The swimming finals and much of the gymnastics at the 2008 Beijing
Olympics will be held in the morning, the International Olympic Committee
(IOC) said on Thursday in Beijing.
The competition schedule for the Games had finally been agreed by the
IOC's executive board "after a thorough consultation process", IOC
coordination commission chairman Hein Verbruggen said at a news
conference.
The team and all-round individual
events in the gymnastics are set for the morning, although
the individual apparatus
events will be contested in evening sessions.
All the track and field finals will take place in the evening with the
customary exception of the marathon.
The proposed morning shift for the swimming finals caused uproar when
the news was leaked earlier this year, with some swimmers accusing the IOC
of putting the interests of US broadcaster NBC before the needs of the
athletes.
"I would like to deny that we are doing the bidding of certain
broadcasters," Verbruggen said.
"It has always been like this, the schedule is always the result of a
thorough consultation process and what comes out of this is a compromise.
For example, in Seoul in 1988, many events were held in the morning.