With a remarkable finish, the homepage thepulse2007.org managed to receive 17.000 hits and 4.000 unique visitors between Sunday October 28 and Thursday November 1.

Most of the visitors came from Iceland, 1.443 unique visitors, followed by Denmark, 698 unique visitors, and Germany - in a very close race with the US - getting the third spot with 353 unique visitors.

The country list is also presented by visitors from more exotic places such as South Africa, Trinidad & Tobago and Guatamala.

There were no unexpected outsiders challenging the first spot among the most visited pages.

Unsurprisingly, the favourite, the frontpage, came in on a clear first spot with the live streaming and the daily newscoverage as second and third runner up.

The most popular articles were the ones involving Jörg Jaksche in fourth, fifth and eighth place. Although it must be mentioned that the latest uploaded articles have not had the same time of exposure as those with the German rider.

In average, users spent about seven minutes on the homepage every time they entered.

45 percent of the visitors entered the homepage directly whereas about 51 percent jumped in via a link. Those links are mainly presented by the Play the Game homepage, and more surprisingly a cycling entusiast called cyclinganonymous

All in all more than 60 comments has been made and about 80 articles produced and published.

It is expected that the number of visitors will rise in the days to come.

A full comprehensive list will all statistics will be updated later.

Photo: Morten Flarup

Play the Game is build on admirable thoughts and good intentions, but how does it actually help to prevent corruption and doping use?

You can always discuss, whether or not conversation, education, journalism and research works. But if we give up on our belief, that one person bringing information to another, sharing his or her knowledge and thoughts, is meaningful, then there are a lot of things, which will come to an end in this world.
That said I am probably the first person to ask myself every morning when I get up and several times during the day, whether or not it really is worth all the trouble, and I would like to point to a couple of things. Firstly, Play the Game has throughout the years provided a home for the homeless questions in sport. It has been a forum for some people, who, because of knowledge they had, have been harassed, threatened professionally or physically and even on their life, because they dared to dig into some cases, which other people with either economical or political power did not want them to dig into. Also, there are some very concrete examples of events taking place in the forum of Play the Game, that have had remarkable effects later on. For instant Sandro Donati’s ground breaking lecture on the roads of the global doping trade. All indications suggest that this lecture was a deciding factor in the present focus of WADA, the EU and various countries on how to get to the providers in stead of only the athletes.

Do you think that the existence of Play the Game makes an athlete considering to use doping or a leader in a sports organization considering to take a bribe choose the right path?

That is probably setting the bar a little too high. But at least Play the Game helps to create a sports environment with optimal conditions for the athletes, who follow the rules and helps to make it more difficult and less appealing to use doping or take bribes.

Have you ever yourself taken a short cut to reach a goal and afterwards realized that you did it in a questionable way?

I probably have, but right now at the end of a long conference I honestly don’t know. But I can tell you this much: I have never been tested positive.

Note: The funding from the Danish government to Play the Game expires at the end of 2007, but the organization has received a preliminary message from the Ministry of Culture, that a new four year period will be approved. However, primary elections in Denmark on the 13th of November might stir up the question of future funding, if a new government is elected.

Some of the ways to cheat in practice is when the goalkeeper places himself in a slightly wrong position and pushes the ball instead of catching it. For midfielders it can be keeping the ball for a long time giving the opponent a chance to seize it, dribbling straight at the opponent or simple shooting right at the keeper, says Hill.

In his research he splits up the fixing of matches into two categories: arranged match fixing and gambling match fixing. In arranged fixing it is the team officials who are acting as the corrupters while in gambling fixing it might be just one of the players on the team.

- When performing a fixed match the corrupters try to make sure it can’t be seen and acting naturally is an important thing in that aspect. It is often the people you would not suspect that are behind it, says Declan Hill.

His conclusion on the subject is somewhat surprising: fixed games are often played different to the way the public think of a corrupt match.

- My studies shows that the goals are often being scored right in the beginning of matches and not as penalties in the last minutes as one could expect. The activity in a fixed match is lower at the end of each half whereas the honest matches show significant attempts to score goals in the last minutes of the match, Declan Hill explains.

- The cheating is often carried out as not doing certain things than the opposite for instance giving a penalty to the opponent team. It is only the bad fixed games the public detect, says Declan Hill.

The award was given by Laura Robinson, winner of the Play the Game award 2002, awarded for her work against abuse in the world of canadian hockey. The award consists of a piece of art and an invitation to the next Play the Game conference.

- Receiving this award is very important for me. Play the Game has been here for me during some very hard times. Also, it is of the utmost importance, that Play The Game continues. The sports organizations are not yet ready to, voluntarily, to open up for a dialogue on these topics, says award winner Sandro Donati.

Mr. Sandro Donati was the obvious candidate for this years award considering his lifelong commitment in the battle against doping and corruption, sometimes involving personal risk.

Sandro Donati gets the award for his long and stubborn work against doping in sports often involving great strain and personal risk, for example threats and the fact that he was fired. It was Sandro Donati who was the first to aggressivly pursue the problems in Italy and CONI’s role. It was his discoveries that pushed the effort against EPO, says Chairman of the Play the Game Board Jens Brinch to thepulse2007.org.

In the early 80’s Sandro Donati discovered a large and systematic doping programme supported by the Italian Athletics Federation, while he was the national running coach. As he continued to reveal doping and corruption through the 80′ies, he was eventualy fired from his job at the Italian Olympics Committee, CONI.

In the beginning of the 90′ies, Sandro Donati was taken back into CONI, here he continued to reveal doping scandals. He discovered the use of EPO in cycling and in 1998 his discoveries lead to a public investigation resulting in the dismissal of CONI president Mario Pescante.

- Giving the award to Sandro Donati now is not connected to a specific event happening right now. But we are beginning to see the fruits of his long struggle now. His speak at Play the Game 2000 was an eyeopener for us all, says Jens Brinch.

Facts:

The Play the Game award is given to an individual or a group of persons who in their professional careers or as volunteers in sport have made an outstanding effort to realize one or more of the following aims: To strengthen the basic ethical values of sport, to encourage democracy, transparency and freedom of expression in world sport, to create awareness of sport’s role in society at a local, national and international level, to draw a many-sided picture of sport and to support the right of the individual to choose and influence his or her daily sporting activities.

Murali Krishnan in front of a picture of the late Bob Woolmer (Photo: Troels Kaltoft)

In India, the penalty for a player who is involved in match fixing only concerns his sport. He will not be prosecuted for a legal felony. Whereas the fixer risks receiving a fine. None of them will do time in prison.

Murali Krishnan, a journalist for the Indo Asian News service, gave a presentation on match fixing on the last day of the Play the Game conference in Reykjavik, Iceland.

He summarized an alarming history of match fixing within the sport which has resulted in not only unfair results but maybe even murder as well. In March 2007 Bob Woolmer, the head coach for Pakistan, died in his hotel room in Jamaica after his team has lost their opening game to Ireland in the 2007 World Cup. The odds were 80 to 1. The murder investigation was eventually stopped, but according to Murali Krishnan there were evidence, that he died from poisoning and strangulation.

According to Murali Krishnan, who by the way travelled 33 hours to be at the conference in Reykjavik, both match fixers and players make millions while violating the fair play manners which professional sports in general at least publicly are eager to promote and strive for.

Betting is in fact illegal in India, which is the reason why most illegal bookmakers are from India, where cricket is a huge sport. And even though the stories about match fixing has been written in the Indian media, cricket is still very popular.

“The audience was angry when they found that some of their heroes were cheaters. Sponsorship deals fell through. But time is a great healer”, Murali Krishnan states.

He believes that the problem with match fixing is far greater than the same problems within for example tennis.

“Tennis is like a wimper. The problems with match fixing in cricket are much, much bigger“, he says.

And according to him the problem will not stop any time soon. Partly because gamblers can bet on very specific parts of the game, which means that the fixers can make an enormous amount of money just by making an agreement with the team captain.

“It can not be stamped out, but it can be controlled if the bodies act against the players”.

When asked by the wondering, researchers the youngsters had a very down-to-earth explanation for trying to smuggle packs of steroroids into the country.

- They said: “I don’t need a sixpack (well-developed abdominal muscles, ed.) to attract women in the winter, but I need more muscles in the summer”, sport scientist Michael Sauer from the German Sport University told at his presentation at the Play The Game conference i Reykjavik today.

At first thought it seems like just another fun fact, but together with many other facts it is helping the scientists to a greater understanding on how the minds of the youngsters outside elite sports work. And that knowledge is crucial if you to communicate with them about the dangers of doping, because traditional information campaign about the life threatening dangers does not work on a young target group that has no concept of mortality.

Instead Michael Sauer uses jokes about the effects of the drugs on the doping users appearance to reach the young targer group

- None of them wants stretchmarks on their or small testicles, the sport scientist said, emphasizing the importance of building a strategy that fits the target group, whether it is youngsters, elite athletes, officials, teachers or physicians.

Sport scientist of the German Sport University Michael Sauer speaking at the conference.

Jens Weinreich believes, that corruption is all over
sports, pointing out, that historically 95 pct. of
corruption is never discovered. According to Jens
Weinreich, one of the places where corruption is the most
widespread is at the Olympic International Comitee.

- The word corruption does not exist in the Olympic
charter, but it exists in the organization, said Jens
Weinreich at Play the Game, and continued:

- When we wrote ‘Corruption in Sports’, several decided not
to writhe for the book, for example a vice president in the
IOC. Six months later, he was no longer a member, even
though he didn’t participate in the book. Corruption is the
biggest problem for modern sport. Corruption is an
essential part of the system and is a structured.

To combat corruption in the Olympics, Jens Weinreich
believes the Olympics needs an independant supervisor
council, with an important role for Non-Governmental
Organizations, as the sports world itself is not suitable.

- I Cant remember a single initiative coming from inside
the sports world, says Mr. Weinreich.

- My research shows that a lot of them are yelled at. I know this from a lot of people in sports I know and from my own observations as a coach and advisor to the British sports world, says Richard Bailey.

In Richard Baileys view China has become a target for child abuse stories as well as Africa and South America are known for trafficking. But in the English culture there are problems as well.

- In the Anglo-Saxon world there is a macho attitude in sport. There is an idea based on “it is tough to be in sports.” We hear shouting and name calling in e.g. American football and Canadian ice hockey. Words like don’t smile, gay and you girl are being used to push children, explains Bailey.

Bailey does not see sport as a universal good contribution to children. The good values are very dependant on the coaches to avoid antisocial and aggressive behaviour. He believes that the international sport organisations fail on this responsibility.

- Abuse of children is not seen as a problem in the organisations. They often react with denial or saying it is a part of sport. Like Jacques Rogge, president of the International Olympic Committee, IOC, said when confronted: “It is blowing it out of proportion.”
- But the sport education system has to change. You can’t change children. You can try but at some point you will discover that it is wrong and you must change the way you teach, says Richard Bailey.