LONDON – The London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) today announces that John Lewis has become a Tier Three Provider to London 2012 and its 26th domestic sponsor. John Lewis becomes the Official Department Store Provider to London 2012.

As part of their partnership with LOCOG, John Lewis will offer their staff (known as Partners) the opportunity to work at LOCOG in the build-up to the Games, help to furnish lounge and reception areas at Games-time venues, and provide warehouse space. In addition, the John Lewis shop on Oxford Street and the forthcoming shop adjacent to the Olympic Park at Stratford (due to open in 2011) are set to become key retail outlets for Games-related merchandise. These shops will give back all net profit to LOCOG on London 2012 merchandise sold.

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SINGAPORE – Celebrate the festive season with ESPN STAR Sports, to showcase a bagful of classic Olympic Games moments with its line-up of top class programming from the archives of the Olympic Films.

ESPN STAR Sports will showcase timeless stories of inspiration from over 30,000 hours of archives with official footages from 12 Winter and Summer Olympic Games spanning over the last two decades. Sports fans can get into the festive mood with ‘Stories of Olympic Glory’ from the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics 2002 on Christmas Eve, followed by the Torino 2006 Winter Games and the Sydney 2000 Summer Olympics on the big day of celebrations.

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NEW DELHI (Reuters) – The 2012 Olympics will not be overshadowed by the grandness of last year’s Beijing event, London Games chief Sebastian Coe said on Tuesday.

“Beijing was spectacular. The amount of detailed planning and the performance of the athletes were spectacular,” he told reporters. “We’ll also be different.

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NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India’s hopes of hosting an Olympics in the near future was dealt a blow by the country’s sports minister Manohar Singh Gill, who said the country was far too poor to even consider the idea.

India will stage the Commonwealth Games next year and the country’s Olympic association (IOA) chief Suresh Kalmadi had said India would bid for the 2020 Summer Games after the successful delivery of the New Delhi event.

“I am not sure if India should be thinking of the Olympics. Look at the poverty here,” Gill told the parliament.

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LONDON (Reuters) – The IOC has agreed to scrap plans for a new temporary venue near the London Olympic Park and will house badminton and rhythmic gymnastics in an existing venue because of the “exceptional circumstances” of the recession.

London 2012 organizers proposed switching venues to keep costs down and have both events at Wembley Arena during the longest and deepest downturn in decades, despite initial protest from the sports’ bodies.

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LONDON (Reuters) – German carmaker BMW became the latest Tier One partner for the London Olympics on Wednesday, joining an impressive list of major companies already signed up by the 2012 organising committee (LOCOG).

The deal is worth about 30 million pounds ($50.50 million) to LOCOG, mostly in the form of services provided by BMW who will supply 4,000 vehicles to transport athletes, officials and media during the Games and the Paralympics.

“Operationally, an automotive deal is vital for any organising committee and so I’m thrilled BMW is on board,” LOCOG chairman Sebastian Coe said in a statement.

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CHICAGO (Reuters) – Chicago’s bid leaders “totally missed the plot” ahead of the city’s shock first-round elimination in voting to pick the 2016 Summer Games host, said a former International Olympic Committee (IOC) executive.

Chicago’s early exit showed it never connected with the Olympic voters, said former IOC marketing director Michael Payne in a SportsPro magazine article released on Wednesday.

Payne was a senior strategy adviser to Rio de Janeiro which ended up being selected by IOC members as the host city in Denmark in October, winning the final round against Madrid by 66 votes to 32.

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TOKYO (Reuters) – Tokyo has a civic duty to dust itself down from the failed 2016 Olympic bid and reapply to host the 2020 Games, the city’s governor said on Friday.

The Japanese capital lost out to Rio de Janeiro in last month’s 2016 vote but Shintaro Ishihara insisted Tokyo had the motivation and funds to try again.

“We did spend money on the (2016) bid but we have the finances set aside for such big projects,” Ishihara told a news conference.

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The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has awarded broadcast rights for the Olympic Games in 2010 and 2012 to ESPN in South America, it was announced today.

ESPN will acquire free-to-air television and radio broadcast rights in Argentina for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games and the London 2012 Olympic Games, including minimum free-to-air exposure guarantees; pay television rights to air the Games on cable and satellite platforms in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay for the same period; and satellite-only television rights in Venezuela for the same period.

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TOKYO (Reuters) – Tokyo officials say they have not been informed of city governor Shintaro Ishihara’s desire to bid for the 2020 Olympics.

Tokyo lost out to Rio de Janeiro in last month’s International Olympic Committee (IOC) vote to decide the hosts for the 2016 Games, but Ishihara is reportedly keen for another shot.

“There’s been no formal announcement,” the Tokyo Metropolitan Government’s international affairs officer Noriko Hachiya told Reuters on Wednesday.

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