MUMBAI: Eutelsat has announced that it's official sponsorship of the XXth Winter Olympics to be held in Torino 2006.
In a bid to enable the Olympic community to benefit from live events coverage and to access broadcasts by leading international television channels, Eutelsat will manage an exclusive satellite network for the Olympic community.
Europe's leading satellite operator will provide the TOROC (the Torino Organising Committee of the XXth Winter Olympics) with a package of 50 video channels that will be broadcast for the duration of the Games to competition sites, Olympic Villages and Media Villages, says a company release.
Eutelsat's satellite coverage of the Olympics will span the Opening Ceremony on 10 February '06 to the closing ceremony on 27 February '06. Eutelsat will also deliver satellite services for officials, athletes, and attendees at the Paralympics, a sporting competition for disabled athletes that follow the main Olympic event, from March 10 to 19. Paralympics atheletes will compete in five disciplines, including alpine skiing, biathlon, ice sledge hockey, cross-country skiing, and wheelchair curling.
The network will provide athletes, judges and referees, members of the IOC, National Olympic Committees and Federations as well as journalists and media operators at competition, training and accommodation locations with exceptional levels of information.
Twenty Olympic Live channels will be provided by the TOBO (the Turin Olympic Broadcasting Organisation) with live coverage from each of the 13 competition sites. Another 30 television channels will enable the Olympic community to follow coverage by national and international television channels, says the release.
The package will be delivered direct to 5,000 plasma screens and monitors located at the competition sites, three Olympic Villages and seven Media Villages during the Games. Eutelsat will multiplex, encrypt and uplink these services through the facilities managed by its Italian subsidiary, Skylogic Italia, in Turin.
According to Eutelsat CEO Giuliano Berretta, "Next to human achievement, the Olympics are also the opportunity for innovative new technologies to demonstrate their new levels of performance. We are committed to mobilising our expertise in order to provide the XXth Winter Olympic Games with impeccable quality and efficiency for delivering Olympic content and all satellite broadband services required by the Olympic community."
Says TOROC CEO Paolo Rota,"The partnership with Eutelsat is a key milestone in our objective to integrate into our team of sponsors leading companies who bring expertise and added value to our organisation. The key word for Olympic technology is reliability and the experience of Eutelsat is a guarantee for state of the art solutions for our broadcasting needs. Of course, the Olympic Games move solutions forward and drive the organising committees to find their partners among the most innovative companies, and that's what happened between TOROC and Eutelsat".