The International Olympic Committee on Friday gave the green light to allow blogging at the Olympics for the first time, issuing guidelines for this August’s Beijing Games.

“The IOC considers blogging … as a legitimate form of personal expression and not a form of journalism,” the IOC said.

“It is required that, when accredited persons at the Games post any Olympic content, it be confined solely to their own personal Olympic-related experience,” it said.

Bloggers during the Aug. 8-24 Beijing Olympics are banned from posting any Olympic Games video or audio material and any confidential information on third parties.

Athletes or officials who blog can only post still pictures taken outside accredited areas or their own pictures taken within these areas that do not contain any sporting action.

The IOC is eager to protect rights holders as Games broadcasting contracts are worth billions of dollars.

Blogs should not have exclusive agreements with any company and there should be no commercial reference or advertising either, the IOC said.

Blogs should also adhere to the Olympic spirit “and be dignified and in good taste.”

So basically the IOC has bowed to the inevitable and said that athletes can blog. In addition, IOC has now said that it “considers blogging … as a legitimate form of personal expression and not a form of journalism,” and that it won’t stop Olympic athletes from expressing themselves.

However, according to other sources.. “The IOC has worried that some fans might be more likely to read an athlete’s blog than to watch the Games on television, which seems like a silly concern but no more silly than all the other ways that the IOC obsesses about protecting its image”

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