Sir Craig Reedie, key London 2012 Olympics figure and former BOA chair, dies aged 84
Sir Craig Reedie, a giant of the Olympic movement, who served as chair of the British Olympic Association for more than a decade and was instrumental in bringing the Games to London in 2012, has died at the age of 84,Tributes have poured in for the Scots-born Reedie, who was also president of the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) when Russia was found guilty of state-sponsored doping across “a vast majority” of winter and summer sports, including at the 2014 Sochi Olympics,During this tumultuous period, Reedie and Wada recommended that Russia be banned from the 2016 Rio Games – a call that was ultimately rejected by the International Olympic Committee,Reedie was vice-president of the IOC during part of his Wada tenure and a former badminton competitor who led the campaign for its Olympic inclusion starting at Barcelona ‘92,Sebastian Coe, the World Athletics president, who led the organising committee for the London Games on whose board Reedie sat, said: “I am devastated for his family.
Craig was my mentor, wise counsel, passionate advisor, and great friend,He was the distinguished elder statesman with a reservoir of Olympic knowledge and experience which he shared willingly and to great effect,“Without Craig and his leadership of the British Olympic Association, we may never have won the right to host London 2012,Craig was a sportsman at heart, but he had the mind and tenacity of a politician,He was equal parts opinionated, wise, canny, and, most of all, loyal to those who legitimately wanted to serve sport.
The epitome of a gentleman.”Reedie represented Great Britain in badminton in the 1960s before venturing into sports administration, beginning with the Scottish Badminton Union.In 1981 he was elected International Badminton Federation president, becoming BOA chair in 1992 and joining the IOC two years later.He served as vice-president on the IOC from 2012 to 2016, a period which overlapped with his presidency of Wada.Dame Katherine Grainger, the current BOA chair, praised his fight against doping and his support for the Olympic movement and its competitors.
“If you have worked in Olympic sport, then it’s highly likely that you would have known Sir Craig Reedie,” Grainger said.“How lucky we all were.“Whether he was rubbing shoulders with the higher echelons of the IOC membership, or making his way around the British Olympic Association’s offices to chat with staff members, he was never short of a word of encouragement, or some gentle wise counsel.“Few knew the Olympic movement better and fewer still served it with such distinction.His dedicated service to the BOA, to the IOC and to Wada is notable.
“He always fought hard for Olympic sport, and fought harder still for clean sport,In doing so he saw the good and, inevitably, the bad of our sporting system,It was the measure of Craig that it never diminished his love of sport and the Olympic movement in particular,“Craig awarded me some of my Olympic medals, so I had the privilege of being consoled and congratulated by him, and knowing he understood exactly what those moments meant,“I only hope Lady Rosemary and family can be comforted by the warmth and affection with which we will hold Sir Craig’s memory by.
”
Oil dips below $110 in volatile markets as Trump deadline looms for Iran to reopen strait – business live
Brent crude has now fallen 1.8% to $107.86 a barrel.“For now, the absence of a clear path forward is keeping markets volatile and indecisive,” said Daniela Hathorrn, senior market analyst at Capital.com
Oil and gas crisis from Iran war worse than 1973, 1979 and 2022 together, says IEA
The current oil and gas crisis triggered by the blockade of the strait of Hormuz is “more serious than the ones in 1973, 1979 and 2022 together”, the head of the International Energy Agency (IEA) has warned, as Donald Trump’s deadline for Iran to reopen the waterway approached on Tuesday.Fatih Birol, the executive director of the IEA, told Le Figaro newspaper that the impact of the Middle East conflict on the oil market was larger than the combined force of the twin oil shocks of the 1970s and the fallout of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.Birol also warned that the countries most at risk were developing nations which will suffer from higher oil and gas prices, higher food prices and a general acceleration of inflation, while European countries, Japan and Australia would also suffer.Oil traded at more than $110 a barrel on Tuesday, before dipping in volatile trading, after Donald Trump said all of Iran could be “taken out” in one night.Brent crude, the international benchmark for oil prices, rose by 1% to $111 a barrel, before slipping back to $109
An AI bot invited me to its party in Manchester. It was a pretty good night
Two weeks ago, an AI bot invited me to a party it was organising in Manchester. It then promptly lied to dozens of potential sponsors that I’d agreed to cover the event, and misled me into believing there would be food.Despite all this, it was a pretty good night.In early February, a class of new, powerful AI assistants went viral. The assistants, called OpenClaw, represented a step change in the rapidly improving capabilities of AI – in large part because, unlike other AI agents, they could be untethered from guardrails and set loose upon the world
Kurt Strauss obituary
My father, Kurt Strauss, who has died aged 95, was a senior engineer who worked for more than two decades at the Electricity Council, the government body that coordinated electricity supply in England and Wales before privatisation in 1990.He worked for all of that time within the council’s overseas relations branch, managing international relationships, technical exchanges and consultancy services while rising steadily through the ranks to associate director. German by birth but brought up in the UK, he was a passionate European who spoke French and German, and was therefore well suited to those responsibilities.Kurt was born in Degerloch, a suburb of Stuttgart, into a Jewish family. In 1937 his parents, Viktor, who worked in the family down and feather business, and Marianne (nee Melzer), sent Kurt’s older brother, Helmut, to safety in Britain, where he ended up at a boarding school, Sidcot, in Somerset
Drone racing to drone strikes: have war and sport become indistinguishable?
The Trump administration’s pushing of the war in Iran reflects a sporting culture driven by clipped-up content, shameless tribalism and a lust for escalation Among the more surprising continuities of 2026 has been the visual kinship between the Winter Olympics and the US’s illegal and unprovoked war in Iran. High-speed camera drones were a highlight of TV coverage of the recent Games in Milano Cortina, bringing viewers within kissing distance of the action as Olympic athletes hurtled down the slopes and around the tracks in the skiing and sliding events. The incessant screech of the drones aside, the introduction of quadcopter-borne cameras felt like a real step forward in coverage of the winter sports, bringing a (literal) new perspective to events that had become, over recent decades, fairly static as a viewing experience.No sooner had the Olympics finished than aerial video was back on our screens – only the footage, in this case, was of a far darker variety. In place of the ludicrous hip flexibility of the slaloming skiers and the high-speed cornering of the monobobbers, for the past month our feeds have been flooded with satellite and drone imagery of the US military blowing Iranian aircraft, ships, vehicles, munitions buildings, and citizens to smithereens
The Breakdown | Mitchell’s Six Nations conundrum: who will be Red Roses’ next Abby Dow?
How do you solve a problem like replacing Abby Dow? Yes, it is a different take on the Sound of Music song but it is a fiendish question to answer. The Red Roses winger retired after the Rugby World Cup, leaving a try-scoring hole in the world champions’ squad, whose next task is to try to win their eighth straight Women’s Six Nations title. And so while Julie Andrews’ character realised she was not a problem after all, the England head coach, John Mitchell, is left with a selection headache before his team start their campaign against Ireland on Saturday.Dow scored 50 tries in 59 caps, with her lightning pace a key characteristic to her game. She retired to pursue a career in engineering and her boots are large ones to fill
People living with incontinence face shortage of sanitary pads as NHS limits supplies
NHS urges patients not to put off care as doctors in England prepare for strike
Say it right! The trouble with unfamiliar names | Letters
A striking exchange between nurse and doctor | Brief letters
Medicines watchdog to investigate UK peptide clinics over health claims
‘Young people want to come together’: experts respond to mass teen meet-ups in Clapham