London 2012 Olympics: two-year drugs ban for weightlifting hopeful Denis Catana

One of Britain's medal hopes for the London 2012 Olympic Games has been banned for two years after testing positive for steroids.

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Drug bans have become a dark side part of any well publicised sport. With Spyns as a leading provider of luxury tours for the Tour de France, drug bans have become an all too familiar occurrence in the sports we love.

Weightlifter Denis Catana, who is originally from Moldova, tested positive for Metenolone just before the Commonwealth Games has been banned for two years.

He had been provisionally suspended from all competition after testing positive in August, during the build-up to the Games in Delhi where he was to compete for England.

UK Anti-Doping today announced that he has been given a two-year ban. Even without the British Olympic Association's lifetime ban on drugs cheats, the suspension rules Catana out of the London 2012 Games.

Catana had been the best English weightlifter in the snatch and clean and jerk events in 2010.

UK Anti-Doping director of operations Nicole Sapstead said: "Mr Catana was tested as part of UK Anti-Doping's pre-Commonwealth Games testing programme. This case shows the importance of our major event programme, and our commitment to stopping athletes who dope competing on the world stage.

Spyns is an active travel company based in Whistler, BC (Canada). For more information about Spyns and our package tours to the 2012 London Summer Olympic Games, including London Olympics hotels, London 2012 tickets, and summer games VIP access, please visit our websites http://www.london-olympiad.com/ http://www.london2012-tours.com/ and http://www.london-tours-2012.com/ or call us toll-free at 1.888.825.4720.

Virtual Ticket Line Forms for London Olympics

Organizers for the 2012 London Olympics said two million people have registered to buy tickets. When tickets go on sale in March, 8.8 million seats will be available at prices ranging from $31 for standard events to a symbolic 2,012 pounds ($3,105) for the top-priced seats at the opening ceremony. Organizers hope to raise nearly $700 million from ticket sales, which is about a quarter of their operating budget.

Spyns is an active travel company based in Whistler, BC (Canada). For more information about Spyns and our package tours to the 2012 London Summer Olympic Games, including London Olympics hotels, London 2012 tickets, and summer games VIP access, please visit our websites http://www.london-olympiad.com/ http://www.london2012-tours.com/ and http://www.london-tours-2012.com/ or call us toll-free at 1.888.825.4720.

Beach Volleyball Under Pressure: Olympic Game Tours - Tickets London 2012:

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We're just 18 months away from the London 2012 summer games. As Spyns clients count down to July 2012, British organizers have set an ambitious schedule for beach volleyball. The frenzy of work essentially constructing a gigantic sand pit will be concentrated during the day - as nearby neighbours including the official residence of the Prime Minister in Downing Street won't want to be disturbed. But preparations for that site in the heart of London and the controversial Greenwich Park site for equestrian have already begun.

Underneath both the 20,000 tonnes of sand at the beach volleyball and the massive showjumping and dressage arena will be huge metal decks, currently being manufactured in Preston. The decks are to ensure a flat surface, particularly important at the 20,000 seat Greenwich arena which has a significant fall line of about three metres. ''To construct a 15,000 seat venue usually involves a year to 18 months planning and to construct it normally takes a year to 18 months but for these Olympic venues the preparation is the same, but the construction is much, much quicker,'' said Drivers Jonas Deloitte project team manager Stephen Jepson.

''Horse Guards is six weeks to get on site after the Trooping the Colour is complete and Greenwich Park is a bit more time, but the aim is to make sure we take as little of the park for as small a time as public so the stadium goes up and then the site is expanded out.'' Jepson said constructing the venues with seating and toilets and other paraphenalia is business as usual, but it is the field of play at both venues that adds to the complexity.


The metal deck underneath the equestrian arena has been tested by both showjumpers and dressage riders at Berkshire and found to be acceptable, alleviating earlier concerns it may reverberate and scare the horses with any unusual sensation or noise. When installed the metal decking will be covered with layers of synthetic mix of track. ''The spring and bounce has to be exactly like it is on the ground,'' Jepson said. The same project team will also construct the temporary venues at the Mall for the start and finish of the marathon and road cycling and Hyde Park for the triathlon finish and marathon swimming events.


Spyns is an active travel company based in Whistler, BC (Canada). For more information about Spyns and our package tours to the 2012 London Summer Olympic Games, including London Olympics hotels, London 2012 tickets, and summer games VIP access, please visit our websites http://www.london-olympiad.com/ http://www.london2012-tours.com/ and http://www.london-tours-2012.com/ or call us toll-free at 1.888.825.4720.

2011 predictions

Every year it seems like the unexpected happens -- it's what keeps us on our toes. And with our nation fucking obsessed with the happenings of celebrities, let's think about what will happen with the douchebags we obsess over along with a few non-celebrity predictions.

Celebrity deaths:
I can see Dick Clark kicking the bucket. Hearing audio of his appearance on Dick Clark's New Year's Rocking Eve with Ryan Seacrest (get a longer title, please) was just sad. After suffering a stroke a few years ago, I think that his time to leave this world has come and 2011 will be when that happens.

Someone, too, from the cast of MTV's Jersey Shore will also kick the bucket. Snooki would be too obvious of a choice and not being familiar (thankfully) with the show I'm leaving this one open but one of those spray-tanned guidos will end up not being around in 2012.

Celebrity scandals:
Something big will happen with Miley Cyrus. A Miley Cyrus sex tape. Miley Cyrus filmed snorting cocaine. Miley Cyrus killing a panda in a drunken rage... Whatever the case, Miley's going to have a big year now that she's 18 and doing more stupid shit than I did when I was 21.

Celebrity divorce:
The most obvious candidate is the divorce of Katy Perry and Russell Brand. Russell Brand is as phony as they come. He's grating, annoying and the most likely candidate I can think of to cheat on his new wife. It's logical being that they both travel for music and movies respectively and he has a history of substance abuse which can lead to some pretty spectacularly poor decisions. Mark my words: Russel Brand and Katy Perry call their marriage quits in 2011.

Music:
Justin Bieber will be revealed as being 14 years old. Who does he think he's fooling? No 16 year old, regardless of his nationality (Canadian) looks that young.

In other music prognostications, Lil' Wayne will return to jail. It will probably be for a number of things including drunk driving, weapons possession, drug possession and having too damn many tattoos. Ke$ha (or Kesha if you're nasty) will finally have a sex tape leak. Two surprises will stem from this: the first being that she looks like shit without a ton of make-up and the second is that she has a third nipple.

Sports:
If the 2011 NFL season is actually played (there is that potential lockout looming) the Minnesota Vikings -- playing at a hastily revamped TCF Bank Stadium -- will finish with a record of 3-13. It won't matter because the taxpayers of Minnesota will be bamboozled into funding a new stadium and the season will be written off as a rebuilding year.

Politics:
Sarah Palin will officially announce her intention to run for president in 2012. This will also mark the official debut of the Tea Party as their own political party. The scary thing is that she will take herself seriously. Even scarier is that she'll land a larger share of the votes in 2012 than the Republican candidate -- Jeb Bush.

Reverb10 - Action

December 13 – Action When it comes to aspirations, it’s not about ideas. It’s about making ideas happen. What’s your next step? (Author: Scott Belsky)

I wholeheartedly plan to make 2011 a year of action. Triumph over adversity, tackle change, blah, blah, blah. It's easy to talk action but implementing it is a whole different monster.

My biggest goal is to finally launch a website -- personal or for my employer -- whose backbone is Drupal. I've been working internally on two different implementations since August and while the results are far from polished, the sites are functional. But being that I'm aware of how harsh the online world can be when presented with something that isn't completely polished and how fickle people can be when they encounter even one minor annoyance, nothing is going live quite yet.

If you've followed things here for long, you know that I'm a graphic designer and you're probably wondering why I'm working on developing a website or two. Well, I'm doing it because I kinda like having a job and I like having far more skills than needed for my job. I don't see my work in the print advertising world vanishing anytime soon but it has diminished in the past few years. Thankfully, I've been able to step up my game and kick out the jams online with some pretty cool stuff that pushed the envelope of what my superiors expected. I also stepped up in 2010 as a teacher of sorts for my co-workers. It felt good to show them the skills they need to hang with me and continue to be employed. Whether or not they choose to build on those skills remains to be seen. I feel that with at least a couple of them I was straight up wasting my time. I hate feeling like that but some people, regardless of what they say, have no desire to learn.

So in 2011 I wholeheartedly plan to get back to showing these folks more of what they need to remain employed. I like passing on that knowledge and I'll definitely be taking action on that particular love of mine in 2011.