Playing To Win

Playing to win

The vast machine that is Sydney Olympics 2000 is about to spring into action.

more than 10,000 Athletes and 5,000 officials will participate, watched by a worldwide TV audience of 3.5 billion

The five-member delegation from the Cape Verde Islands was embroiled in a serious dispute at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996.

The captain, the chef de mission and the chief executive all wanted to carry their nation's flag at the opening ceremony.

The chef de mission secured the flag for himself and the captain was sent back to Cape Verde.

The Olympics - which begin in Sydney next week - can cause disputes between the team-mates of the smallest nations, so when Robert Datnow secured himself the job of in-house lawyer at the British Olympic Association (BOA) in 1999 he was taking on quite a challenge.

Of the BOA's 14 directors, Mr Datnow, at 29 years old, is the youngest.

The BOA is one of only two national Olympic associations that have been to all the winter and summer games.

Unlike many other national Olympic associations, it receives no state funding.

The world parent body -- the International Olympic Committee (IOC) - owns all Olympic broadcasting and intellectual property rights.

The IOC protects its rights worldwide through international legislation - apart from in the UK, where the BOA negotiated an opt-out.

The BOA raises its own revenue through marketing its rights, which are protected by the Olympic Symbol etc.

(Protection) Act 1995.

The Act gives the BOA exclusive protection in the UK over the use of the Olympic rings logo, the words 'Olympic', 'Olympian', and 'Olympiad', the Olympic torch, and the Olympic motto citius altius fortius (faster, higher, stronger).

Mr Datnow says: 'The BOA operates independently from the government - not receiving lottery or state funding.

In 1980 the government discouraged athletes from going to the Moscow Olympics, but the BOA's independence then ensured that Britain maintained its 100% participation record.

The Act helps to protect the BOA's independence.'

With a background as a litigator - Mr Datnow formerly worked with City giant Linklaters - he knows how to deal with the flood of infringements of the logos that escalate as the games get nearer.

Recently, a major airline bought a tranche of tickets to Sydney, and tried to run an advertising campaign in the Evening Standard using Olympic words and the rings logo.'We approached the airline and got the entire promotion pulled; we obtained an immediate withdrawal,' he says.

'There have been five or six other cases like this, and we are currently dealing with several.'

One of the problems, Mr Datnow says, is that for skilful advertisers and marketers, it is 'worth it for them to push their luck', because once the damage has been done it is hard to rectify, and the benefit has been obtained.

Another of Mr Datnow's tasks has been to form a doping appeals panel in Australia.

He explains: 'The BOA has a doping by-law which means that if you have committed a doping offence, you cannot compete again in the games unless you appeal.

You can only appeal on two grounds: the offence was minor, or there were mitigating circumstances.

So we have an independent appeals panel in place to deal with any cases that arise; we also have emergency procedures in Sydney to help athletes if need be.'

In the current climate, this is an essential precaution.

'There is always a chance that in Australia someone may be found guilty of a doping offence,' he says.

Mr Datnow leaves for Australia this week.

He will then have four or five days to find his feet, and get accustomed to the layout of the games.

There will be two to three million visitors in Sydney, including 10,000 athletes and 15,000 journalists.

An estimated 3.5 billion television viewers worldwide will watch the games.

If an athlete is accused of doping, Mr Datnow will be working against the clock: 'The BOA will get a letter saying "please prepare to come before the IOC medical commission later today".

In the intervening time we need to prepare expert, legal and medical evidence, witness statements, supporting documentation, and then turn up before a panel of the IOC medical commission.

The press won't be told, but all this occurs in a goldfish bowl of media interest; the press will be phoning to find out any information they can.

We will go down to the hearing without the athlete, and do all we can to protect confidentiality.'

Mr Datnow may be a lawyer, but he must be keenly aware of public relations issues if an accusation of doping is levelled.

He explains: 'There's a whole PR angle in all of this for everyone involved; we have a PR team up in the holding camp near Brisbane, and a team of members down in Sydney, plus our PR department based back here.'

During the 1988 games, 1,000 phone calls were made to the BOA in a couple of hours in relation to one drugs story.

Mr Datnow is sanguine: 'The one thing we're all conscious of is that we have to act very quickly.

If we get things wrong, it could potentially be very embarrassing, but we will do everything we can to get it right.'

Another fine line to tread is that between the interests of the BOA and the individual athletes.

Mr Datnow says: 'In certain circumstances, where the interests of the BOA do not conflict with those of the athlete, the BOA will be acting for the athletes if they want us to protect them.' The BOA will be supported by top Australian firm Blake Dawson & Waldron and Australian QC Alan Sullivan.

The BOA retains London firm Farrer & Co in the UK.

A more basic task for Mr Datnow is to ensure all athletes are eligible to attend the games.

Clearly, all competitors need a British passport.

In the UK, applying for citizenship can take between six and 18 months.

This problem arose recently with British number two female archer Vladlena Priestmann, who is of Ukrainian origin.

Mr Datnow says: 'We had to say "look, here is someone who has been married to a Brit and has lived in Britain for over three years, she qualifies for a passport".

So we got a notary to meet the director of the nationality and immigration directorate in Liverpool four weeks ago, and managed to pull off the application in one day.'

There was no bending of the rules, he explains: 'It was just a question of short-circuiting the bureaucratic delay.'

Passports are not the only logistical preparations that Mr Datnow has been involved in.

He has also advised on the more complicated shipping arrangements: 'We recently flew two totally converted jumbo jets out to Sydney, costing 250,000.

These were refitted especially to take all the horses for the equestrian team: the jets had to be gutted and specially acclimatised to make sure that the horses didn't get sick during the journey.'

Another of his roles is to give advice to the athletes who fail to win places in the squad.

He has constructed an appeal panel - similar to the doping panel - for athletes to lodge any complaints.

As yet this panel has not had to meet athough there have been several appeals.

Through liaison with the governing bodies, further meetings - and, in the case of the canoeists, a further shoot-out - a full-blown hearing has so far been avoided.

Mr Datnow says that though athletes sympathise with one another about the pressures they are under, some of them are 'as tenacious as you would expect of people who have given up their jobs, and worked every day, six hours a day, for an Olympic place, which would be the pinnacle of their careers.

If someone else you consider to be worse than you gets that place, you will go ballistic'.

He says he has received numerous phone calls from governing bodies seeking guidance, and distraught athletes in tears, saying 'What shall I do, what are my rights? What does my agreement say?'.

Having to talk them through is, he insists, 'part of my job that gives me a direct client contact that I would probably not get at this stage if I was still working in private practice.

Actually affecting people's lives and livelihoods in a way that means that you are acting in their best interests, and getting them to achieve their lives' ambitions'.

As Mr Datnow makes his way to the games, he must have contradictory feelings.

If the games run smoothly, everyone will be content; if something goes wrong for the BOA he may be given the opportunity to patch up a massive dispute, watched by the world.'I'm the last person to say I hope a problem arises,' he says - 'but it would be a fascinating and unique experience.'

For solicitors specialising in athletics law, the last year or two have seen a small niche become almost an all-consuming one.

Sponsorship deals are always more lucrative and plentiful in an Olympic year, with the prospect of global television exposure, but this year there has been another factor on top - an unprecedented rash of positive drug tests on British athletes.

Karen Vleck, a specialist sports law partner in London firm Farrer & Co, says: 'You'd expect one a year, or none.

There was one in 1994, then one in 1997.' Yet last month alone, three British athletes appeared before an international tribunal, with a fourth likely to be heard there in a few weeks' time.

Ms Vleck is at the centre of the boom - she and her firm act for Britain's governing body, UK Athletics, which runs the British team and holds the domestic drugs test hearings before the International Amateur Athletics Federation (IAAF) takes over.

She played a central part in setting up UK Athletics when its predecessor body, the British Athletic Federation, went into administration with spiralling debts in late 1997, and even sits on its non-executive council.

When there is a positive drugs test, Ms Vleck says, it falls to her panel and Farrers to organise the hearings, retain counsel, collect witness statements and prepare the bundles.But as UK Athletics, and the solicitors for Linford Christie and other athletes have recently found out, you can win in London and lose in the end, if the Monaco-based IAAF, the umbrella for 214 national associations, decides to call in the case for arbitration.

In Monaco, to the frustration of defendants, a positive drugs test means a finding of guilt and a ban unless the defence can prove otherwise.

Judy Kemish, who works with Geoffrey Bindman at London firm Bindman & Partners in representing Linford Christie, says: 'The burden of proof has been reversed.'

Solicitors may protest that the Monaco body does not have to follow British law, but it is at least represented by British lawyers.

For more than 40 years from 1946 it used Linklaters, until one of the sports lawyers there, Mark Gay, took the business with him to a partnership at Herbert Smith, then to his third City firm, Denton Wilde Sapte.

Mr Gay says that although the science of drug testing has advanced, the legal issues remain the same as a decade ago.

'We're still arguing around the burden of proof, about restraint of trade, about the rules.

We are asking: "Have the laboratories done a good job with the tests? Is there a chain of custody of the samples?", 'he explains.

The runner Diane Modahl, cleared of a four-year ban for drugs after a long fight in the mid 1990s, used Mishcon de Reya.

Fraser Reid, formerly of Russell Jones & Walker and now at City firm Theodore Goddard, represented the runner Mark Richardson, who won a case before UK Athletics this summer but now faces an IAAF hearing on the eve of the Syndey Olympics.

Another runner, Dougie Walker, who just lost his appeal in Monaco, was brought to London firm Max Bitel Greene, which acts for the London marathon, by his sponsor Reebok, which knew the firm's sports partner Nick Bitel.

Marcel Apfel, an associate, says: 'When they heard about his drugs charge, they said he should get a good lawyer and passed him to us.' The firm has also advised Jason Livingston, who was sent home and banned for four years after a test at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.

The headlines and flurry of activity around the doping inquiries have piled on top of the normal core area of athletics legal advice, which relates to sponsorship.

Tim Mathew, a partner in City firm Clyde & Co, says: 'In athletics, you get a lot of personal sponsorship - often a car or a mobile phone.

The sponsor offers an amount for a set number of years, but it is not always clear to the athletes how much of themselves they are selling.

So they need legal advice on branding issues.

The initial contract may lead to others, perhaps commentating for the BBC or making fitness videos.

You don't want the sponsor to have rights over your future income.'

Mr Mathew says the intellectual property element is often missed by clients.

Even initials might have a commercial value, or facial features.

One of his firm's clients, the former world champion racing driver Damon Hill, has registered his eyes as a trademark.Few athletes possess Damon Hill's commercial value yet, but lawyers believe the time will come.

Athletics is attractive to sponsors because unlike cricket and soccer, it appeals to women and men alike, Ms Vleck says.

The National Lottery has brought more money into the sport, and Mr Gay points out that its television audiences in the UK are predominantly from the wealthier social groups.After Sydney, the focus will shift to the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester.

Northern giant Addleshaw Booth & Co won a competitive tender to be appointed legal adviser to the games, advising on broadcasting rights, sponsorship and merchandising contracts, and infringement issues.

And the firm has clearly learnt quickly about the importance of sponsorship.

It recently entered into its own deal with the games organisers, under which it will have the Addleshaws brand associated with the games in lieu of 1 million worth of fees.

Quick off the blocks indeed.

Stephen Ward is a freelance journalist

Johnny Searle: more than one boat to row

Rower Johnny Searle - famously a gold medalist in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics with brother Greg and bronze medalist in Atlanta four years later - is currently pondering his future.

On the one hand, Mr Searle is a solicitor with several years' experience at a top City law firm behind him; on the other, 2004 could give him one last chance to win another Olympic medal to add to the bronze he won at Atlanta in 1996.

Mr Searle has been with Ashurst Morris Crisp since 1993, when he joined as a trainee.

From the start, Ashursts provided him with the leeway required to keep himself in the British rowing squad.

'I would arrive at ten in the morning and leave at around 5.30pm in the evening, training both ends of the day.

Sometimes I would be out on the Thames.'

In 1996, Mr Searle took six months off work to train two to three times a day in preparation for the Atlanta games.

Having qualified into Ashursts' commercial litigation department in 1995, he remained there until September 1998 when he moved to its new media communications department.

For the past two years, in order to keep fit in the hope of participating in the Sydney Olympics, Mr Searle worked part-time, combining four hours' training a day with four hours' work.

He frequently took time away from the firm to participate in overseas training sessions, generally in Sierra Nevada near Granada in Spain - chosen to give the team vital altitude training and to escape from the Thames when it becomes too fast-flowing.

Mr Searle says: 'For this year's games, the seats in the men's four and pair were effectively taken, so I was vying for a place in the men's eight.'

The process of choosing who would be selected from the original squad for the Sydney games was, Mr Searle says, 'a gradual one'.

Up until April - when the final selections were made - there were trials every six weeks.

Mr Searle was unlucky: 'First, during a game of five-a-side football in December, I broke two ribs; then, in February I came off my motorbike.

This wasn't the ideal preparation.'He was beaten in the trials and failed to secure a place in the team - but he will be in Sydney to support his brother, who has been selected in the coxless pairs.

At the moment Mr Searle is uncertain whether he should continue to go for another Olympics.

'I'm staying fit at the moment; I don't want that to fall apart.

I'd like to keep myself up to scratch at a domestic level.'

Mr Searle has other boats to float: he has strong associations with the British Olympic Association (BOA) - where he sits on a sports dispute resolution panel - and is involved in a new court of arbitration for sports.

However, he is also thinking of his profession: 'I would like give myself the chance to try and get the most out of being a lawyer.

Being a good sportsman is something that's easy to guage - you win medals.

Being a good lawyer is a different challenge altogether.'

Jeremy Fleming

Louis Attrill: finding the time to practise

Louis Attrill - a 25-year-old law student - will be sitting in the British men's rowing eight at Sydney next week competing for a medal.

Mr Attrill had never rowed before he started a degree in civil engineering at London's Imperial College.

After graduating, he took the part-time common professional examination (CPE) at the College of Law, London, because 'it was the only part-time CPE on offer in the country and gave me the time I needed to train'.

For the two-year course, he trained from eight until lunch-time and from four until six.

The course involved two evenings of classes from six to nine, plus homework.

Although he missed some 'quite big chunks of classes' as a result of training abroad, Mr Attrill says the college gave him all the support and help he needed.

Originally interested in law through construction disputes he studied during his engineering course, he now wants to explore another interest - sports law - before deciding which to eventually pursue.

He says he needs to get some work experience.Now that he has passed his CPE, he wants to take the legal practice course.

This has been upset by the Olympics, the timing of which has prevented him from beginning a course this September.

But he hopes to start off the LPC soon after his return from Sydney and then work for a firm that can accommodate his ambitions: 'I will definitely be going for the Athens Olympics in 2006.

I'm 25 and I haven't plateaued yet.

I would like to get a job with a firm who would be flexible about my training.'

Jeremy Fleming

The Sydney 2000 Olympic Games are truly a massive operation - the largest in history.

There will be 10,200 athletes and 5,100 officials competing in a record 28 sports, 300 events and 640 sessions.

They will be watched by 15,000 accredited media, 9.2 million spectators and a likely worldwide TV audience of 3.5 billion people.

Seventeen days after the Olympics end, 4,000 disabled athletes will gather for the Paralympics.

With an event of such size, it is no surprise that there has been plenty of legal work to go around - and not just for the handful of mega-firms which dominate the Australian market.

Lawyers' involvement in the games has been central from the start: Rob McGeoch, the chairman of Sydney-based Coors Chambers Westgarth, was chief executive of the Olympic bid team and, until 1998, a director of the Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (SOCOG); John Coates, SOCOG's senior vice-president and president of the Australian Olympic Association, is with Sydney law firm Greaves Wannan & Williams; while Chris Hartcher MP, the shadow minister for the Olympics in New South Wales and also a member of SOCOG, was a lawyer before entering politics.

The staging of the 2000 games is the responsibility of SOCOG.

The New South Wales government underwrites the games and is responsible for providing venues and facilities through the Olympic Co-ordination Authority (OCA).

Coors Chambers and Allen Allen & Hemsley are the main firms advising SOCOG - which also has a substantial in-house legal team made up of contracted staff and secondees from law firms - while Clayton Utz and Mallesons Stephen Jacques have been the main external advisers to the OCA, which has only two in-house lawyers.

Clive Craven, the Clayton Utz partner leading his firm's work for the OCA, estimates that the games have taken up 80% of his time over the past five years.

He explains that as well as a usual bulk discount on fees, the OCA is benefiting from an 'Olympic discount'.

The partners saw it as their way of contributing to the event, he says, adding that most of the law firms involved have done something similar, such as seconding staff for free.

Clayton Utz has helped the OCA procure more than 50 venues required for the Olympics and the Paralympics - both existing venues and the construction of new ones.

The majority are located at Sydney Olympic Park, the centrepiece of which is the Olympic Stadium, which with a capacity of 110,000 is, naturally, the biggest in Olympic history.

Clayton Utz has also acted for the Olympic Roads and Transport Authority, which has the key function of planning, co-ordinating and providing integrated road and transport services for both games.

'It's thrown up a lot of challenges,' says Mr Craven.

'There's been a lot of advice establishing who owns public land.' The erection of a beach volleyball centre on the famous Bondi Beach has caused particular problems, and the firm had to act in numerous legal proceedings brought over it.

Sydney has not been short of controversy in the run-up to the games, especially in relation to allegations of impropriety in the bidding process and a ticketing scandal.But while it may not be as controversial afterwards, Mr Craven anticipates a lot of work for all involved.

'There'll be the usual haggling over bits of the accounts and reconfiguration of the sites,' he says.

Some of the venues, such as the beach volleyball centre, will be pulled down at once, but others will remain and Mr Craven says it is important to ensure that they do not become white elephants.

In another part of the firm, partner Mary Still has been busy representing the Seven Network, the games' official broadcaster.

Michael Lloyd-Jones, the network's general counsel, says: 'For official Olympic broadcasters, such as the Seven Network in Australia and the European Broadcasting Union [of which the BBC is a member], the major concern is the possibility of non-rights holders broadcasting within their exclusive broadcast territory.

We have had to work closely with both the New South Wales government and the organising committee to ensure that Seven is given protection for its investment.'

Ms Still had to review the rules of the overarching Olympic body - the International Olympic Committee (IOC) - and then change them to regulate non-rights holders in a better way.

Now, for example, non-rights holders who receive coverage from the Seven Network for their news programmes cannot use footage of more than either one-third of an event or 30 seconds, with the exception of 100-metre races.

They may not use more than three minutes of footage in total.

Another level of legal work is intellectual property.

The stakes are huge, as income from official sponsors is vital to a successful games.

In January, Reebok withdrew its sponsorship after SOCOG decided to issue staff with baseball caps made by a rival sportswear manufacturer.

As a result, Reebok has begun a multi-million dollar legal action

Strenuous efforts have been made to quash so-called ambush marketing - the unauthorised association of a non-Olympic sponsor with the marketing of the Olympics.

The battle has also been taken internationally.

In July, the IOC began legal action in the US to close down 1,800 Internet sites it says are abusing the Olympic name.

The intellectual property aspect of the games is possibly the trickiest legal issue of all.

The Seven Network has to be very cautious about advertising from non-official sponsors during Olympic programmes.

But non-sponsors can still find a way around it.

While Ansett Australia is the games' official airline, rival Qantas is sponsoring the broadcast.Sydney's business community is likely to come to a virtual halt during the 17 days of the Olympics.

With many of its staff among the 50,000 volunteers helping with the games, Clayton Utz is expecting no more than 25% of them to turn up each day.

Mr Craven says it will be like the Christmas and New Year period with 'very little work' done.

The firm is also changing its work hours to 7am-3pm in an effort to help staff avoid what are likely to be very busy rush-hours.

Mr Craven, like most of the lawyers involved, has got hold of tickets for the event - 'at great cost' for the opening ceremony - which he intends to enjoy with his family, not work colleagues.

Athletics, swimming and tennis are all on his schedule; so is the beach volleyball, which he confesses to being particularly keen to see after all the problems it has caused him.

Bernadette O'Driscoll: the fast and aggressive appeal of basketball

Solicitor Bernadette O'Driscoll describes the moment she was selected to play for the women's paralympic basketball team as 'unbelievable'.

But, as the opening ceremony comes nearer, she admits she is getting anxious, not least because she is terrified of flying.

After being paralysed in a car accident in 1984 when she was just 16, Ms O'Driscoll says 'a natural survival instinct' drew her to basketball.

'Being exposed to basketball when I was rehabilitating was fantastic,' she says.

'You saw paraplegics playing the game and they were the fittest, strongest and able to do most things.'

Although basketball may not be as 'glamourous' as other sports, her love of it remains because it is 'fast and aggressive'.

It also appeals because 'you can't scream at a judge, you have to be polite, so basketball is a real outlet'.

Ms O'Driscoll says she only came into the profession because of her accident.

Whilst her own claim for compensation was handled 'fantastically', she says it was 'still a horrible process'.

When all the lawyers were celebrating the settlement with champagne, she says she cried because 'I couldn't believe that's what my legs were worth'.

She says she believed then that she could give clients something that other solicitors could not.

After studying law part-time at Nottingham Trent University from 1992 to 1996 - where she also did her legal practice course - she secured a training contract with Barratt Goff & Tomlinson in Nottingham, where she qualified, and specialises in personal injury and clinical negligence.

She says her firm has been 'very supportive' of her sporting ambitions.

However, working in a small firm has made it impossible for her to take off the three or four months needed for intensive training before the paralympics starts on 18 October.

This being the case, she divides her week between working and training.

Besides holding down a full caseload, Ms O'Driscoll undertakes sports-hall training five nights a week, three of which are in Sheffield, a three-hour round trip away.

Training sessions last two to three hours during the week and four hours on Saturday.

Besides eating up most of her week, the financial cost is also high.

Petrol costs run to 400 a month, balls cost 50 and wheelchair tyres 30-40 a pair.

The special wheelchair needed can cost up to 2,000, but she 'did a deal' with RGK Wheelchairs to get the cost down to 700.

Despite spending one-third of her income on her sport, she says that as she neither drinks nor smokes, and has very little time for a social life, she can manage.

Although delighted by her selection, at 32 she says she is one of the older members of a young squad, 'a squad for the future'.

Although the team plans to do well, she says its main aim is to build experience and improve its world ranking from seven to five.

Sue Allen