The USA Team Handball Board of Directors has announced the election of Dr. Harvey W. Schiller as its new president and chairman.

The former Executive Director of the United States Olympic Committee, click Commissioner of the Southeastern Conference, ambulance President of Turner Sports and Chairman and CEO of YankeeNets, Dr. Schiller is one of the most respected and accomplished professionals in all aspects of global sport. He will begin his role with USA Team Handball in January. It is not a fulltime position, which will allow Dr. Schiller to continue his roles as Vice Chairman of America’s Cup and CEO of Schiller Management Group, as well as other board and advisory positions.

“I am pleased to be able to take this role and assist the new leadership of USA Team Handball in the re-organization of what is a fun, exciting, cost-effective global team and training sport,” Schiller said: “Team Handball has been successful on a worldwide level for decades and we are looking forward to building effective grassroots programs, as well as recruiting former professional and collegiate athletes who are looking to stay involved with an Olympic team sport competitive at the highest levels. It will be an exciting challenge for us as we grow the game to championship levels in world, Pan American, and Olympic competitions.”

“This is a landmark day for our organization,” said Matt Van Houten, CEO USA Team Handball. “Dr. Schiller’s leadership and successful business acumen will be critical to our growth going forward as we re-launch both the grassroots and the competitive side of our sport in the next year. We feel that we can position ourselves correctly to be a very effective and forward-thinking NGB going forward for the next decade, and having Dr. Schiller’s counsel and strategic leadership is critical for us.”

Die ZDF-Berichterstattung von den Paralympics in London ist auf ein bemerkenswertes Zuschauerinteresse gestoßen. Zu den Höhepunkten zählte die spektakuläre Schlussfeier am Sonntag, 9. September 2012, die von 22.00 Uhr an 1,61 Millionen ZDF-Zuschauer am Bildschirm miterlebten.

ZDF-Chefredakteur Dr. Peter Frey: “Die Ausweitung der Paralympics-Berichterstattung war ein voller Erfolg. Nie zuvor in der Geschichte des Behindertensports haben sich so viele Zuschauer für die Sportler, ihre Geschichten und ihre Technik interessiert. Nicht nur die großflächigen Übertragungen, auch die Einzelbetrachtungen zum Beispiel im ‘heute-journal’ haben fasziniert. Mit den Paralympics endet ein toller Sportsommer im ZDF.”

Das ZDF berichtete im Wechsel mit der ARD ausführlich über die 14. Paralympics (29. August bis 9. September 2012). Mit mehr als 65 Stunden Übertragungszeit informierten die beiden öffentlich-rechtlichen Sender umfangreich wie nie von den Weltspielen der Behinderten.

Die Zuschauer haben das ZDF-Paralympics-Angebot, das auch in puncto Vielfalt und Attraktivität neue Maßstäbe setzte, gut angenommen. Durchschnittlich 0,75 Millionen Zuschauer verfolgten die ZDF-Übertragungen aus London, die vorwiegend vormittags und nachmittags auf dem Programm standen. Der durchschnittliche Marktanteil betrug 8,6 Prozent und entspricht damit in etwa dem Wert von Peking 2008 und liegt etwas höher als Athen 2004. Die erfolgreichste Einzelsendung war die Schlussfeier am 9. September mit 1,61 Millionen Zuschauern und einem Marktanteil von 9,8 Prozent, gefolgt von der Übertragung des 200-Meter-Finales der Männer am 1. September, das 1,24 Millionen Sportfreunde erreichte.

The PGA of America has employed Peak 10 to deliver its cloud computing and data center services.

Peak 10’s tailored solution, troche which includes monitoring and managed data replication, provides core infrastructure for The PGA of America’s Championship applications, including its ticketing, admissions, and scoring systems.

“Peak 10 has consistently provided the uptime and reliability needed for The PGA of America’s most mission-critical applications,” said Sean Walker, PGA director of Internet systems. “Through the use of its cloud services for systems at our Championships, we have been able to add scalability to our high-volume applications as needed, while increasing overall system reliability through redundancy across multiple data centers.”

In addition to cloud services, The PGA of America will utilize Peak 10’s burstable bandwidth, a solution that provides available network capacity to handle traffic spikes on its website. For added protection, Peak 10 will provide geo-redundancy for the Association, and Peak 10’s campus in Charlotte, N.C., will serve as a failover site to the primary system at its Louisville-based technology campus.

“We have worked with The PGA of America for many years, and its migration to our cloud platform was a natural step for its maintaining critical applications,” said Matt Phillips, vice president and general manager of Peak 10 Louisville. “Our team is excited to work alongside such a well-known entity in the sports world. We know how important it is for golf enthusiasts worldwide to have access to PGA sites.”

According to Walker, Peak 10’s management of the infrastructure enables The PGA team to increase efficiencies by focusing less on hardware and maintenance and more on system implementation and operations. “The overall reliability of the Peak 10 cloud infrastructure is a key element in helping us deliver highly-visible solutions such as the scoring system for our premier events.”

The organiser from the Volvo Ocean Race 2011-12 have been forced to redraw the second and third leg routes on the 39,000 nautical mile round the world challenge because of security problems from piracy issues.

The original route would have taken them through an East African corridor in the Indian Ocean on the second leg from Cape Town to Abu Dhabi and again in the third leg from Abu Dhabi to Sanya in China.

But after taking advice from marine safety experts Dryad Maritime Intelligence and the sport’s governing body, the International Sailing Federation (ISAF), race organisers decided that sticking to the original route would put crews at too much risk.

Instead the boats will race from Cape Town to an undisclosed ‘safe haven’ port, where they will be transported closer to Abu Dhabi, and then complete the leg from there. The process will be reversed for the third leg before the race continues on to Sanya, the fourth of 10 host ports in a race that will not finish until July 2012.

“This has been an incredibly difficult decision,” said Volvo Ocean Race Chief Executive Knut Frostad. “We have consulted leading naval and commercial intelligence experts and their advice could not have been clearer: ‘Do not risk it.’

“The solution we have found means our boats will still be racing into Abu Dhabi and competing in the in-port race there.

“Abu Dhabi is a very important part of our plans, a real highlight being the race’s first-ever stopover in the Middle East, and we will now have a really exciting sprint finish to the emirate over the New Year period as well.”

Piracy has become a well-organised and highly lucrative business and it has expanded into a vast area off the coast of Somalia. In 2010 a record 1,181 seafarers were kidnapped by pirates, according to figures supplied by Dryad.

The most recent vessels released endured hijackings lasting an average of 213 days and it has been estimated that last year $150 million was paid to pirate gangs in ransoms for ships, cargoes and crews.

Frostad emphasised that the race would still be a round-the-world challenge. “We continue to be the only continuous sporting event to visit five continents over nine months of gruelling sailing,” he said.

Race director Jack Lloyd, also a senior ISAF official and respected Olympic and America’s Cup umpire, described the change as a “bump in the road which has to be negotiated, albeit a very expensive bump” rather than a race-changing suspension in the action.

Abu Dhabi will host the race from December 30 to January 14 with a purpose-built race village at its Corniche waterfront site and a headline New Year’s Eve concert amongst various festivities set to provide a spectacular welcome to more than 100,000 visitors.

Karen Jaques, COO of Dryad Maritime, said: “We have a long-standing relationship with Volvo Ocean Race and have been comprehensively involved in its risk management process since the last race in 2008-09.

“We will be working closely with the Volvo Ocean Race team to ensure that only essential disruption is needed.”

ISAF´s have a clear position that sailing in waters affected by piracy is too risky.

“The measures taken by the Volvo Ocean Race are very much in line with the advice that the International Sailing Federation has been giving for some time.” said ISAF Secretary General Jerome Pels.

“The ISAF strongly urges all yacht skippers intent on sailing anywhere in the area to seek an alternative, which the Volvo Ocean Race is now providing.”

Swiss side FC Sion were subject to a FIFA Warning to the Swiss FA over a ban on signing players imposed on the club before their European qualifier.

FC Sion, unhealthy who travel to Celtic Park on Europa League qualifier duty on Thursday, doctor took the ban to the Swiss courts, symptoms which overturned the earlier FIFA ban, imposed as punishment for inducing a player to break his contract.

Fifa’s rules are clear, clubs in member associations cannot revert to civil courts to challenge a penalty imposed by their association or an international association.

Today, Tuesday 16 August, FIFA said, “FIFA and Uefa, in a letter sent on 10 August, underlined the strict application of the regulations and informed the Swiss Football Association that they are expected to comply with them and to take the necessary measures to respect them.

“FIFA does not put any pressure on the Swiss Football Association but, jointly with UEFA, only refers to existing regulations.”

If Sion play any of the six players they registered this summer against Celtic on Thursday they expose themselves to disqualification from the tournament, with Celtic being awarded the tie, irrespective of the result.

Sion would be foolish to risk FIFA’s rath in this way, so chances are the tie will be settled on the field, but it’s far from ideal preparation for an important European tie.

Tiger Woods will follow his agent, Mark Steinberg, to Excel Sports Management, the company announced Monday.

Steinberg joined Excel after more than a decade of working for sports agency IMG.

Steinberg released a statement, saying: “After meeting with a number of agencies and businesses, I decided Excel was the perfect fit.”

Woods has not played since mid-May because of the problems, and will miss the British Open that begins this week.

On his official website last week, Woods said: “Unfortunately, I’ve been advised that I should not play in the British Open.

“As I stated at the AT&T National, I am only going to come back when I’m 100% ready as I do not want to risk further injury.”

He continued: “That’s different for me, but I’m being smarter this time. I’m very disappointed and want to express my regrets to the British Open fans.”

Woods suffered injuries to his left knee and left Achilles tendon during the Masters in April and withdrew after nine holes of the Players Championship when he inflamed his leg again.

“In hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have competed at the Players but it’s a big event, and I wanted to be there to support the PGA Tour,” Woods added.

“I’ve got to learn from what I did there and do it right this time and not come back until I’m ready.

“I think my best years are still ahead of me, and I’m very confident and optimistic about the future,” he said.

Former Toronto FC director Earl Cochrane has been named the acting deputy general secretary of the Canadian Soccer Association from the new year.

Cochrane joined Toronto FC in 2006 and served as director of team and player operations with Toronto FC until being released in September. He also served as academy director and interim general manager. He was previously director of communications with D.C. United (2005-06) and national teams manager with the CSA (2001-05).

“We are pleased to welcome Earl Cochrane back to our Canada Soccer team, generic ” CSA general secretary Peter Montopoli said in a news release. “Earl is an organized and versatile sports professional whose experience will be extremely valuable to our organization as we prepare for two of the most important years to date for our sport in this country.”

Canada will host the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup in 2014, generic and the FIFA Women’s World Cup in 2015. The CSA will also be preparing the men’s national team for FIFA World Cup 2018 qualification and overseeing ongoing changes in the domestic player development system.

According to the CSA release, cheap order Cochrane will “oversee the soccer administration of Canada Soccer, including sport governance, discipline and appeals, player registration and transfers and national competitions. He will also be responsible for member relations with Canada Soccer’s provincial/territorial Associations, professional leagues and clubs and other national sport and multi-sport organizations.”

Zum Ende der Paralympischen Spiele in London zieht Lutz Marmor, pilule Intendant des in der ARD für die Berichterstattung federführenden NDR, cialis eine positive Bilanz: “Die Welle der Begeisterung in Großbritannien hat sich von den Olympischen Spielen auf die Paralympics übertragen”, herbal so Marmor, “ich denke, diese besondere Atmosphäre und die beeindruckenden Leistungen der Athletinnen und Athleten haben wir unserem Publikum in Deutschland gut vermittelt.”

Im Schnitt sahen 0,92 Millionen Menschen die Paralympics-Sendungen im Ersten. Das entspricht einem Marktanteil von 8,7 Prozent. Das Erste hatte im Vergleich zu Peking 2008 seine Sendezeit fast verdoppelt und damit das Zuschauerinteresse steigern können. Neben der Eröffnungsfeier am 29. August, die 1,82 Millionen Menschen verfolgten (12,7 Prozent Marktanteil), verzeichnete die Übertragung des Judo-Halbfinales am 31. August mit 1,67 Millionen Zuschauern (7,5 Prozent) das größte Interesse. Am selben Tag konnte der Auftakt der Leichtathletik-Wettbewerbe 1,65 Millionen Menschen begeistern (8,6 Prozent), 1,47 Millionen (6,9 Prozent) sahen nur wenig später das Finale im Schießen.

Großen Zuspruch verzeichnete auch das Paralympics-Angebot der ARD im Internet unter www.sportschau.de/paralympics. Bis zum 8. August zählte die Seite bereits mehr als 6,4 Millionen Page Impressions (PI). Damit liegen die Zugriffe etwa zehnmal so hoch wie vor vier Jahren. Den höchsten Tageswert erzielte das Angebot am 30. August mit 672.000 PI.

Das ARD-Radioteam versorgte die Hörfunkprogramme des Senderverbundes aus London. Gefragt waren vor allem Geschichten über die “Typen” der Spiele, schnelle Nachrichten und Einschätzungen. Rund 120 sportliche Zusammenfassungen, Porträts und Hintergrundberichte sowie etwa 70 nachrichtliche Beiträge wurden produziert. 90 Mal standen die Reporter den Programmen in Deutschland als Experten in Live-Gesprächen zur Verfügung. Gespräche und zahlreiche Live-Reportagen aus dem Olympiastadion und der Schwimmarena rundeten das Angebot ab.