Fans can contact Olympic athletes (02/08/98)

Fans can contact Olympic athletes

ARMONK, N.Y. - With the Olympic Winter Games starting February 7, Ukrainians have an opportunity to cheer their favorite Ukrainian athletes by sending personal messages via IBM's website http://www.ibm.com/olympic/fanmail.

Participating at these Games are 56 Ukrainian athletes competing in 10 different sports.

Many of the athletes and their coaches, as well as the chief of mission, Mykola Kostenko, have already created their own homepages, with the assistance of people like Halia Bula, who work with them in the Olympic Village. These are Mr. Kostenko's third Olympics; he also was the chief of mission for the Games in Lillehammer and Atlanta.

FanMail allows sports fans to send personal messages to their favorite Olympic athlete or team competing in the 1998 Olympic Winter Games, as well as read athletes' personal home pages. A friendly, animated penguin named Pudgy guides visitors through the site and helps them cheer on an athlete, a team, a country's entire Olympic team, all those participating in a specific sport or even all the athletes at the Olympic Games.

The estimated 3,000 Olympic athletes from over 80 countries and regions participating in the Nagano Games will be able to visit the Surf Shack, a hip cyber-haven in the Olympic Village designed in the style of a traditional tea house. There, using IBM Aptiva computers, they can connect to FanMail to read and respond to messages and create their own homepages. The Surf Shack will be open from January 24 to February 25.

During their debut at the Centennial Olympic Games in Atlanta, IBM's FanMail program and the Surf Shack were received enthusiastically by fans and athletes. Up to 500 athletes and coaches visited the Surf Shack daily to read thousands of messages of encouragement and inspiration.

"As the Worldwide Information Technology Partner for the Olympic Games, IBM is using technology to enhance both fans' and athletes' experience of the Games," said Elizabeth Primrose-Smith, director of worldwide Olympic and sports sponsorships, for IBM. "The Internet is an exciting way to unite people with some of the world's greatest athletes in Nagano, Japan."

The official Nagano Olympic Winter Games Website (http://www.nagano. olympic.org/) gives fans a virtual "front-row seat" for every Olympic event. Launched in November 1996, it provides a comprehensive, easy-to navigate source of Olympic Games information, history, entertainment and results. IBM teamed up with the Organizing Committee for the XVIII Olympic Winter Games, Nagano 1998 (NAOC) to design this site. Nearly a month before the Games began it had already received as many as 1 million hits per day.

The NAOC site, which is linked to FanMail, will provide fans with athletes biographies, the latest results for all athletes and all sports, action photos from all competition venues and Olympic Games news. Currently, the official Winter Games website has a wide variety of features, including:

a schedule of events, which identifies event names, dates, times and venue locations;
detailed venue information, including 360-degree panoramic views of venues and facilities, frequently updated photographs and information on the event sites;
an interactive countries section that allows users to "span the world" to view maps, identify information about countries and even listen to national anthems; and
a colorful "fun section," which offers children of all ages sports games, origami, trivia questions and digital postcards.

IBM is the Worldwide Information Technology Partner of the Olympic Games and acts as the systems integrator and a major provider of the various applications and technologies used to stage the Nagano Olympic Winter Games.

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