Annecy 2018 has received official backing of the French-speaking world in its bid to host the Winter Olympics and Paralympics ahead of next month’s vote.

The support came during the latest Ministerial session of CONFEJES – the Conference of Ministers for Youth and Sport from States and Governments with French as a common language – held in Ndjamena, Chad.

The motion, which was passed with unanimous support, said: “The Conference of Ministers supports France and calls on all its members and those of the International Francophone Organisation to support the Annecy bid – the only French-speaking bid – to host the 2018 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games,” 

President of Annecy 2018, Charles Beigbeder, was delighted to receive the backing from CONFEJES.

He said: “It is important for us to have received this unanimous support from CONFEJES.

“We believe Games in France will offer the Olympic Movement an authentic global platform to promote its values. 

“This support is a real boost for us and our team will be doing everything possible in the final days of the campaign to bring the 2018 Games to Annecy to help benefit Olympism all over the world.”

The London 2012 Organising Committee (LOCOG) have announced that a London-based design studio has been appointed to design the Olympic and Paralympic Torches.

The torch, which will be used for the 70-day Olympic Torch Relay, when 8,000 Torchbearers will carry the Olympic Flame across the UK ahead of the Olympic Games Opening Ceremony, with designers Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby having been chosen to design the Torch.

Sebastian Coe, Chair of LOCOG said: “The Olympic Flame will literally shine a light on inspiring people, places and 2012 Games projects and programmes right across the UK as communities begin their Olympic celebrations with the Torch Relay.

“95 per cent of the UK population will be within a one hour journey time of the Olympic Torch Relay and we are now developing the Torch which will be one of the key visual icons of the London Olympic Games.”

Based in Hackney, less than four miles from the Olympic Park, the designers were selected by LOCOG and the Design Council after a competitive tender process last year.

They are also working on design aspects for the Paralympic Torch Relay that will take place between the close of the Olympic Games and the start of the Paralympic Games in August 2012.

Indian broadcaster Sony Six has acquired the broadcasting rights to the Red Bull Air Race World Championship.

The channel will have sole television rights across the subcontinent. The acquisition also marks the inaugural broadcast of the series for the first time ever across Indian television screens. As the onset to the sport going live for Indian viewers, asthma the series leads to its maiden visit to Croatia this Sunday 13 April 2014.

The World Championship features 12 pilots from across the globe. The reigning champion from the last world championship Paul Bonhomme of the United Kingdom is also in the mix and will be looking to defend his title.

Scottish Gymnastics (SG) have announced Brian Samson will take up the role as interim CEO from 13th May 2013. 

SG said in a staement: “Brian is a former Director of Sportscotland and had played a large role in the development of Sportscotland Regional Sporting Partnerships and recently has experience of similar interim  positions with Cycling(CEO) and Snow Sport(Chair).”

“One of Brian’s first tasks will be to create Scottish Gymnastics 2013/2014 annual business plan. 

“We welcome Brian to Scottish Gymnatics.”

PyeongChang’s bid to host the 2018 Winter Games has received a welcome boost after it was confirmed that South Korean President Lee Myung-bak is to show his support for the campaign by attending the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Session in Durban next month.

South Africa’s Sam Ramsamy, who is also a member of the IOC, revealed that Lee will be attending the event that is due to begin on July 4 with the vote to decide which city should host the Games scheduled for July 6.

The news follows the confirmation that German President Christian Wulff will also be present to lobby for Munich at the Session, though it remains unclear if French President Nicolas Sarkozy would attend to back the Annecy bid.

Last month Lee claimed it would be a “national disgrace” if Pyeongchang were beaten for a third consecutive time having previously narrowly lost to Vancouver to host the 2010 Winter Olympics and Sochi for 2014.

Ramsamy stated: “The cities are expected to bring huge bid delegations and the winning host city will be elected in a secret IOC ballot on July 6.

“We have already had confirmation that German and South Korean Presidents are also expected to be in Durban to support their country’s bids.

“This event is the biggest biannual meeting of leaders in global sport. 

“Having been born in Durban, this is indeed a great delight and honour that we can host such a high profile event in this city.

“In the 117 years of the IOC, this event has never been hosted in Africa. 

“To host this event in our country and knowing how cities and countries vie to host the IOC Session, Durban is certainly fortunate.

“This gives me an opportunity to personally welcome my colleagues to the city where I was born.”

A comprehensive venue testing programme has been revealed by the London 2012 Organising Committee (LOCOG) to ensure that everything from results, health scoring, timing systems, operational procedures and field tests, are working correctly for next year’s Games.

The programme consists of international invitational events delivered by LOCOG, international federation events, and international events organised by sports national governing bodies and other organisations.

Chairman of LOCOG Seb Coe, stated: “Our approach to operational delivery is similar to that of an athlete.   You do not want to face any conditions at competition time that you have not prepared for. When the world’s greatest Olympic and Paralympic athletes come to London in the summer of 2012, every aspect of our delivery needs to be the best it can be.”

Some of the events involved with testing will form part of UK Sport’s world class events programme, with the body having worked closely alongside LOCOG on the programme. The world class events programme invests National Lottery funding to help stage major international sporting events in the UK. 

Liz Nicholl, chief executive of UK Sport, added: “UK Sport’s world class events programme has been preparing Britain’s sports and elite athletes for their home Games in London for the past five years, so it is fantastic to be supporting LOCOG’s testing programme at this crucial time.” 

The testing programme begins with the Bupa London Marathon on 30th May and runs all the way through to May 2012.

The Canterbury Rugby Football Union (CRFU), cialis the governing body for rugby union in a substantial part of the Canterbury region in New Zealand, help have announced the appointment of Trevor McIntyre to the Board of the CRFU.

McIntyre brings with him a wealth of business and rugby experience. He is currently an Advisor to the Ministry of Education prior to which he was Headmaster of Christchurch Boys High School for 9 years. McIntyre graduated from Lincoln University and went onto farm deer for 10 years before turning his hand to teaching having taught at Queenstown, ambulance Waimate and Timaru Boys High School.

Throughout his career McIntyre has been heavily involved with rugby having been manager of the NZ Schools Rugby team, a member of the NZ SchoolsRugby Council and the NZRU Junior Advisory Board.  Previously he managed the Southern Regions Schools team, the South Canterbury NPC division 2 team as well as the Hanan Shields in the Fiji International. He is also an inaugural member of the Crusaders Press Cup Advisory Board.

CRFU Chairman Stewart Mitchell commented on the new appointment: “We are delighted that someone of Trevor’s calibre and experience has joined the CRFU board. He brings with him a fresh perspective and his enthusiasm for rugby and experience across the game is invaluable. Trevor’s appointment now completes the CRFU board and we look forward to working with him over the coming year.”

McIntyre says “I appreciate the opportunity to take up governance role with the CRFU and look forward to bringing my knowledge and experience of 55 years in the game. At various times this involved playing, coaching, managing, administering, governing and supporting the game of rugby at every level from club to national level, but particularly the junior, teenage and schools level.”

The CRFU board consists of: Stewart Mitchell (Chairman), Daryll Park, Grant Jarrold, Pete Winchester, Simon Forest, Stu Boon, Trevor McIntyre, Ken Pope and Wayne McWhirter.

For the second consecutive year, medicine the Generations For Peace Institute (GFPI) has selected two scholars from the University of Oxford for its Summer Field Research programme. These scholarships are part of an ongoing collaboration between GFPI and the University of Oxford established in 2011, help which includes provision of scholarships and research grants to support study and multi-disciplinary research aimed at making a broader contribution to the peace-building community. The 2013 Summer Field Research grantees are Sevgi Sairoglu and Vishnupriya Das, both MPhil candidates at the University of Oxford.

Sevgi, originally from Turkey, is reading Economics for Development at the University of Oxford’s Exeter College. Together with two other winners of 2012 United Nations Academic Impact/Brookings Institution speech competition, Sevgi got to meet the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon and UN Messengers of Peace at the 2012 International Day of Peace celebrations in the UN Headquarters in New York. She has been involved in various interdisciplinary research papers, including an analysis of the impact of women’s earnings on income inequality in Turkey. With her GFPI 2013 grant Sevgi is keen to use her language skills to research the impact of Generations For Peace programmes in supporting post-conflict reconciliation in several African countries, with a particular focus on the role of women and impact on women.

Vishnupriya is a post-graduate student at University of Oxford’s St. Catherine’s College studying Contemporary India. She has conducted research in a wide range of topics, from the relationship between mobile-phone technology and empowerment in the global south, to the ways in which internet is influencing the biological basis of empathy. Growing up in India close to the Bangladesh border, Vishnupriya has always been fascinated with the practical and ideological struggles that come with experiencing life in a divided land. This has led Vishnupriya to use film and new media as a tool to give voice to people in conflict-ridden countries. She would like to use this experience in her research on behalf of GFPI in several south-east Asian countries this summer.

HRH Princess Sarah Al-Feisal, Generations For Peace President, was delighted with the confirmation of this new phase of the Field Research Programme: “Our cooperation with the University of Oxford is going from strength to strength, and we are looking forward to working with selected scholars in the coming months. Our experience with last year’s scholars was very positive and this whole process is yet another dimension of knowledge exchange and development of best practices that the Generations For Peace Institute stands for.”

Following a lengthy selection process and their confirmation as researchers, Sevgi and Vishnupriya will now visit the GFPI in Amman, in preparation for their field visits that will take place mid summer. Once their field research is completed, they will be invited by GFPI back to the field to share their findings with local Generations For Peace volunteers and other stakeholders including the academic community.

The programme builds on last year’s success. In 2012, two Summer Field Research awardees Nabila Hussein and Sairah Yusuf visited Jordan, Palestine, Nigeria and Pakistan. During those visits, they conducted research focusing on assessing the monitoring and evaluation capacity of Generations For Peace programmes and satellite offices, and research to assess the impact the programmes are having in communities facing a diverse range of conflicts, from inter-ethnic and inter-religious to gender inequality and violence in schools or universities.

Annecy 2018 bid chief Charles Beigbeder remains confident that the city will win the rights to host the Winter Games despite half of Annecy’s residents being against their candidacy, according to a survey conducted by Opinion Way for ODS Radio, a local station.

Results of the survey revealed that just 49 per cent of those polled said that they were in favour of the bid, a figure which rises to 80 per cent across the whole of the country.

The poll claiming that 50 per cent of local respondents said that they opposed Annecy’s candidature comes just a week after another poll carried out by Opinion Way which suggested that support for the bid had increased to 67 per cent in the city.

Annecy, considered the outsider in the race to host the 2018 event, is up against Munich and Pyeongchang, with the decision due at the International Olymipic Committee (IOC) Session in Durban on July 6.

The bid leader for Annecy, Charles Beigbeder, nevertheless, claimed that he expected Annecy to win, saying: “Right now I’m focusing on the international side of the bid and IOC members.

“Once we will be awarded the Games, we will have plenty of time to work with [Annecy citizens] and to take into account their legitimate concerns.”