Beijing Olympic Games

      The Beijing Debriefing is a key component of the IOC’s Olympic Games Knowledge Management (OGKM) programme, which consists of three main sources: services, personal experience and information. The services include workshops, seminars and a network of experts with Games experience on a range of Olympic topics that the OCOGs are able to call upon throughout their lifecycle. The OCOGs are also able to gain personal experience on Games preparations and operations through the Games-time observers’ programme, the official Games Debriefing and a secondment programme, which allows staff members from future OCOGs to work on the current edition of the Olympic Games. The final element of OGKM is information, which includes elements like the Official Games Report, technical manuals, knowledge reports, a range of useful documents and publications and the IOC’s visual transfer of knowledge of photos and films. All this information is available to the OCOGs through an extranet that is managed by the IOC.

Five people have been arrested as part of an online ticket fraud investigation over events including the Beijing Olympics.

Four addresses in the London area, three residential and one business property, were searched yesterday by Serious Fraud Office investigators and officers of the Metropolitan police as part of the investigation into complaints about the failure by companies to supply at least 4,000 tickets for the Olympics and music festivals in the UK.

The investigation, which began in September, is looking into suspected online ticket fraud, in particular the activities of Xclusive Tickets Limited, Xclusive Leisure & Hospitality Limited. Both of the companies entered liquidation in September 2008. They sold tickets online for a wide variety of events including the Olympics.

The investigation was prompted by complaints from the public. The families of British Olympic competitors were among those who paid for tickets but did not receive them. Customers from more than 60 countries bought tickets for events but did not receive tickets or refunds.

"People thinking of buying tickets online should be vigilant and always check the supplier's credentials," said the director of the Serious Fraud Office, Richard Alderman. "In this particular case we know that many thousand consumers lost money and suffered disappointment that they could not attend events that many of them had spent years dreaming about and I urge those people who bought tickets through Xclusive to come forward with information."

The four men (aged 41, 50, 51 and 54) and woman (49) were interviewed and released on unconditional bail.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Boxer Bradley Saunders, who competed for Great Britain at this year's Olympic Games, has been questioned by police on suspicion of dealing cocaine

The LZR Racer is one of the most controversial pieces of sports equipment ever introduced. Critics have accused its manufacturers, Speedo, of 'technological doping' and complained it gives its wearers an unfair advantage. But there is no doubt that it works: 74 world records have fallen since the launch of the revolutionary swimsuit in March this year.

The suit can take 15 minutes - using a plastic bag over each foot - to put on, as it hugs the body up to 70 times tighter than other suits. Rebecca Adlington won two gold medals in hers, but complained of raw knuckles after the struggle to get it on. The elite swimmers still love them. 'I feel like a rocket,' said Michael Phelps, who helped test the suits, before going on to win an unprecedented eight golds in Beijing.

The suit was created by Speedo's Aqualab, the company's global research-and-development facility in Nottingham. It is headed by Jason Rance and includes the senior team of Charles Wilson (fabric development manager), Melanie Simmons (garment engineer) and Sophy White (designer). Rance waves away the controversy surrounding the suit. 'It is the swimmer, not the suit, that breaks world records,' he says. 'When you look back in history there has always been controversy. In 1928, when Speedo went from woollen swimsuits to silk swimsuits, there was moral outrage because it was skin-tight material. When we created the racer back to help Arne Borg [Swedish world champion in the 1920s] to swim faster, that caused outrage because you were showing the naked shoulder. Similarly when we removed the skirt from the female suits, which created huge improvements in performance.'

Biomechanical engineers, physiologists, sports scientists, physiotherapists, more than 100 elite swimmers - and even a wind tunnel at Nasa - were involved in the three-year development of the suit. Everything was done in secret to prevent copycat products. The swimmers, sworn to confidentiality, tested early in the morning or late at night - 'all very cloak and dagger', Rance says.

Aqualab invented a fabric that cuts drag and applies pressure on the body to make it more hydrodynamic. The swimmer moves more easily through the water, economising on oxygen by around 5 per cent. Other innovations included integrating a corset into the main body of the suit. 'It gives an athlete more core stability,' Rance says, 'and that helps them maintain the correct position in the water. Say Rebecca Adlington is swimming 800metres and starts tiring, her hips start dropping and her legs start dragging so she cannot swim as fast. But if she is helped to maintain the correct position then she is at a huge advantage.'

At £320, the LZR Racer is out of the price range of some swimmers, particularly those from developing countries. But in Beijing the company offered free suits to any athlete that wanted one and gave away more than 3,000. Much to Speedo's glee, swimmers sponsored by rival brands flocked to wear them; even more tellingly, 94 per cent of all Beijing's swimming golds were won by athletes wearing the LZR Racer.

'It's part of the evolution of the sport,' Rance says, 'and it's really exciting for swimmers. They say they feel like Superman.' Speedo has already started work on a new suit for 2012, which can only be good for competition: its rivals will not want to be caught out again.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

The comedian Russell Howard said it best when he summed up what we all love most about Rebecca Adlington. 'She's so normal it's fantastic, she looks like she could work at Greggs! You know, "I've gotta go bloody fast, I've left pasties in the oven!"' As a fan of comedy, no doubt OSM's Sportsperson of the Year would roar her head off at that. It is Adlington's 'Greggs' appeal that the British public relate to; her expression of delight after winning two Olympic gold medals was so human it won over a nation. The unpretentious 19-year-old from Mansfield is instantly likeable.

On the morning of the photoshoot, Adlington arrives straight from the pool wearing a Team GB tracksuit, her hair wet from a 6am training session. She is not precious about her appearance. She slings her coat over her lap, apologises to the stylist about the state of her hair - 'It was in such bad condition after Beijing I couldn't get a brush through it' - and gets down to the nitty-gritty of showbiz gossip from the previous night at the Cosmo awards.

There was Kim Cattrall ('Stunning in real life, not at all wrinkly'); drag queen Jodie Harsh ('At first I thought it was Jodie Marsh!'); and Trinny and Susannah ('They never grabbed my boobs, but I haven't got any anyway'); all were there to collect awards. Adlington's was Ultimate Sports Superhero, which meant having to negotiate the dreaded red carpet.

'I don't know how to pose to save my life,' she says. 'Someone said cross your legs, but my shoes were so high I'd have ended up wobbling and looking like a prat. You know how celebrities do that thing where they keep the same face on every single photograph? They never seem to get the whole... [contorts her face into a series of gurns] whereas I always get that photo where I'm mid-sentence and looking awful.'

As Adlington chats away, the stylist applies the curling tongs and there is a loud sizzle. 'Oh my God, is that my hair? I'm gonna leave with one side bald! Oh well.' Then, spying a large curl in the mirror, she lets out a delighted squeal: 'I feel like Sandy out of Grease!'

Adlington confesses she is a bit nervous about being photographed in a swimsuit. Why? She's an athlete, she's bound to look gorgeous. 'Are you kidding?' she screams, 'I've got massive bingo wings, look. I've got this armpit hanging out which is my pec muscle, it just, like, hangs over because it's so big. I've got man shoulders, I'm not toned at all. And after Beijing I've put on a bit of weight.'

Most people can reel off a list of things they dislike about their appearance, but they're either lying to make you feel better, or they really are unhappy. Adlington is neither, just honest. She yanks up her T-shirt and grabs a handful of her stomach. 'Look, I don't have a flat stomach. I've got the tyre. All the other girls on my swim team are skinny. Like literally nothing rolls over.

'I do get a bit insecure,' she continues, reflecting on all these new demands to be photographed. 'The worst thing is the photographer, because you feel like they must have shot so many gorgeous skinny people and then they've got to work with someone that's not.'

In fact, the resounding verdict around the studio today is, 'My God, hasn't she got great legs?' and 'Doesn't she look gorgeous?' She does. Serene and beautiful, but wonderfully unaffected as, sweating under the hot photographic lamps, she asks for a tissue. 'If you don't want to see something really disgusting, look away now,' she says, wiping the sweat from her underarms with a grin.

Adlington has been famous for only four months, but she has been swimming for 15 years. It started when she dived into a pool on holiday, aged four, and paddled about like a natural. So her parents took her for lessons at the local pool in Mansfield - due to be renamed after Adlington next month - along with her two elder sisters. It was Rebecca who showed the most promise, swimming competitively from the age of nine. By the time she was 12 she had joined her current coach, Bill Furniss, at the Nova swim club in Nottingham, making the 20-mile round trip from Mansfield twice a day.

All those years of dedication and hard work, yet before Beijing you had to scour the internet to find anything written about her. Swimming is rarely big news - even when she won 800metres gold at the world championships in Manchester in April this year, there followed just one national newspaper article. But Olympic medals are different, and after Beijing, with golds in the 400m and 800m freestyle, Adlington was instantly hailed as Britain's most successful swimmer in 100 years. How, then, does she reflect on her achievements?

'You know when I wake up in the morning I think, "Is it 5.20am already?" rather than, "Oh I've won two Olympic gold medals." It's something that will never quite sink in. The weirdest thing is just the fact that you can say, "I've won an Olympic gold medal". That is the scariest thing in the world. I'm just a 19-year-old girl. Everyone keeps saying it's really special, but I don't see myself as being special. It's like how you don't think you're beautiful but someone else thinks you're stunning.'

Adlington says she misses the Olympics, the camaraderie of being in a gang of friends. At times she makes it sound more like a holiday camp than a highly pressured environment for elite athletes.

'I loved it out there. The hardest thing was having to leave after we spent five weeks together. You found yourself picking up people's accents and phrases - you do though! Like if someone's being an idiot the guys called them a tool or a weapon, so when I got back home I start calling everyone a tool. When we got back together for the Olympic parade in London we had such a laugh on that bus, just being back together again was brilliant.'

But when it comes to her own performances, the memories are more sober. 'You know I was so nervous. Especially for the 800m. It is my main event, closest to my heart. Winning the 400m was an unexpected bonus, but to get a medal in the 800m, that was always my goal.

'Before the race I got really emotional. I thought I was going to throw up, then I thought I was going to cry, then I thought I was going to pass out. I had to lie down on the floor. Then I got in the call room 15 minutes before the race and suddenly I was fine. Michael Phelps was racing in the 100 fly and we were all watching it on the TV. It was so close at the finish, everyone was like, "Oh my God!" He won it by 0.01 of a second. I can't even click that fast.'

Wasn't her own 400m final, against the American Katie Hoff, similarly close? 'Oh no,' she says, casually, 'that was 0.07 seconds.'

The battle for the 800m title was more than just a second gold medal for Adlington. Breaking Janet Evans's 19-year-old world record was a physical experience more intense than anything she had ever endured. 'It was the most painful race in my whole entire life,' she says. 'I put every little bit of me into it, mentally and physically. When I finished my body collapsed, probably because I pushed it a little bit too far, but I was so wanting to do it and so up for it that the adrenaline just took over. Afterwards my body hurt, it had never been so sore. And you're drained. It wasn't just the pain, it was the nerves, all week I'd had them. People don't realise how tiring that is. You can't eat properly because you're so nervous. I lost 2kg in two days just from the heats to the 800m final.'

Early in 2005, when Adlington was 15, she had been forced to curtail her swimming when she and her elder sister Laura contracted glandular fever. The disease was not new to the Adlington family: the oldest daughter, Chloe, had gone through it five years before and suffered so badly she had been forced to give up swimming. While Rebecca battled with the disease and its after effects of chronic fatigue syndrome, the virus entered Laura's brain and she lay in intensive care fighting for her life.

'It was a rough time for us. Laura had encephalitis [swelling of the brain], I had my final year of GCSEs and wasn't feeling too hot. My mum was really worried. In those situations family comes first and swimming has to come last. So for a couple of months I focused on my family. My mum and dad were constantly at the hospital, Chloe did everything else - looking after the house and driving me to training, while we kept the rest of the family updated with phone calls. If there was any news, good or bad, or even if Laura just woke up and spoke to us we'd be ringing round to tell everyone.'

Adlington's coach, Furniss, wanted her to keep swimming so, with the agreement of her doctors, he created a pared-down regime. 'You have to keep the feel of the water going otherwise you lose your technique,' Adlington says, 'but every time I got in the pool I felt like I couldn't go anywhere. I felt as though I hadn't slept and yet I was sleeping 12 hours a night. I felt heavy all the time, like I was 40 stone. Bill was extremely good with it all. He never said, "Oh, she's ill, I'll leave her," he took a step back, made me go easy and got me right. It was hard, but I didn't ever complain because I'd seen what both my sisters went through, I was just grateful that I didn't have to give up swimming.'

Everybody agreed that swimming was the best thing for her, but Adlington's parents could not help but worry. 'You have two of your children with a similar type of viral infection,' says her mum Kay. 'You ask yourself all sorts of questions. We monitored Becky's training very carefully: if her appetite waned, if she couldn't sleep, if she was irritable. We didn't want to scare her, though, we didn't want her to feel this was the start of what Laura had. But she must have asked herself the question, "Will it do this to me?" In Laura's case the virus attacked both the front and back of her brain, which made it more complicated to treat. The doctors pumped her full of everything they could. It was up to her then. It was agonising.

'We carried on with as much normality as we could. School allowed Becky to drop one of her lessons so that after morning training she could come home and have a proper breakfast, and dry her hair. Before she was ill she just used to have her cereal in the car and go to school with wet hair. That sounds awful, doesn't it? But we were always on the go.'

Adlington's parents shielded her from the worst of Laura's illness, insisting that the other two daughters didn't visit her in intensive care. 'They didn't want us to see her there with all the tubes,' Adlington says. 'It was a terrifying time. But it was hardest on my parents.' That is not entirely true. Adlington had been tipped as a medal hope for the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, but her illness left her unable to compete, which was a tough disappointment to take.

In true Adlington style it isn't long before she starts cracking a few jokes. 'You know, when Laura started getting better we were a bit nasty,' she says with a smile. 'Where the illness had impacted on her brain she was doing some hilarious things. Like she thought there were little men dancing on the end of her bed, or that the drip in her chest was a baby, or the thing you wee through - the catheter! - she thought she was leaning on a pen and she kept trying to move it. It was funny, but it was also scary.'

Pulling through those events must have made her stronger. 'It did,' she says, 'it definitely made me stronger and I wouldn't be the person I am today without those things happening to me.'

With the final photograph taken, Adlington skips off to get changed back into her tracksuit, but keeps the Fifties-Style make-up on. 'I love it!' she says. 'I definitely want my hair like this for Sports Personality of the Year.' Following on from her OSM accolade, Adlington cannot wait for the BBC awards night in Liverpool on 14 December, at which she is a favourite for the top three. She can barely contain her excitement as she talks about the outfit she plans to wear; it is her effusiveness that makes her such a genuinely appealing candidate. She has already chosen her dress and her shoes: all she needs now is the trophy.

• Watch a video of Rebecca Adlington collecting her OSM award.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

All but unknown in her home country, Britain's best Olympic marathon runner Mara Yamauchi is much loved in Japan

To watch Margot Wells get high on speed at the Guildford Spectrum this week was an experience that bordered on the evangelical. This is the woman with the task of making England's rugby players feel the need for speed and when she speaks about her passion her hands make fists and her eyes shine brightly.

"Speed frightens some people, coaches and players, because how can you tackle what you can't catch?" says the wife of Allan Wells, the 1980 Olympic 100 metres gold medallist. "But it's my comfort zone. I adore it in all its forms. It inspires me. I love the look on people's faces when you run fast. It's exciting. The crowd is excited by it. The players love it."

Wells holds no official position. She deals with individuals and, by word of mouth, her fame has spread. "Right now I'm so busy I make God look lazy but it's great to get up in the morning and know I can make a difference," she says. "I have seven Wasps, three Harlequins, some London Irish and some other club and university players."

She sees 28 rugby players regularly, 10 less routinely and, occasionally, another 10 university and school players. Of the current England squad Wells has coached Danny Cipriani, James Haskell, Riki Flutey and Paul Sackey.

This remarkable coach comes without books and badges and those who have adopted the conventional path to tracksuit and stopwatch may suspect her of a certain quackery. "When I get resentment from some coaches I just say, 'Where's your Olympic gold medal?' They have to respect that I coached the fastest man on the planet and spent the past 30 years working out how I did it. So they're not going to beat me on the speed thing, are they?

"No one seemed to want to know what I knew but they do now. People are seeing that I can help. Just watch my players. Judge me on my players. If I can move James Haskell I can move anything.

"What I teach applies to all sports that involve running. Football thinks it's wonderful but look at Michael Owen. He used to be fast and now he's not. Injuries? Rubbish. Age? Rubbish - unless you're 60. You can't un-fast yourself. It should be a criminal offence to make people slower."

Wells was once a champion sprinter who exasperated her father by asking him why she could run faster than anyone else. "Because you were born like that," he would say. She would ask: "But why was I born like that?" She then subordinated her own career to help her husband win Olympic gold. "It's difficult for there to be two superstars in one household," she says. "One needs to be helping. But I was very good at watching him run. I always had a coach's head, rather than an athlete's head. I knew technically and instinctively what went where and where it should be going when it wasn't. Allan was narcissistic. Selfish doesn't even cover it. But you have to be like that to reach the top."

Allan, now a systems analyst at Surrey University, started working with London Scottish in 1988 and brought Margot in to help. She did so for three years before returning to PE teaching and parenthood but, she said: "It just evolved. Snowballed, really. Guildford Rugby Club, the local school, the phone kept ringing. I was only 27 in 1980. Now I know so much more. Bad spelling jumps out at some people; bad running jumps out at me. Now I have formed my own company, Wellfast."

So what is her method? "I keep everything simple. Sport has become over-technical. It is a myth that some people were just not born fast. I can make anyone faster in five minutes. The trouble is there is no information out there on speed and power. It's my job to spot the physical weakness that prevents someone from running fast. There is too much isolation in sport. Someone does the weights, someone else does this or that. I do it all. I turn strength into power, and power into speed. I do the nutrition, too.

"I think rugby lost the plot a bit. It made people big and slow. But ask the players and they want to be faster, not bigger. I've had prop forwards out there this morning running like the wind."

She would love to get involved in the 2012 London Olympics, for athletics is her "first love". But even after a poor Olympics for Britain "in every event that involved running", the call has not come.

There is a moment in Chariots of Fire when the coach Sam Mussabini (played by Ian Holm) punches a hole in his straw hat when the distant national anthem tells him Harold Abrahams has won 100m gold at the 1924 Olympics. If you are near Guildford tomorrow, a scream of delight might tell you how England are faring against the Wallabies.

Springs in their step

Wasps and England players who have benefited from training sessions with Margot Wells

Danny Cipriani Recovered from a serious ankle injury and is quicker than before. "That has given me particular satisfaction," says Wells

James Haskell A regular visitor to Guildford. Also uses psychologists and the advice of the former All Black No8 Zinzan Brooke

Riki Flutey Partnership with Cipriani gives England more speed at Nos 10 and 12 than ever before

Paul Sackey First worked with Wells while at London Irish and won an England place after moving to Wasps

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Kevin Mitchell, Chief sports writer

1 Chris Hoy

2 Bradley Wiggins

3 Lewis Hamilton

4 David Haye

Hoy was incredible, a force of nature. Likewise Wiggins. Team-mates in a cycling co-op we have rarely seen at an event like the Olympic Games. Hamilton held his nerve all the way to the end. And David Haye was awesome in overwhelming Enzo Maccarinelli. If he rounds it off by beating Monte Barrett on Saturday, he is on his way to seriously worrying every heavyweight out there.

Brian Oliver, Editor, Observer Sport

1 Rebecca Adlington

2 Lewis Hamilton

3 Chris Hoy

4 Louis Smith

The top three look after themselves. It's the fourth place that voters might disagree with. I was very tempted to go for Christine Ohuruogu, but Louis Smith's bronze medal in gymnastics was worth a gold in some of the other sports in which Britons excelled in Beijing. He was up against the might of the United States, China and Russia - the top three in the medals table. And he's only a teenager.

Jamie Jackson, Sports feature writer

1 Rebecca Adlington

2 Chris Hoy

3 Lewis Hamilton

4 Tony Pulis

The teenager from Mansfield became the first British swimmer in 100 years to win two golds in the same Olympia Games - and her dazzling smile will live long in the memory. Pulis? He followed that victory over Arsenal by quoting Abraham Lincoln to deride a seething Arsène Wenger - that's personality.

Jon Henderson, Tennis correspondent

1 Chris Hoy

2 Rebecca Adlington

3 Lewis Hamilton

4 Andy Murray

It has to be Hoy - or how many golds does he have to win to be chosen? Kelly Holmes got a royal tap on the shoulder for winning fewer. Lewis Hamilton needs another season to prove he is more than just a driver lucky enough to have a good car who nearly screwed up two world championships.

Tim Lewis, Editor OSM

1 Mark Cavendish

2 Rebecca Adlington

3 Christine Ohuruogu

4 Lewis Hamilton

There are a billion bicycles on the planet, and yet the fastest man on two wheels is a Brit who hardly anyone here has heard of. Adlington and Ohuruogu beat the best in the world (in competitive fields) and both of them seem utterly unspoilt by the experience.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds