West Hillsdale Boulevard. In 2007, Interland Family Trust sold the former San Mateo Visa building, now named the San Mateo Office Park, for $86 million to two firms, Lowe and O'Connor Capital Partners. The complex was scheduled to undergo a $16 million renovation.[42]

Operations
Visa offers through its issuing members the following types of cards:

Debit cards (pay from a checking / savings account) Credit cards (pay monthly payments with interest) Prepaid cards (pay from a cash account that has no checkwriting privileges)

Visa operates the PLUS automated teller machine network and the Interlink EFTPOS point-of-sale network, which facilitate the "debit" protocol used with debit cards and prepaid cards. They also provide commercial payment solutions for small businesses, midsize and large corporations, and governments.[43]

Operating regulations
Visa has a set of rules that govern the participation of financial institutions in its payment system. Acquiring banks are responsible for ensuring that their merchants comply with the rules. Rules address how a cardholder must be identified for security, how transactions may be denied by the bank and how banks may cooperate for fraud prevention, and how to keep

that identification and fraud protection standard and non-discriminatory. Other rules govern what creates an enforceable proof of authorization by the cardholder.[44] The rules prohibit merchants from imposing a minimum or maximum purchase amount in order to accept a Visa card and from charging cardholders a fee for using a Visa card.[44] In ten U.S. states, surcharges for the use of a credit card are forbidden by law (California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Oklahoma and Texas) but a discount for cash is permitted under specific rules.[45] Some countries have banned the no-surcharge rule, most notably the UK[46] and Australia[47] and retailers in those countries may apply surcharges to any credit-card transaction, Visa or otherwise. Unlike MasterCard, Visa does permit merchants to ask for photo ID, although the merchant rule book states that this practice is "discouraged". As long as the Visa card is signed, a merchant may not deny a transaction because a cardholder refuses to show a photo ID.[44] The Dodd-Frank Act allows U.S. merchants to set a minimum purchase amount on credit card transactions, not to exceed $10.[48][49] Recent complications include the addition of exceptions for non-signed purchases by telephone or on the Internet, and an additional security system called "Verified by Visa" for purchases on the Internet.

payWave
In September 2007, Visa introduced Visa payWave, a contactless payment technology feature that allows cardholders to wave their card in front of contact-less payment terminals without the need to physically swipe or insert the card into a point-of-sale device.[50] This is similar to the MasterCard PayPass service, with both using RFID technology. In Europe, Visa has introduced the V PAY card which is chip-only and PIN-only.[51] In Australia the major banks, such as the National Australia Bank (NAB), do not allow their customers to opt out of having payWave-enabled Visa cards. The same can be said for Mastercard's contact-less payment systems. Customers who are unhappy with the way payWave permits transactions without the requirement for either PIN or signature have been advised to refrain from having a Visa card attached to their account.[citation needed]

Trade mark and design

Logo design

The blue and gold in Visa's logo were originally chosen to represent the blue sky and golden-colored hills of California, where the legacy Bank of America was founded. The Visa symbol is used by merchants to denote the acceptance of Visa payment cards. In 2006, Visa removed its trademark flag logo from all its cards, websites and retailer's windows. This was the first time that Visa had changed its logo.[52] The new logo has a simple white background with the name Visa in blue with an orange flick on the 'V' (shown in the infobox at the top of this page). For the new Visa Debit and Visa Electron logo, see the relevant pages.

Dove hologram

The hologram

In 1984, most Visa cards around the world began to feature a hologram of a dove on its face, generally under the last four digits of the Visa number. This was implemented as a security feature - true holograms would appear 3-dimensional and the image would change as the card was turned. At the same time, the Visa logo, which had previously covered the whole card face, was reduced in size to a strip on the card's right incorporating the hologram. This allowed issuing banks to customize the appearance of the card. Similar changes were implemented with MasterCard cards. On most Visa cards, holding the face of the card under an ultraviolet light will reveal the dove picture, as an additional security test. (On newer Visa cards, the UV dove is replaced by a small V over the Visa logo.) Beginning in 2005, the Visa standard was changed to allow for the hologram to be placed on the back of the card, or to be replaced with a holographic magnetic stripe ("HoloMag").[53] The HoloMag card was shown to occasionally cause interference with card readers, so Visa eventually withdrew designs of HoloMag cards and reverted to traditional magnetic strips.[54][dead link]

Advertising
More People Go with Visa
In March 2009, Visa launched its first global advertising campaign: "More people go with Visa." The new campaign enabled Visa to align marketing worldwide under a single theme that could be executed locally for maximum relevance and impact and highlight how Visa differs from standard cash and checks in security, control, and convenience.

Since its launch, Visa has used the platform to create customized campaigns in support of its sponsorship properties including the Olympic Games and FIFA World Cup. In 2010, Visa introduced first-ever global campaigns in support of both the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games ("Go World") and 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa ("Go Fans"). Advertising creative from the Go Fans campaign was customized and appeared in 30 markets around the world to strengthen the campaigns relevance in those regions.

Currency of Progress
In October 2009, Visa launched Currency of Progress, an effort to better educate the world about how digital currency advances economic empowerment and business efficiency worldwide. Through real-life testimonials, Currency of Progress illustrates how the migration from cash and checks to electronic payments helps individuals access their money more securely and conveniently; builds stronger, more efficient businesses; and enables governments to be more cost-effective and responsive to their citizens. The website contains the campaigns video testimonials, fact sheets on key areas such as security, government efficiency, financial literacy, innovation, and merchant benefits, along with real-world case studies.

Sponsorships
Olympics and Paralympics

Visa has been a worldwide sponsor of the Olympic Games since 1986 and is the only card accepted at all Olympic venues. Its current contract with the IOC and IPC as the exclusive services sponsor will continue through 2020.[55] This includes the Singapore 2010 Youth Olympic Games, London 2012 Olympic Games, the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games, the Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympic Games, the 2018 Olympic Winter Games, and the 2020 Olympic Games. However, for London this may change following an Office of Fair Trading intervention. Visa extended its partnership with the International Paralympic Committee through 2012, which includes the 2010 Vancouver Paralympic Winter Games and the 2012 London Paralympic Games. In 2002, Visa became the first global sponsor of the IPC.[56]

Others

Visa is currently the shirt sponsor for the Argentina national rugby union team, nicknamed the Pumas. Also, Visa sponsors the Copa Libertadores and the Copa Sudamericana, the most important football club tournaments in South America. Until 2005, Visa was the exclusive sponsor of the Triple Crown thoroughbred tournament. Visa sponsored the Rugby World Cup, and the 2007 tournament in France was its last.[57]

In 2007, Visa became sponsor of the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa. The FIFA partnership provides Visa with global rights to a broad range of FIFA activities - including both the 2010 and 2014 FIFA World Cup and the FIFA Women's World Cup. Since 1995, Visa has sponsored the U.S. NFL and a number of NFL teams, including the San Francisco 49ers whose practice jerseys display the Visa logo.[58] Visa's sponsorship of the NFL currently extends through the 2014 season.[59] Visa sponsored PacWest Racing's IndyCar team in 1995 and 1996, with drivers Danny Sullivan and Mark Blundell respectively.

Legal proceedings

Visa Inc.'s former headquarters in Foster City, California, is still home to a significant portion of the company's operations.

Visa settled an antitrust lawsuit brought by a class of U.S. merchants, including Wal-Mart, for billions of dollars in 2003. According to a website associated with the suit,[60] Visa and MasterCard settled the plaintiffs' claims for a total of $3.05 billion, and Visa's share of this settlement is reported to have been the larger. In October 2010, Visa and MasterCard reached a settlement with the U.S. Justice Department in another antitrust case. The companies agreed to allow merchants displaying their logos to decline certain types of cards (because interchange fees differ), or to offer consumers discounts for using cheaper cards.[61] In December 2010, Visa reached a settlement with the European Union in yet another antitrust case, promising to reduce debit card payments to 0.2 percent of a purchase.[62] A senior official from the European Central Bank called for a break-up of the Visa/Mastercard duopoly by creation of a new European debit card for use in the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA).[63] After VISA's blocking of payments to WikiLeaks, members of European Parliament expressed concern that payments from European citizens to a European corporation could apparently be blocked by the US, and called for

a further reduction in the dominance of Visa and Mastercard in the European payment system.[64]

The Olympic Games (French: les Jeux olympiques) (JO),[1] is a major international event featuring summer and winter sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The Olympic Games have come to be regarded as the worlds foremost sports competition where more than 200 nations participate.[2] The Games are currently held every two years, with Summer and Winter Olympic Games alternating, although they occur every four years within their respective seasonal games. Originally, the ancient Olympic Games were held in Olympia, Greece, from the 8th century BC to the 4th century AD. Baron Pierre de Coubertin founded the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 1894. The IOC has since become the governing body of the Olympic Movement, whose structure and actions are defined by the Olympic Charter. The evolution of the Olympic Movement during the 20th and 21st centuries has resulted in several changes to the Olympic Games. Some of these adjustments include the creation of the Winter Games for ice and winter sports, the Paralympic Games for athletes with a physical disability, and the Youth Olympic Games for teenage athletes. The IOC has had to adapt to the varying economic, political, and technological realities of the 20th century. As a result, the Olympics shifted away from pure amateurism, as envisioned by Coubertin, to allow participation of professional athletes. The growing importance of the mass media created the issue of corporate sponsorship and commercialization of the Games. World Wars led to the cancellation of the 1916, 1940, and 1944 Games. Large boycotts during the Cold War limited participation in the 1980 and 1984 Games. The Olympic Movement consists of international sports federations (IFs), National Olympic Committees (NOCs), and organizing committees for each specific Olympic Games. As the decision-making body, the IOC is responsible for choosing the host city for each Olympic Games. The host city is responsible for organizing and funding a celebration of the Games consistent with the Olympic Charter. The Olympic program, consisting of the sports to be contested at the Games, is also determined by the IOC. The celebration of the Games encompasses many rituals and symbols, such as the Olympic flag and torch, as well as the opening and closing ceremonies. Over 13,000 athletes compete at the Summer and Winter Olympics in 33 different sports and nearly 400 events. The first, second, and third place finishers in each event receive Olympic medals: gold, silver, and bronze, respectively. The Games have grown in scale to the point that nearly every nation is represented. Such growth has created numerous challenges, including boycotts, doping, bribery of officials, and terrorism. Every two years, the Olympics and its media exposure provide unknown athletes with the chance to attain national, and in particular cases, international fame. The

Games also constitute a major opportunity for the host city and country to showcase itself to the world. The Ancient Olympic Games were a series of competitions held between representatives of several city-states and kingdoms from Ancient Greece, which featured mainly athletic but also combat and chariot racing events. During the Olympic games all struggles against the participating city-states were postponed until the games were finished.[3] The origin of these Olympics is shrouded in mystery and legend.[4] One of the most popular myths identifies Heracles and his father Zeus as the progenitors of the Games.[5][6][7] According to legend, it was Heracles who first called the Games "Olympic" and established the custom of holding them every four years.[8] A legend persists that after Heracles completed his twelve labors, he built the Olympic stadium as an honor to Zeus. Following its completion, he walked in a straight line for 200 steps and called this distance a "stadion" (Greek: , Latin: stadium, "stage"), which later became a unit of distance. Another myth associates the first Games with the ancient Greek concept of Olympic truce (, ekecheiria).[9] The most widely accepted date for the inception of the Ancient Olympics is 776 BC; this is based on inscriptions, found at Olympia, of the winners of a footrace held every four years starting in 776 BC.[10] The Ancient Games featured running events, a pentathlon (consisting of a jumping event, discus and javelin throws, a foot race and wrestling), boxing, wrestling, pankration, and equestrian events.[11][12] Tradition has it that Coroebus, a cook from the city of Elis, was the first Olympic champion.[13] The Olympics were of fundamental religious importance, featuring sporting events alongside ritual sacrifices honoring both Zeus (whose famous statue by Phidias stood in his temple at Olympia) and Pelops, divine hero and mythical king of Olympia. Pelops was famous for his chariot race with King Oenomaus of Pisatis.[14] The winners of the events were admired and immortalized in poems and statues.[15] The Games were held every four years, and this period, known as an Olympiad, was used by Greeks as one of their units of time measurement. The Games were part of a cycle known as the Panhellenic Games, which included the Pythian Games, the Nemean Games, and the Isthmian Games.[16] The Olympic Games reached their zenith in the 6th and 5th centuries BC, but then gradually declined in importance as the Romans gained power and influence in Greece. There is no consensus on when the Games officially ended, the most common-held date is 393 AD, when the emperor Theodosius I declared that all pagan cults and practices be eliminated.[17] Another date cited is 426 AD, when his successor Theodosius II ordered the destruction of all Greek temples.[18] After the demise of the Olympics, they were not held again until the late 19th century.

Modern Games
Forerunners
Further information: Wenlock Olympian Society Annual Games and Zappas Olympics

Baron Pierre de Coubertin.

The first significant attempt to emulate the ancient Olympic Games was the L'Olympiade de la Rpublique, a national Olympic festival held annually from 1796 to 1798 in Revolutionary France.[19] The competition included several disciplines from the ancient Greek Olympics. The 1796 Games also marked the introduction of the metric system into sport.[19] In 1850 an Olympian Class was started by Dr William Penny Brookes at Much Wenlock, in Shropshire, England. In 1859, Dr Brookes changed the name to Wenlock Olympian Games. This annual sports festival continues to this day.[20] The Wenlock Olympian Society was founded by Dr. Brookes on November 15, 1860.[21]:28 Between 1862 and 1867, Liverpool held an annual Grand Olympic Festival. Devised by John Hulley and Charles Melly, these games were the first to be wholly amateur in nature and international in outlook, although only 'gentlemen amateurs' could compete.[22][23] The programme of the first modern Olympiad in Athens in 1896 was almost identical to that of the Liverpool Olympics.[24] In 1865 Hulley, Dr. Brookes and E.G. Ravenstein founded the National Olympian Association in Liverpool, a forerunner of the British Olympic Association. Its articles of foundation provided the framework for the International Olympic Charter.[25] In 1866, a national Olympic Games in Great Britain was organized at London's Crystal Palace.[26]

Revival

A postage stamp from the first Greek Olympic stamp set.

Greek interest in reviving the Olympic Games began with the Greek War of Independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1821. It was first proposed by poet and newspaper editor Panagiotis Soutsos in his poem "Dialogue of the Dead", published in 1833.[21]:1 Evangelis Zappas, a wealthy Greek-Romanian philanthropist, first wrote to King Otto of Greece, in 1856, offering to fund a permanent revival of the Olympic Games.[21]:14 Zappas sponsored the first Olympic Games in 1859, which was held in an Athens city square. Athletes participated from Greece and the Ottoman Empire. Zappas funded the restoration of the ancient Panathenaic stadium so that it could host all future Olympic Games.[21]:14 The Panathinaiko Stadium hosted Olympics in 1870 and 1875.[21]:2, 1323, 81 Thirty thousand spectators attended that Games in 1870 though no official attendance records are available for the 1875 Games.[21]:44 In 1890, after attending the Olympian Games of the Wenlock Olympian Society, Baron Pierre de Coubertin was inspired to found the International Olympic Committee (IOC).[27] Coubertin built on the ideas and work of Brookes and Zappas with the aim of establishing internationally rotating Olympic Games that would occur every four years.[27] He presented these ideas during the first Olympic Congress of the newly created International Olympic Committee. This meeting was held from June 16 to June 23, 1894, at the Sorbonne University in Paris. On the last day of the Congress, it was decided that the first Olympic Games, to come under the auspices of the IOC, would take place in Athens in 1896.[28] The IOC elected the Greek writer Demetrius Vikelas as its first president.[21]:100105

1896 Games
Main article: 1896 Summer Olympics

The opening ceremony in the Panathinaiko Stadium.

The first Games held under the auspices of the IOC was hosted in the Panathenaic stadium in Athens in 1896. These Games brought together 14 nations and 241 athletes who competed in 43 events.[29] Zappas and his cousin Konstantinos Zappas had left the Greek government a trust to fund future Olympic Games. This trust was used to help finance the 1896 Games.[21]:117[30][31] George Averoff contributed generously for the refurbishment of the stadium in preparation for the Games.[21]:128 The Greek government also provided funding, which was expected to be recouped through the sale of tickets to the Games and from the sale of the first Olympic commemorative stamp set.[21]:128 The Greek officials and public were enthusiastic about the experience of hosting these Games. This feeling was shared by many of the athletes, who even demanded that Athens be the host of the Olympic Games on a permanent basis. The IOC did not approve this request. The committee planned that the modern Olympics would rotate internationally. As such they decided to hold the second Games in Paris.[32]

Changes and adaptations

Main article: Summer Olympic Games

After the success of the 1896 Games, the Olympics entered a period of stagnation that threatened their survival. The Olympic Games held at the Paris Exposition in 1900 and the World's Fair at St. Louis in 1904 were side-shows. The Games at Paris did not have a stadium; however, this was the first time women took part in the games. The St. Louis Games hosted 650 athletes, but 580 were from the United States. The homogeneous nature of these celebrations was a low point for the Olympic Movement.[33] The Games rebounded when the 1906 Intercalated Games (so-called because they were the second Games held within the third Olympiad) were held in Athens. These Games are not officially recognized by the IOC and no Intercalated Games have been held since. These Games, which were hosted at the Panathenaic stadium in Athens, attracted a broad international field of participants, and generated great public interest. This marked the beginning of a rise in both the popularity and the size of the Olympics.[34]

Winter Games Main article: Winter Olympic Games

An ice hockey game during the 1928 Winter Olympics at St. Moritz.

The Winter Olympics (first held in Chamonix, France, in 1924) were created to feature snow and ice sports that were logistically impossible to hold during the Summer Games. Figure skating (in 1908 and 1920) and ice hockey (in 1920) were featured as Olympic events at the Summer Olympics. The IOC desired to expand this list of sports to encompass other winter activities. At the 1921 Olympic Congress, in Lausanne, it was decided to hold a winter version of the Olympic Games. A winter sports week (it was actually 11 days) was held in 1924 in Chamonix, France; this event became the first Winter Olympic Games.[35] The IOC mandated that the Winter Games be celebrated every four years on the same year as their summer counterpart.[36] This tradition was upheld until the 1992 Games in Albertville, France; after that, beginning with the 1994 Games, the Winter Olympics were held on the third year of each Olympiad.
Paralympics Main article: Paralympic Games

In 1948, Sir Ludwig Guttmann, determined to promote the rehabilitation of soldiers after World War II, organized a multi-sport event between several hospitals to coincide with the 1948 London Olympics. Guttmann's event, known then as the Stoke Mandeville Games, became an annual sports festival. Over the next twelve years, Guttmann and others continued their efforts to use sports as an avenue to healing. For the 1960 Olympic Games, in Rome, Guttmann brought 400 athletes to compete in the "Parallel Olympics", which became known as the first Paralympics. Since then, the Paralympics have been held in every Olympic year. As of the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea, the host city for the Olympics has also played host to the Paralympics.[37] In 2001 the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) signed an agreement which guaranteed that host cities would be contracted to manage both the Olympic and Paralympic Games.[38][39] The agreement came into effect at the Summer Games in Beijing 2008, and the Winter Games in Vancouver 2010. Chairman of the London organising committee, Lord Coe, said about the 2012 Summer Paralympics and Olympics in London, England that,


[40]

We want to change public attitudes towards disability, celebrate the excellence of Paralympic sport and to enshrine from the very outset that the two Games are an integrated whole.

Youth Games Main article: Youth Olympic Games

In 2010, the Olympic Games were complemented by the Youth Games, which gives athletes between the ages of 14 and 18 the chance to compete. The Youth Olympic Games were conceived by IOC president Jacques Rogge in 2001 and approved during the 119th Congress of the IOC.[41][42] The first Summer Youth Games were held in Singapore from 1426 August 2010, while the inaugural Winter Games will be hosted in Innsbruck, Austria, two years later.[43] These Games will be shorter than the senior Games; the summer version will last twelve days, while the winter version will last nine days.[44] The IOC allows 3,500 athletes and 875 officials to participate at the Summer Youth Games, and 970 athletes and 580 officials at the Winter Youth Games.[45][46] The sports to be contested will coincide with those scheduled for the senior Games, however there will be variations on the sports including mixed NOC and mixed gender teams as well as a reduced number of disciplines and events.[47]

Recent games
From 241 participants representing 14 nations in 1896, the Games have grown to about 10,500 competitors from 204 countries at the 2008 Summer Olympics.[48] The scope and scale of the Winter Olympics is smaller. For example, Turin hosted 2,508 athletes from 80 countries competing in 84 events, during the 2006 Winter Olympics.[49] During the Games most athletes and officials are housed in the Olympic village. This village is intended to be a self-contained home for all the Olympic participants. It is furnished with cafeterias, health clinics, and locations for religious expression.[50] The IOC allowed the formation of National Olympic Committees representing countries that did not meet the strict requirements for political sovereignty that other international organizations demand. As a result, colonies and dependencies are permitted to compete at Olympic Games. Examples of this include territories such as Puerto Rico, Bermuda and Hong Kong, all of which compete as separate nations despite being legally a part of another country.[51] The current version of the Charter does only allow new National Olympic Committees representing "independent State recognised by the international community". It therefore did not allow the formation of National Olympic Committees for Sint Maarten and Curaao when they gained the same constitutional status as Aruba in 2010, although it recognized the Aruban Olympic Committee in 1986.[52][53]

International Olympic Committee

Main article: International Olympic Committee

The I.O.C. headquarters at Lausanne.

The Olympic Movement encompasses a large number of national and international sporting organizations and federations, recognized media partners, as well as athletes, officials, judges, and every other person and institution that agrees to abide by the rules of the Olympic Charter.[54] As the umbrella organization of the Olympic Movement, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is responsible for selecting the host city, overseeing the planning of the Olympic Games, updating and approving the sports program, and negotiating sponsorship and broadcasting rights.[55] The Olympic Movement is made of three major elements:

International Federations (IFs) are the governing bodies that supervise a sport at an international level. For example, the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) is the IF for football (soccer), and the Fdration Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB) is the international governing body for volleyball. There are currently 35 IFs in the Olympic Movement, representing each of the Olympic sports.[56] National Olympic Committees (NOCs) represent and regulate the Olympic Movement within each country. For example, the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) is the NOC of the United States. There are currently 205 NOCs recognized by the IOC.[48] Organizing Committees for the Olympic Games (OCOGs) constitute the temporary committees responsible for the organization of a specific celebration of the Olympics. OCOGs are dissolved after each Games, once the final report is delivered to the IOC.

French and English are the official languages of the Olympic Movement. The other language used at each Olympic Games is the language of the host country. Every proclamation (such as the announcement of each country during the parade of nations in the opening ceremony) is spoken in these three languages, or the main two depending on whether the host country is an English or French speaking country.[57]

Criticism
The IOC has often been criticized for being an intractable organization, with several members on the committee for life. The leadership of IOC presidents Avery Brundage and Juan Antonio Samaranch was especially controversial. Brundage was president for

over 20 years, and during his tenure he protected the Olympics from political involvement.[58] He was accused of both racism, for his handling of the apartheid issue with the South African delegation, and anti-Semitism.[59] Under the Samaranch presidency, the office was accused of both nepotism and corruption.[60] Samaranch's ties with the Franco regime in Spain were also a source of criticism.[61] In 1998, it was uncovered that several IOC members had taken bribes from members of the Salt Lake City bid committee for the hosting of the 2002 Winter Olympics, to ensure their votes were cast in favor of the American bid. The IOC pursued an investigation which led to the resignation of four members and expulsion of six others. The scandal set off further reforms that would change the way host cities are selected, to avoid similar cases in the future.[62] A BBC documentary entitled Panorama: Buying the Games, aired in August 2004, investigated the taking of bribes in the bidding process for the 2012 Summer Olympics.[63] The documentary claimed it was possible to bribe IOC members into voting for a particular candidate city. After being narrowly defeated in their bid for the 2012 Summer Games,[64] Parisian Mayor Bertrand Delano specifically accused the British Prime Minister Tony Blair and the London Bid Committee (headed by former Olympic champion Sebastian Coe) of breaking the bid rules. He cited French President Jacques Chirac as a witness; Chirac gave guarded interviews regarding his involvement.[65] The allegation was never fully explored. The Turin bid for the 2006 Winter Olympics was also shrouded in controversy. A prominent IOC member, Marc Hodler, strongly connected with the rival bid of Sion, Switzerland, alleged bribery of IOC officials by members of the Turin Organizing Committee. These accusations led to a wide-ranging investigation. The allegations also served to sour many IOC members against Sion's bid and potentially helped Turin to capture the host city nomination.[66]

Commercialization
Main article: Cost of the Olympic Games

The IOC originally resisted funding by corporate sponsors. It was not until the retirement of IOC president Avery Brundage, in 1972, that the IOC began to explore the potential of the television medium and the lucrative advertising markets available to them.[67] Under the leadership of Juan Antonio Samaranch the Games began to shift toward international sponsors who sought to link their products to the Olympic brand.[68]

Budget
During the first half of the 20th century the IOC ran on a small budget.[68][69] As president of the IOC from 1952 to 1972, Avery Brundage rejected all attempts to link the Olympics with commercial interest.[67] Brundage believed the lobby of corporate interests would unduly impact the IOC's decision-making.[67] Brundage's resistance to this revenue stream meant the IOC left organizing committees to negotiate their own sponsorship contracts and use the Olympic symbols.[67] When Brundage retired the IOC had US$2 million in

assets; eight years later the IOC coffers had swelled to US$45 million.[67] This was primarily due to a shift in ideology toward expansion of the Games through corporate sponsorship and the sale of television rights.[67] When Juan Antonio Samaranch was elected IOC president in 1980 his desire was to make the IOC financially independent.[69] The 1984 Summer Olympics became a watershed moment in Olympic history. The Los Angeles-based organizing committee, led by Peter Ueberroth, was able to generate a surplus of US$225 million, which was an unprecedented amount at that time.[70] The organizing committee had been able to create such a surplus in part by selling exclusive sponsorship rights to select companies.[70] The IOC sought to gain control of these sponsorship rights. Samaranch helped to establish The Olympic Program (TOP) in 1985, in order to create an Olympic brand.[68] Membership in TOP was, and is, very exclusive and expensive. Fees cost US$50 million for a four year membership.[69] Members of TOP received exclusive global advertising rights for their product category, and use of the Olympic symbol, the interlocking rings, in their publications and advertisements.[71]

Effect of television

A cartoon from the 1936 Berlin Olympics imagines the year 2000 when spectators will have been replaced by television and radio.

The 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin were the first Games to be broadcast on television, though only to local audiences.[72] The 1956 Winter Olympics were the first internationally televised Olympic Games,[73] and the following Winter Games had their broadcasting rights sold for the first time to specialized television broadcasting networksCBS paid US$394,000 for the American rights,[74] and the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) allocated US$660,000.[68] In the following decades the Olympics became one of the ideological fronts of the Cold War. Superpowers jockeyed for political supremacy, and the IOC wanted to take advantage of this heightened interest via the broadcast medium.[74] The sale of broadcast rights enabled the IOC to increase the exposure of the Olympic Games, thereby generating more interest, which in turn created more appeal to advertisers time on television. This cycle allowed the IOC to charge everincreasing fees for those rights.[74] For example, CBS paid US$375 million for the rights

of the 1998 Nagano Games,[75] while NBC spent US$3.5 billion for the broadcast rights of all the Olympic Games from 2000 to 2012.[68] Viewership increased exponentially from the 1960s until the end of the century. This was due to the use of satellites to broadcast live television worldwide in 1964, and the introduction of color television in 1968.[76] Global audience estimates for the 1968 Mexico City Games was 600 million, whereas at the Los Angeles Games of 1984, the audience numbers had increased to 900 million; that number swelled to 3.5 billion by the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona.[77] However, at the 2000 Summer Games in Sydney, NBC drew the lowest ratings for any Summer or Winter Olympics since 1968.[78] This was attributed to two factors: one was the increased competition from cable channels, the second was the internet, which was able to display results and video in real time. Television companies were still relying on tape-delayed content, which was becoming outdated in the information era.[79] A drop in ratings meant that television studios had to give away free advertising time.[80] With such high costs charged to broadcast the Games, the added pressure of the internet, and increased competition from cable, the television lobby demanded concessions from the IOC to boost ratings.[81] The IOC responded by making a number of changes to the Olympic program. At the Summer Games, the gymnastics competition was expanded from seven to nine nights, and a Champions Gala was added to draw greater interest.[82] The IOC also expanded the swimming and diving programs, both popular sports with a broad base of television viewers.[82] Finally, the American television lobby was able to dictate when certain events were held so that they could be broadcast live during prime time in the United States.[83] The result of these efforts was mixed: the ratings for the 2006 Winter Games, held in Torino, Italy, were significantly lower than those for the 2002 Games, while there was a sharp increase in viewership for the 2008 Summer Olympics, staged in Beijing.[80][84]

Controversy
The sale of the Olympic brand has been controversial. The argument is that the Games have become indistinguishable from any other commercialized sporting spectacle.[71] Specific criticism was levelled at the IOC for market saturation during the 1996 Atlanta and 2000 Sydney Games. The cities were awash in corporations and merchants attempting to sell Olympic-related wares.[85] The IOC indicated that they would address this to prevent spectacles of over-marketing at future Games.[85] Another criticism is that the Games are funded by host cities and national governments; the IOC incurs none of the cost, yet controls all the rights and profits from the Olympic symbols. The IOC also takes a percentage of all sponsorship and broadcast income.[71] Host cities continue to compete ardently for the right to host the Games, even though there is no certainty that they will earn back their investments.[86]

Symbols
Main article: Olympic symbols

The Olympic flag.

The Olympic Movement uses symbols to represent the ideals embodied in the Olympic Charter. The Olympic symbol, better known as the Olympic rings, consists of five intertwined rings and represents the unity of the five inhabited continents (America, Africa, Asia, Australasia, Europe). The colored version of the ringsblue, yellow, black, green, and redover a white field forms the Olympic flag. These colors were chosen because every nation had at least one of them on its national flag. The flag was adopted in 1914 but flown for the first time only at the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp, Belgium. It has since been hoisted during each celebration of the Games.[87] The Olympic motto is Citius, Altius, Fortius, a Latin expression meaning "Faster, Higher, Stronger". Coubertin's ideals are further expressed in the Olympic creed:
The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well.[87]

Months before each Games, the Olympic flame is lit in Olympia in a ceremony that reflects ancient Greek rituals. A female performer, acting as a priestess, ignites a torch by placing it inside a parabolic mirror which focuses the sun's rays; she then lights the torch of the first relay bearer, thus initiating the Olympic torch relay that will carry the flame to the host city's Olympic stadium, where it plays an important role in the opening ceremony.[88] Though the flame has been an Olympic symbol since 1928, the torch relay was introduced at the 1936 Summer Games, as part of the German government's attempt to promote its National Socialist ideology.[87] The Olympic mascot, an animal or human figure representing the cultural heritage of the host country, was introduced in 1968. It has played an important part on the Games identity promotion since the 1980 Summer Olympics, when the Russian bear cub Misha reached international stardom.[89] The mascots of the most recent Summer Olympics, in Beijing, were the Fuwa, five creatures that represent the five fengshui elements important in Chinese culture.[90]

Ceremonies
Main article: Olympic Games ceremony

Opening

A scene from the opening ceremony of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

As mandated by the Olympic Charter, various elements frame the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games.[91][92] Most of these rituals were established at the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp.[93] The ceremony typically starts with the hoisting of the host country's flag and a performance of its national anthem.[91][92] The host nation then presents artistic displays of music, singing, dance, and theater representative of its culture.[93] The artistic presentations have grown in scale and complexity as successive hosts attempt to provide a ceremony that outlasts its predecessor's in terms of memorability. The opening ceremony of the Beijing Games reportedly cost $100 million, with much of the cost incurred in the artistic segment.[94] After the artistic portion of the ceremony, the athletes parade into the stadium grouped by nation. Greece is traditionally the first nation to enter in order to honor the origins of the Olympics. Nations then enter the stadium alphabetically according to the host country's chosen language, with the host country's athletes being the last to enter. During the 2004 Summer Olympics, which was hosted in Athens, Greece, the Greek flag entered the stadium first, while the Greek delegation entered last. Speeches are given, formally opening the Games. Finally, the Olympic torch is brought into the stadium and passed on until it reaches the final torch carrieroften a well-known and successful Olympic athlete from the host nationwho lights the Olympic flame in the stadium's cauldron.[91][92]

Closing

Athletes gather in the stadium during the closing ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics.

The closing ceremony of the Olympic Games takes place after all sporting events have concluded. Flag-bearers from each participating country enter the stadium, followed by the athletes who enter together, without any national distinction. Three national flags are hoisted while the corresponding national anthems are played: the flag of Greece, to honor the birthplace of the Olympic Games; the flag of the current host country, and the flag of the country hosting the next Summer or Winter Olympic Games.[95] The president of the organizing committee and the IOC president make their closing speeches, the Games are officially closed, and the Olympic flame is extinguished.[96] In what is known as the Antwerp Ceremony, the mayor of the city that organized the Games transfers a special Olympic flag to the president of the IOC, who then passes it on to the mayor of the city hosting the next Olympic Games.[97] After these compulsory elements, the next host nation briefly introduces itself with artistic displays of dance and theater representative of its culture.

Medal presentation

A medal ceremony during the 2008 Summer Olympics.

A medal ceremony is held after each Olympic event is concluded. The winner, second and third-place competitors or teams stand on top of a three-tiered rostrum to be awarded their respective medals.[98] After the medals are given out by an IOC member, the national flags of the three medalists are raised while the national anthem of the gold

medalist's country plays.[99] Volunteering citizens of the host country also act as hosts during the medal ceremonies, as they aid the officials who present the medals and act as flag-bearers.[100] For every Olympic event, the respective medal ceremony is held, at most, one day after the event's final. For the men's marathon, the competition is usually held early in the morning on the last day of Olympic competition and its medal ceremony is then held in the evening during the closing ceremony.

Sports
Main article: Olympic sports

The Olympic Games program consists of 35 sports, 30 disciplines and nearly 400 events. For example, wrestling is a Summer Olympic sport, comprising two disciplines: GrecoRoman and Freestyle. It is further broken down into fourteen events for men and four events for women, each representing a different weight class.[101] The Summer Olympics program includes 26 sports, while the Winter Olympics program features 15 sports.[102] Athletics, swimming, fencing, and artistic gymnastics are the only summer sports that have never been absent from the Olympic program. Cross-country skiing, figure skating, ice hockey, Nordic combined, ski jumping, and speed skating have been featured at every Winter Olympics program since its inception in 1924. Current Olympic sports, like badminton, basketball, and volleyball, first appeared on the program as demonstration sports, and were later promoted to full Olympic sports. Some sports that were featured in earlier Games were later dropped from the program.[103] Olympic sports are governed by international sports federations (IFs) recognized by the IOC as the global supervisors of those sports. There are 35 federations represented at the IOC.[104] There are sports recognized by the IOC that are not included on the Olympic program. These sports are not considered Olympic sports, but they can be promoted to this status during a program revision that occurs in the first IOC session following a celebration of the Olympic Games.[105][106] During such revisions, sports can be excluded or included in the program on the basis of a two-thirds majority vote of the members of the IOC.[107] There are recognized sports that have never been on an Olympic program in any capacity, including chess and surfing.[108] In October and November 2004, the IOC established an Olympic Programme Commission, which was tasked with reviewing the sports on the Olympic program and all non-Olympic recognized sports. The goal was to apply a systematic approach to establishing the Olympic program for each celebration of the Games.[109] The commission formulated seven criteria to judge whether a sport should be included on the Olympic program.[109] These criteria are history and tradition of the sport, universality, popularity of the sport, image, athletes' health, development of the International Federation that governs the sport, and costs of holding the sport.[109] From this study five recognized sports emerged as candidates for inclusion at the 2012 Summer Olympics: golf, karate, rugby union, roller sports and squash.[109] These sports were reviewed by the IOC Executive Board and then referred to the General Session in Singapore in July 2005. Of the five sports recommended for inclusion only two were selected as finalists: karate and

squash.[109] Neither sport attained the required two-thirds vote and consequently they were not promoted to the Olympic program.[109] In October 2009 the IOC voted to instate golf and rugby union as Olympic sports for the 2016 and 2020 Summer Olympic Games.[110] The 114th IOC Session, in 2002, limited the Summer Games program to a maximum of 28 sports, 301 events, and 10,500 athletes.[109] Three years later, at the 117th IOC Session, the first major program revision was performed, which resulted in the exclusion of baseball and softball from the official program of the 2012 London Games. Since there was no agreement in the promotion of two other sports, the 2012 program will feature just 26 sports.[109] The 2016 and 2020 Games will return to the maximum of 28 sports given the addition of rugby and golf.[110]

Amateurism and professionalism

Further information: Amateurism

Professional NHL players were allowed to participate in ice hockey starting in 1998 (1998 Gold medal game between Russia and the Czech Republic pictured).

The ethos of the aristocracy as exemplified in the English Independent school greatly influenced Pierre de Coubertin.[111] The independent schools subscribed to the belief that sport formed an important part of education, an attitude summed up in the saying mens sana in corpore sano, a sound mind in a sound body. In this ethos, a gentleman was one who became an all-rounder, not the best at one specific thing. There was also a prevailing concept of fairness, in which practicing or training was considered tantamount to cheating.[111] Those who practiced a sport professionally were considered to have an unfair advantage over those who practiced it merely as a hobby.[111] The exclusion of professionals caused several controversies throughout the history of the modern Olympics. The 1912 Olympic pentathlon and decathlon champion Jim Thorpe was stripped of his medals when it was discovered that he had played semi-professional baseball before the Olympics. His medals were posthumously restored by the IOC in 1983 on compassionate grounds.[112] Swiss and Austrian skiers boycotted the 1936

Winter Olympics in support of their skiing teachers, who were not allowed to compete because they earned money with their sport and were thus considered professionals.[113] As class structure evolved through the 20th century, the definition of the amateur athlete as an aristocratic gentleman became outdated.[111] The advent of the state-sponsored "fulltime amateur athlete" of the Eastern Bloc countries further eroded the ideology of the pure amateur, as it put the self-financed amateurs of the Western countries at a disadvantage. Nevertheless, the IOC held to the traditional rules regarding amateurism.[114] Beginning in the 1970s, amateurism requirements were gradually phased out of the Olympic Charter. After the 1988 Games, the IOC decided to make all professional athletes eligible for the Olympics, subject to the approval of the IFs.[115] As of 2004, the only sports in which no professionals compete are boxing and wrestling, although even this requires a definition of amateurism based on fight rules rather than on payment, as some boxers and wrestlers receive cash prizes from their National Olympic Committees. In men's football (soccer), only three professional players over the age of 23 are eligible to participate per team in the Olympic tournament.[115]

Controversies
Main article: Olympic Games scandals and controversies

Boycotts

Map showing the countries that boycotted the 1976 (yellow), 1980 (blue) and 1984 (red) Summer Olympics.

Australia, Great Britain and Switzerland are the only countries to send a team to every Olympic Games since their inception in 1896. Most countries miss an Olympics due to a lack of qualified athletes, but some choose to boycott a celebration of the Games for several different reasons. The Olympic Council of Ireland boycotted the 1936 Berlin Games, because the IOC insisted its team needed to be restricted to the Irish Free State rather than representing the entire island of Ireland.[116] There were three boycotts of the 1956 Melbourne Olympics: Netherlands, Spain, and Switzerland refused to attend because of the repression of the Hungarian uprising by the Soviet Union, but did send an equestrian delegation to Stockholm; Cambodia, Egypt, Iraq and Lebanon boycotted the Games because of the Suez Crisis; and China (the "People's Republic of China")

boycotted the Games because Taiwan (the "Republic of China") was allowed to compete in the games.[117] In 1972 and 1976 a large number of African countries threatened the IOC with a boycott to force them to ban South Africa and Rhodesia, because of their segregationist regimes. New Zealand was also one of the African boycott targets, because its national rugby union team had toured apartheid-ruled South Africa. The IOC conceded in the first two cases, but refused to ban New Zealand on the grounds that rugby was not an Olympic sport.[118] Fulfilling their threat, twenty African countries were joined by Guyana and Iraq in a Tanzania-led withdrawal from the Montreal Games, after a few of their athletes had already competed.[118][119] Taiwan also decided to boycott these Games because the People's Republic of China (PRC) exerted pressure on the Montreal organizing committee to keep the delegation from the Republic of China (ROC) from competing under that name. The ROC refused a proposed compromise that would have still allowed them to use the ROC flag and anthem as long as the name was changed.[120] Taiwan did not participate again until 1984, when it returned under the name of Chinese Taipei and with a special flag and anthem.[121] In 1980 and 1984, the Cold War opponents boycotted each other's Games. Sixty-five nations refused to compete at the Moscow Olympics in 1980 because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. This boycott reduced the number of nations participating to 81, the lowest number since 1956.[122] The Soviet Union and 14 of its Eastern Bloc partners (except Romania) countered by boycotting the Los Angeles Olympics of 1984, contending that they could not guarantee the safety of their athletes. Soviet officials defended their decision to withdraw from the Games by saying that "chauvinistic sentiments and an anti-Soviet hysteria are being whipped up in the United States".[123] The boycotting nations of the Eastern Bloc staged their own alternate event, the Friendship Games, in July and August.[124][125] There had been growing calls for boycotts of Chinese goods and the 2008 Olympics in Beijing in protest of China's human rights record, and in response to Tibetan disturbances and ongoing conflict in Darfur. Ultimately, no nation supported a boycott.[126][127] In August 2008, the government of Georgia called for a boycott of the 2014 Winter Olympics, set to be held in Sochi, Russia, in response to Russia's participation in the 2008 South Ossetia war.[128][129]

Politics

Jesse Owens on the podium after winning the long jump at the 1936 Summer Olympics.

Tommie Smith and John Carlos giving the Black Power salute on the podium.

The Olympic Games have been used as a platform to promote political ideologies almost from its inception. Nazi Germany wished to portray the Nationalist Socialist Party as benevolent and peace-loving when they hosted the 1936 Games, though they used the Games to display Aryan superiority.[130] Germany was the most successful nation at the Games, which did much to support their allegations of Aryan supremacy, but notable victories by African American Jesse Owens, who won four gold medals, and Hungarian Jew Ibolya Csk, blunted the message.[131] The Soviet Union did not participate until the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki. Instead, starting in 1928, the Soviets organized an international sports event called Spartakiads. During the interwar period of the 1920s and 1930s, communist and socialist organizations in several countries, including the United States, attempted to counter what they called the "bourgeois" Olympics with the Workers Olympics.[132][133] It was not until the 1956 Summer Games that the Soviets emerged as a sporting superpower and, in doing so, took full advantage of the publicity that came with winning at the Olympics.[134] Individual athletes have also used the Olympic stage to promote their own political agenda. At the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, two American track and field athletes, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, who finished first and third in the 200 meters, performed the Black Power salute on the victory stand. The second place finisher, Peter Norman of Australia, wore an Olympic Project for Human Rights badge in support of Smith and Carlos. In response to the protest, IOC President Avery Brundage told the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) to either send the two athletes home or withdraw the track and field team. The USOC opted for the former.[135]

Currently, the government of Iran has taken steps to avoid any competition between its athletes and those from Israel. An Iranian judoka, Arash Miresmaeli, did not compete in a match against an Israeli during the 2004 Summer Olympics. Although he was officially disqualified for being overweight, Miresmaeli was awarded US$125,000 in prize money by the Iranian government, an amount paid to all Iranian gold medal winners. He was officially cleared of intentionally avoiding the bout, but his receipt of the prize money raised suspicion.[136]

Use of performance enhancing drugs

Main article: Use of performance-enhancing drugs in the Olympic Games

Thomas Hicks running the marathon at the 1904 Summer Olympics.

In the early 20th century, many Olympic athletes began using drugs to improve their athletic abilities. For example, the winner of the marathon at the 1904 Games, Thomas Hicks, was given strychnine and brandy by his coach.[137] The only Olympic death linked to doping occurred at the Rome Games of 1960. During the cycling road race, Danish cyclist Knud Enemark Jensen fell from his bicycle and later died. A coroner's inquiry found that he was under the influence of amphetamines.[138] By the mid-1960s, sports federations were starting to ban the use of performance enhancing drugs; in 1967 the IOC followed suit.[139] The first Olympic athlete to test positive for the use of performance enhancing drugs was Hans-Gunnar Liljenwall, a Swedish pentathlete at the 1968 Summer Olympics, who lost his bronze medal for alcohol use.[140] The most publicized doping-related disqualification was that of Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson, who won the 100 meter dash at the 1988 Seoul Olympics but tested positive for stanozolol. His gold medal was subsequently stripped and awarded to runner-up Carl Lewis, who himself had tested positive for banned substances prior to the Olympics.[141] In the late 1990s, the IOC took the initiative in a more organized battle against doping, by forming the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) in 1999. There was a sharp increase in positive drug tests at the 2000 Summer Olympics and 2002 Winter Olympics. Several medalists in weightlifting and cross-country skiing were disqualified because of doping offenses. During the 2006 Winter Olympics, only one athlete failed a drug test and had a medal revoked. The IOC-established drug testing regimen (now known as the Olympic

Standard) has set the worldwide benchmark that other sporting federations around the world attempt to emulate.[142] During the Beijing games, 3,667 athletes were tested by the IOC under the auspices of the World Anti-Doping Agency. Both urine and blood tests were used to detect banned substances. Several athletes were barred from competition by their National Olympic Committees prior to the Games; only three athletes failed drug tests while in competition in Beijing.[138][143]

Gender discrimination

Charlotte Cooper of the United Kingdom, first woman Olympic champion, in the 1900.

Women athletes were first allowed to compete at the 1900 Summer Olympics in Paris, but at the 1992 Summer Olympics thirty-five countries were still fielding all-male delegations.[144] This number dropped rapidly over the following years. In 1996, Lita Fariman was the first woman to compete for Iran at the Olympics, in shooting.[145] In 2000, Bahrain sent two women competitors for the first time: Fatema Hameed Gerashi and Mariam Mohamed Hadi Al Hilli.[146] In 2004, Robina Muqim Yaar and Friba Razayee became the first women to compete for Afghanistan at the Olympics.[147] In 2008, the United Arab Emirates sent female athletes (Maitha Al Maktoum competed in taekwondo, and Latifa Al Maktoum in equestrian) to the Olympic Games for the first time. Both athletes were from Dubai's ruling family.[148] By 2010 only three countries had never sent female athletes to the Games: Brunei, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Brunei had taken part in only three celebrations of the Games, sending a single athlete on each occasion, but Saudi Arabia and Qatar had been competing regularly with all-male teams. In 2010, the International Olympic Committee announced it would "press" these countries to enable and facilitate the participation of women for the 2012 Summer Games; Anita DeFrantz, chair of the IOC's Women and Sports Commission, suggested that countries be barred if they prevented women from competing. Shortly thereafter, the Qatar Olympic Committee announced that it "hoped to send up to four female athletes in shooting and fencing" to the 2012 Summer Games in

London. In Saudi Arabia, by contrast, national law explicitly prohibits women from competing at the Olympics - the only country where this is the case.[149][150] In 2008, Ali Al-Ahmed, director of the Institute for Gulf Affairs, likewise called for Saudi Arabia to be barred from the Games, describing its ban on women athletes as a violation of the International Olympic Committee charter. He noted: "For the last 15 years, many international nongovernmental organizations worldwide have been trying to lobby the IOC for better enforcement of its own laws banning gender discrimination. [...] While their efforts did result in increasing numbers of women Olympians, the IOC has been reluctant to take a strong position and threaten the discriminating countries with suspension or expulsion."[144] In July 2010, The Independent reported: "Pressure is growing on the International Olympic Committee to kick out Saudi Arabia, who are likely to be the only major nation not to include women in their Olympic team for 2012. [...] Should Saudi Arabia [...] send a male-only team to London, we understand they will face protests from equal rights and women's groups which threaten to disrupt the Games".[150] The only sport on the Olympic programme that features men and women competing together is the equestrian disciplines. There is no "Women's Eventing", or 'Men's Dressage'. As of 2008 there were still more medal events for men than women. With the addition of women's boxing to the programme in the 2012 Summer Olympics, however, female athletes will be able to compete in all the same sports as men.[151]

Violence
Three Olympiads had to pass without a celebration of the Games because of war: the 1916 Games were cancelled because of World War I, and the summer and winter games of 1940 and 1944 were cancelled because of World War II. The South Ossetia War between Georgia and Russia erupted on the opening day of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. Both President Bush and Prime Minister Putin were attending the Olympics at that time and spoke together about the conflict at a luncheon hosted by Chinese President Hu Jintao.[152] When Nino Salukvadze of Georgia won the bronze medal in the 10 meter air pistol competition, she stood on the medal podium with Natalia Paderina, a Russian shooter who had won the silver. In what became a much-publicized event from the Beijing Games, Salukvadze and Paderina embraced on the podium after the ceremony had ended.[153] Terrorism has had an impact on the Olympic Games. In 1972, when the Summer Games were held in Munich, Germany, eleven members of the Israeli Olympic team were taken hostage by the terrorist group Black September in what is now known as the Munich massacre. The terrorists killed two of the athletes soon after they had taken them hostage and killed the other nine during a failed liberation attempt. A German police officer and 5 terrorists also perished.[154] During the Summer Olympics in 1996 in Atlanta, United States, a bomb was detonated at the Centennial Olympic Park, which killed two and injured 111 others. The bomb was set by Eric Robert Rudolph, an American domestic terrorist, who is currently serving a life sentence for the bombing.[155] Security at the

Olympic Games has been an increasing concern and focus for Olympic planners since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.[156]

Citizenship
IOC rules for citizenship
The Olympic Charter requires that an athlete is a national of the country they compete for. Dual nationals may compete for either country, as long as three years have passed between when the competitor competed for his former country. However, if the NOCs and IF involved agree, the IOC Executive Board may reduce or cancel this period.[157] This waiting period exists only for those who previously competed for one nation and want to compete for another. If an athlete gains a new or second nationality, they do not have to wait any designated amount of time before participating for the new or second nation. The IOC is only concerned with issues of citizenship and nationality after individual nations have granted citizenship to athletes.

Reasons for changing citizenship

Sometimes, athletes become citizens of new nations solely for the purpose of competing in the Olympics. This usually happens either because people are drawn to sponsorships and training facilities in places like the United States or because an athlete does not qualify in their original country. This is usually because there are many qualified athletes in an athletes home country and they want to be able to participate as well as help the team of their new country. Between 1992 and 2008, there were about fifty athletes that have immigrated to the United States to compete on the US Olympic team after having previously competed for another nation.[158] Recently teams from Bahrain and Qatar have been almost exclusively made up of foreign-born athletes.

Citizenship changes and disputes

One of the most famous cases of changing nationality for the Olympics was Zola Budd, a South African runner who immigrated to the United Kingdom because there was an apartheid-era ban on the Olympics in South Africa. Budd was eligible for British citizenship because her grandfather was born there, but British citizens accused the government of expediting the citizenship process for her.[159] Other notable examples include Kenyan runner Bernard Lagat who became a United States citizen in May 2004. The Kenyan constitution requires that one renounce their Kenyan citizenship when they become a citizen of another nation. Lagat competed for Kenya in the 2004 Athens Olympics even though he had already become a United States citizen. According to Kenya, he was no longer a Kenyan citizen, leaving his silver medal in jeopardy. Lagat said he started the citizenship process in late 2003 and did not expect to become an American citizen until after the Athens games.[160] Basketball player Becky Hammon was not being considered for the United States Olympic team but wanted to

play in an Olympic Games, so she immigrated to Russia where she already played in a domestic league during the WNBA offseason. Hammon received criticism from Americans, including the US national team coach, even being called unpatriotic.[161]

Champions and medalists

Further information: Lists of Olympic medalists and List of multiple Olympic gold medalists

The athletes or teams who place first, second, or third in each event receive medals. The winners receive gold medals, which were solid gold until 1912, then made of gilded silver and now gold-plated silver. Every gold medal however must contain at least six grams of pure gold.[162] The runners-up receive silver medals and the third-place athletes are awarded bronze medals. In events contested by a single-elimination tournament (most notably boxing), third place might not be determined and both semifinal losers receive bronze medals. At the 1896 Olympics only the first two received a medal; silver for first and bronze for second. The current three-medal format was introduced at the 1904 Olympics.[citation needed] From 1948 onward athletes placing fourth, fifth, and sixth have received certificates, which became officially known as victory diplomas; in 1984 victory diplomas for seventh- and eighth-place finishers were added. At the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, the gold, silver, and bronze medal winners were also given olive wreaths.[163] The IOC does not keep statistics of medals won, but National Olympic Committees and the media record medal statistics as a measure of success.[164]

Host nations and cities

Map of Summer Olympics locations. Countries that have hosted one Summer Olympics are shaded green, while countries that have hosted two or more are shaded blue.

Map of Winter Olympics locations. Countries that have hosted one Winter Olympics are shaded green, while countries that have hosted two or more are shaded blue. Main article: List of Olympic Games host cities

The host city for an Olympic Games is usually chosen seven years ahead of their celebration.[165] The process of selection is carried out in two phases that span a two-year period. The prospective host city applies to its country's National Olympic Committee; if more than one city from the same country submits a proposal to its NOC, the national committee typically holds an internal selection, since only one city per NOC can be presented to the International Olympic Committee for consideration. Once the deadline for submission of proposals by the NOCs is reached, the first phase (Application) begins with the applicant cities asked to complete a questionnaire regarding several key criteria related to the organization of the Olympic Games.[166] In this form, the applicants must give assurances that they will comply with the Olympic Charter and with any other regulations established by the IOC Executive Committee.[165] The evaluation of the filled questionnaires by a specialized group provides the IOC with an overview of each applicant's project and their potential to host the Games. On the basis of this technical evaluation, the IOC Executive Board selects the applicants that will proceed to the candidature stage.[166] Once the candidate cities are selected, they must submit to the IOC a bigger and more detailed presentation of their project as part of a candidature file. Each city is thoroughly analyzed by an evaluation commission. This commission will also visit the candidate cities, interviewing local officials and inspecting prospective venue sites, and submit a report on its findings one month prior to the IOC's final decision. During the interview process the candidate city must also guarantee that it will be able to fund the Games.[165] After the work of the evaluation commission, a list of candidates is presented to the General Session of the IOC, which must assemble in a country that does not have a candidate city in the running. The IOC members gathered in the Session have the final vote on the host city. Once elected, the host city bid committee (together with the NOC of the respective country) signs a Host City Contract with the IOC, officially becoming an Olympic host nation and host city.[165] By 2016, the Olympic Games will have been hosted by 44 cities in 23 countries, but by cities outside Europe and North America on only eight occasions. Since the 1988

Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea, the Olympics have been held in Asia or Oceania four times, a sharp increase compared to the previous 92 years of modern Olympic history. The 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro will be the first for a South American country. No bids from countries in Africa have succeeded. The United States has hosted four Summer and four Winter Olympics, more than any other nation. Among Summer Olympics host nations, the United Kingdom has been the host of two Games, and will host its third Olympics in 2012 in London. Germany, Australia, France and Greece are the other nations to have hosted the Summer Olympics twice. Among host cities, only Los Angeles, Paris, Athens and London have played host to the Olympic Games more than once each holding that honor twice. With the 2012 Games scheduled to take place in London, the British capital will hold the distinction of hosting the modern Games three times, more than any other city. Concerning the Winter Olympics, France has hosted three Games, while Switzerland, Austria, Norway, Japan and Italy have hosted twice. The most recent Games were held in Vancouver, Canada's second Winter Olympics and third overall. The next Winter Games will be in Sochi, Russia in 2014, which will be the first time this nation has hosted.

Post Rs 3,200 crore 'The Plaza' deal, Subrata Roy led Sahara Group keen to buy more New York hotels

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Read more on The Sahara Group|The Plaza|Subrata Roy|Sahara India|Indian Premier League|Formula One Tweet 2 inShare

NEW DELHI: The Sahara Group, which bought London's Grosvenor House in 2010, will pay $575 million, or Rs 3,200 crore, to buy New York's The Plaza, a hotel admired by Ernest Hemingway and used by Alfred Hitchcock to shoot his 1959 classic North by Northwest. People close to the development said the deal may be signed this week. ET was the first to report on this transaction on April 6, 2012. Subrata Roy, who owns a cricket team in the Indian Premier League and part-owns a Formula One racing team, is keen to expand his overseas hotels business by snapping up undervalued iconic properties in the US and UK. In the past two years, Sahara has purchased Grosvenor House, another luxury hotel in London, and is on track to buy The Plaza and Dream Downtown Hotel, a property owned by the Sant

Singh Chatwal family, for $87 million. The group is also believed to be interested in other properties in the Big Apple. Plaza was Favourite Haunt of Celebrities The Sahara Group is also believed to be interested in top New York hotels, including the Four Seasons, Mandarin Oriental and Waldorf Astoria, a top official close to the development said. Sahara India declined comment on the deal. The 19-storey Plaza was built in 1907 and quickly became the favourite haunt of celebrities, politicians, diplomats and writers. Nobel Prize winner Ernest Hemingway is believed to have famously advised fellow writer F Scott Fitzgerald to give his liver to Princeton and his heart to The Plaza. In 1959, director Alfred Hitchcock used the hotel to shoot the Cary Grant classic North by Northwest. The hotel industry in New York is recovering with revenue per available room, which is the industry standard for financial performance, inching up towards the peak 2007 levels. PwC Manhattan Lodging Index says in its 2012 first quarter review that Manhattan's occupancy levels increased 6.7%, continuing the trend seen in the second half of year 2011. "Manhattan hotels continued to regain pricing power, although at a slower rate," says the PwC report. In its first overseas hotel acquisition, Sahara India bought the iconic 420-room Grosvenor House in London's Mayfair district for $726 million in 2010. It has since been on the lookout for more such trophy assets. The Sahara Group also owns the Sahara Star hotel in Mumbai and has interests in real estate, financial services, IT, sports and entertainment.

New UK visa curbs on foreign spouses

Read more on Theresa May|European Union|European Convention on Human Rights|David Cameron government|David Cameron 7 inShare

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FBAR filing for Indian Americans: 10 things to keep in mind 'VIPs will have to go through US immigration procedures' 'Passport to India' programme to send more US students to India Increase H1-B visas to let foreign talent stay: Report

<a target="_blank" href="http://netspiderads2.indiatimes.com/ads.dll/clickthrough?slotid=37105"><img alt="Advertisement" height="71" width="640" border="0" src="http://netspiderads2.indiatimes.com/ads.dll/photoserv?slotid=37105"></a> LONDON: Only those British nationals or residents with an annual income of at least Rs 16 lakhs will be able to bring spouses from the Indian sub-continent and other countries outside the European Union from July 9, the government announced today. The new restrictions are part of the David Cameron government's efforts to reduce migration

from

outside

the

EU.

The curbs on non-EU spouses are also intended to clamp down on bogus marriages and family visas, with migrants ending up on benefits from the taxpayer. Home secretary Theresa May today said: "Like the rest of the immigration system, family visas have not been regulated properly for years." "There have been sham marriages, people have been allowed to come to Britain without being able to speak English and there haven't been rules in place to stop people becoming a burden on the welfare state," she said. "We're changing all of that. Our plans mean the thousands of people who wish to bring their foreign spouses, partners and dependants to live with them here in Britain will have to have sufficient financial independence to be able to support them without becoming a burden to the taxpayer," she added. On the controversial issue of foreign criminals being prevented from deportation on human rights grounds, May said she would be seeking the backing of Parliament for new guidelines for the courts spelling out how they should apply the European Convention on Human Rights in such cases. Besides the income threshold, other curbs include a longer period, from two to five years, before the non-EU spouse can be granted permanent settlement. Sponsor of a non-EU spouse, will have to earn at least 18,600 pounds (nearly Rs 16 lakhs) a year and if they have a child the threshold will rise to 22,400 pounds, rising by 2,400 pounds for each additional child.

What's plaguing Europe's financial institutions? Banks relying heavily on borrowed money

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Read more on Spain|nonperforming loans|INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND|government bonds|Eurozone|European Central Bank|Credit Agricole|Christine Lagarde|Bankia|Bailout 6 inShare <SCRIPT language='JavaScript1.1' SRC="http://ademea.doubleclick.net/adj/N1203.970586.ADSALE.COM.HKEN/B6686544;abr=!ie;sz=300x250;or d=0.5723585514612278?"> </script> <NOSCRIPT> <A HREF="http://ademea.doubleclick.net/jump/N1203.970586.ADSALE.COM.HKEN/B6686544;abr=!ie4;abr=!ie5;sz= 300x250;ord=0.5723585514612278?"> <IMG SRC="http://ademea.doubleclick.net/ad/N1203.970586.ADSALE.COM.HKEN/B6686544;abr=!ie4;abr=!ie5;sz=30 0x250;ord=0.5723585514612278?" BORDER=0 WIDTH=300 HEIGHT=250 ALT="Advertisement"></A> </NOSCRIPT> <a target="_blank" href="http://netspiderads2.indiatimes.com/ads.dll/clickthrough?slotid=37105"><img alt="Advertisement" height="71" width="640" border="0" src="http://netspiderads2.indiatimes.com/ads.dll/photoserv?slotid=37105"></a> LONDON - Europe may have sidestepped its latest catastrophe, for the moment at least, by hammering out a 100-billion-euro bailout plan for Spain's failing banks over the weekend.

But the intervention will do little to address the problem that continues to plague the Continent's increasingly vulnerable financial institutions. Namely: a longstanding addiction to the borrowed money that provides the day-to-day financing that they need to survive. It is a weakness that afflicts many other eurozone banking systems - most notably Italy's, whose fragile economy is even bigger than Spain's and whose banks also rely heavily on borrowed money to get by. In Spain's case, the flight of foreign money for safer harbors, combined with a portfolio of real estate loans that has deteriorated along with the Spanish economy, led to the collapse of Bankia, the mortgage lender whose failure triggered the country's current banking fiasco. Europe hopes that this latest bailout - money that will be distributed to Spain's weakest banks via the government in the form of loans, adding to their long-term debt - can resolve the problem. But investors and analysts worry that highly indebted banks in other weak countries like Italy might face similar constraints in the months ahead. Last month, the ratings agency Moody's downgraded the credit standing of 26 Italian banks, including two of the country's largest, Unicredit and Intesa Sanpaolo. Moody's warned that Italy's most recent economic slump was creating more failed loans and making it very difficult for banks to replenish their coffers through short-term borrowing. Because they have suffered no epic real estate bust, Italian banks have long been seen as healthier than their bailed-out counterparts in Ireland and Spain. And bankers in Italy have been quick to argue in recent days that Italian banks should not be compared to Spain's. But as economic activity throughout the region comes to a near halt, especially in perpetually growth-challenged Italy, the worry is that bad loans and a possible flight of deposits from the country will pose a new threat to banks that are already barely getting by on thin cushions of capital. And Italian banks cannot avoid the stigma of their host government's own staggering debt load. Italy's national debt is 120 percent of its gross domestic product, second only to Greece among eurozone countries by that dubious distinction. Also hanging over Europe's banks are the losses that would hit them if Greece were to leave the euro currency union, throwing most of their euro-denominated loans into a state of default. Banks in France and Germany would be hurt the most, as they have been longstanding lenders to Greece. In a recent analysis, Eric Dor, an expert in international finance at the IESEG School of

Management in Lille, France, calculates that French and German banks would be out 20 billion and 4.5 billion euros respectively. Credit Agricole, for example, via its Greek subsidiary, has about 23 billion euros in Greek loans on its books. If Greece were to leave the euro, the losses could exceed 6 billion euros, analysts estimate. Because it was the financial excesses of banks in Ireland, and now Spain, that forced their home countries to eventually seek bailouts, finding a Europewide solution to overseeing financial institutions has become a pressing priority for the eurozone's leadership. 6 inShare

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Otherwise, Europe will be able to address the weaknesses of member country banks only when the time comes to rescue them. The recent belabored negotiations by Brussels, Madrid and Frankfurt over how much help to give Spain and how to do it illustrated just how slow and difficult it will be to move toward a common European bank oversight system. But as the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, said in a speech in New York on Friday, there is little time to waste in this regard. "European banks are at the epicenter of our current worries and naturally should be the priority

for repair," she said. Lagarde, who from her earliest days at the fund has focused on banking problems in Europe, left little doubt as to how this issue should be addressed. "Let me be clear," she said in her speech. "The heart of European bank repair lies in Europe. That means more Europe, not less. Less Europe will be bad for the continent and bad for the world. So, policymakers in Europe need to take further action now to put the monetary union on a sounder footing." At the root of the issue is a simple fact: Just like the countries in which they operate, most European banks are highly leveraged entities. They are heavily dependent on borrowed money to operate day-to-day, whether making loans or paying interest to depositors. For decades, the loans that European banks have made to individuals, corporations and their own spendthrift governments have far exceeded the deposits they have been able to collect the money that typically serves as a bank's main source of ready funds. To plug this funding gap, which analysts estimate to be about 1.3 trillion euros, European banks have borrowed heavily from foreign banks and money market funds. That is why European banks have an average loan-to-deposit ratio exceeding 110 percent - meaning that on any given day, they owe more money than they have on hand. In Spain, this problem has been even more acute. Bankia, before it failed, had a loan-to-deposit ratio of 160 percent, one of the highest levels in Europe. Even the strongest banks in the country like Santander, the global banking giant, have a fairly risky ratio of 115 percent, while big Italian banks like Unicredit rely on bulk borrowing to a similar or higher degree. In the United States, the comparable figure is about 78 percent, which means that the biggest U.S. banks have a surplus of deposits and extra cash that they must put to work. (That can pose its own perils, as JPMorgan Chase recently demonstrated with its disastrous trading bets.)

<a target="_blank" Of late, Europe's bank funding gap has been filled largely by the European Central Bank's temporary program of cheap, three-year loans to European banks. Italian and Spanish institutions were the most aggressive in lining up at this lending window, and they used much of the cheap financing to buy their own government's bonds. In the long run, that particular form of patriotism is likely to hurt those banks' finances if the value of the bonds continues to decline. In a recent report on the Italian economy, analysts at Citigroup said they did not expect Italian banks to suffer a fate similar to their Spanish counterparts any time soon. But they did highlight disturbing trends in nonperforming loans in Italy that have doubled since 2008. And they warned that the Italian banks' frantic buying of government bonds made them ever more vulnerable to the staggering debts of the Rome government.

The thrilling climax on Mt Rushmore and the image of a running Grant being chased by a crop duster became etched in people's minds, but the hotel became more famous, being used in other well-known films such as The Great Gatsby, Crocodile Dundee I and II, and more recently in Home Alone II: Lost in New York. People close to the development said Sahara Group has also bought a cross-town boutique hotel in New York from Indian-American hotelier Sant Singh Chatwal for about $87 million. Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal's Kingdom Holdings, which is a part-owner of the Plaza property with El Ad, an arm of the Israeli Tshuva Group, will retain 25% in the property. The existing management contract with Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, in which Kingdom has a stake, will stay

for a year and the decision to continue with the brand will be taken based on its performance in this period. Sahara, though, is expected to take over the restaurants and banquets. Sahara made an offer for the hotel in April this year. The 282-room luxury hotel was renovated extensively for $450 million and reopened in 2008. It first opened its doors in 1907 amid a fashionable residential section of New York, at Central Park South and Fifth Avenue. El Ad, which is owned by Israeli entrepreneur Yitzhak Tshuva, bought The Plaza in 2004 for $675 million from Kingdom Holdings, which later bought back a portion of the hotel. Sahara's deal with Sant Singh Chatwal for Dream Downtown also contains a provision for the latter to continue holding a residual 15% stake.