Early last week an invitation arrived for the International Olympic Committee press conference to announce a new TOP Olympic sponsor.
Colleagues and I placed our bets on a range of current sponsors expanding their Olympic support from domestic to global reach, but none of us bet on Dow, the massive chemical conglomerate, as the new IOC partner (even though the Associated Press apparently broke this news a month or so ago).
Dow is an interesting addition to the Olympic family. According to the company backgrounder released at Friday's press conference, Dow first got involved with the 1980 Winter Olympic Games at Lake Placid, and they've contributed on again off again at most Olympic Games since (most recently at Vancouver).
Absent from the press materials is mention of chemistry as it relates to doping in sports -- got to wonder the extent to which Dow's chemical expertise will be put to use to combat use of banned, performance-enhancing drugs through new or evolving detection methods, and how the Dow P.R. team will leverage Dow's expertise in this regard.
Overall, appears to be good chemistry.
Photo and logo via Dow
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