BRITISH viewers will be forced to stay up until the early morning to see some of the top events of the 2008 Olympics because of the demands from US television. The IOC announced yesterday that the swimming and most of the gymnastics finals would be held in the morning in Beijing, when most Europeans will be asleep.

The decision triggered a storm of protests, including a letter of complaint from many of the world’s top swimmers, led by Ian Thorpe, of Australia. The letter stated: “We, the Olympic swimmers, concerned about the commercial influence to our sport, aiming at fair competition and great competition results, want to swim finals at night in Beijing. We believe, based on competition experience, that we can swim faster at night.”

Among the other signatories were Grant Hackett, of Australia, Laure Manaudou, of France, Kosuke Kitajima, of Japan, and Roland Schoeman, of South Africa. They now want the IOC to reconsider its decision.

The IOC has tried to reconcile the competing demands of television companies across the world, with all of them wanting the top events in their evening peak-viewing slots. The events will be held at about 9am in Beijing, which is 9pm in New York and 2am in London.

Speaking in Beijing, where the executive board approved the schedule yesterday, an IOC spokeswoman said: “There can never be a perfect ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution which suits every stakeholder equally, but the IOC decision has endeavoured to find the best balance for the Olympic Movement.

“Key in this decision was ensuring that the physiology of the athletes was not affected and therefore the needs of athletes were thoroughly discussed by the IOC Athletes Commission. The Commission confirmed that athletes are able and focused enough to compete morning or evening.”

David Sparkes, the chief executive of British Swimming, said: “We’re really disappointed by the IOC’s decision. It’s clearly one the IOC may come to regret in time.”

Bill Sweetenham, the national performance director, said that his athletes would meet the challenge but John Coates, the president of the Australian Olympic Committee, was more concerned: “We stated our position in a meeting with (IOC) president (Jacques) Rogge,” he said. “We expressed a concern for the wellbeing of the athletes having to swim heats late at night and then returning to the pool the following morning to swim finals.”

He said that the fact that the International Swimming Federation did not oppose the changes made it easier for the IOC to alter the schedule.

NBC, the United States network, is paying £491 million for the television rights for Beijing, compared with £244 million from all of Europe’s broadcasters. The Japanese and Australian broadcasters, who wanted the swimming finals in the evening, have paid £100 million and £31 million respectively.

The narrowing gap proportionally between the money from the United States and Europe must also have been a factor in not scheduling any of the athletics events during the day. In 1988, NBC paid £175 million, ten times the total from Europe. That year, some athletics finals were staged at lunchtime, such as the notorious 100 metres in which Ben Johnson finished first only to be stripped of the gold medal because of a positive drugs test.

The BBC is pleased that the weekend rowing finals have been moved from the traditional early-morning slot to the afternoon, breakfast time in the UK.

NEVER TOO LATE

Most athletes will say that they compete better in the early evening. Dr Craig Williams, exercise physiologist to the English Institute of Sport, explains that “because of diurnal variations in the hormones of an athlete, it is usually an advantage to compete later in the day. However, all individuals are different so there are exceptions.” Some disadvantages can be offset by training and competing in the morning.

JOHN GOODBODY

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