28th August 2012
Older readers, i e those of you who were around at the end of last year, may remember my blog in The Local where I wrote about how the Paralympics are returning to the country where the concept of organised, competitive disability sport really started. On 29 August, sixty-four years after the first disability sport […]
24th August 2012 Warsaw, Poland
All fired up and ready to go next week! Hope you all enjoyed your vacations and are looking forward to an Autumn rich in opportunity. In 5 days time we have the start of the Paralympics – this is going to be a superb show of global sporting excellence. Our Ambassador was honoured to attend […]
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24th August 2012 Dublin, Ireland
Like many of you I suspect, I spent most of my spare time during the Olympics glued to the TV watching some extraordinary sport. Who could fail to admire performers like Mo Farah, Michael Phelps or David Rudisha? 29 gold medals for Team GB and third place in the medal table was a great feeling […]
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23rd July 2012
There is no Vatican Olympic team, at least not this year (though I recommend that you see the recent film “Cento metri dal Paradiso” to see what could happen if the Vatican decided to enter…). But the Holy See and the Catholic Church have been fully involved in the preparations for the 2012 London Olympics […]
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23rd July 2012 Dublin, Ireland
Sorry to have been off the air but I spent much of last week visiting Budapest and Bucharest in my role as Director of the Central European Network, which brings together nine Embassies in Central Europe. It was fascinating to compare the situation in Poland with the situations elsewhere in the area. There are many […]
27th June 2012
Over the last few weeks I’ve attended Olympic send-off ceremonies in all the major states, culminating with the national event – the Prime Minister’s Olympic Dinner– in Melbourne on 23 June. They have been a fantastic showcase for the UK, as well as a demonstration of the Olympic enthusiasm in this sports mad country. The […]
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24th May 2012 Beirut, Lebanon
Monday marked 100 days until the London Paralympics. We had prepared a programme of events promoting the milestone, raising the profile of London and the UK, and encouraging greater focus on disability rights in Lebanon. But the disturbances of the weekend meant that we took a decision to focus on those instead. In a country […]
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23rd May 2012
21st May marked 100 days to go to the start of the London 2012 Paralympic Games. I’m here at the HQ of the Ukrainian National Paralympics Committee (NPC) in Kyiv for a press conference to mark the event, together with NPC President Valeriy Sushkevych; Simon Minty, a UK specialist on diversity and inclusivity; Sergiy Glushchenko, […]
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21st May 2012 Washington DC, USA
The countdown clock in our Embassy tells me that the that the London 2012 opening ceremony is barely two months away. The Olympic Torch has begun its tour of the UK. All around the world, athletes are qualifying for their national teams. Here in the US, the first goosebump-raising, Morgan Freeman-voiced Olympics ad hit the […]
21st May 2012
21 May represents 100 days to go to the start of the Paralympic Games in London. The Paralympics are sometimes seen as an afterthought to the “main” Olympic event. This will not be the case for London 2012. As I told Vatican Radio, London 2012 are the first Games that bring the organisation of the […]