Beijing Olympics: The ultimate business networking opportunity

While the Olympic athletes fight for supremacy on track and field in Beijing, for the world's business community they are merely the back-drop to the greatest global networking opportunity outside the annual World Economic Forum in Davos. By Peter Foster in Beijing The Olympic Games, already a colossal commercial undertaking in their own right, garnering more than £450m in direct sponsorship, attracts a potent mix of political leaders, international celebrities and the CEOs of the world's biggest corporations. Amid a splurge of corporate hospitality - Coca Cola alone has invited 10,000 guests to the Games - the worlds of politics, sport and high-finance intermingle amid the charged atmosphere of the greatest sporting contest on earth. And while the Olympics have been a highly commercialised event ever since Los Angeles in... [read full story]