Skip to footer

The MINI Olympics: Meet the games' tiny auto helpers

BMW is the official car sponsor of the Olympic games, and tiny electric MINIS have been helping out by picking up javelins, discuses, hammers and other throwable items from the field events, saving time for athletes during the competition.

|
Mary Knox Merrill/Staff/File
The interior of a MINI Cooper is shown in this 2005 file photo. BMW is the official car sponsor of the London Olympics, and "mini" remote control MINI Coopers can be spotted helping out at a variety of field track and field events.
  • By Antony Ingram Guest blogger

The 2012 Olympic Games might be based in London this year, but the official car sponsor is distinctly German, with BMW supplying all the official games vehicles.

Still, Brits can take some solace that a selection of MINIs make up part of the fleet, adding a traditional touch to the games. Forty of those are electrically-powered too, with a selection of MINI Es.

Now, more electric MINIs have joined that list... though they're a little smaller than you might expect.

In fact, they're so small you might have missed them. The electric remote control vehicles are being used to pick up javelins, discuses, hammers and other throwable items from the field events, saving time for atheletes during the competition.

Like the official vehicles, even the smallest additions have to meet certain criteria, ensuring they serve an adequate purpose during the games.

That means being able to carry a load of up to 8kg (17.6 lbs)--the weight of a hammer, discus or shot, or two javelins. They also need to be simple to operate, with minimum technical support (no breakdowns here), and use batteries that can support 35 minutes of continuous use, a radio control range of over 300 feet, and be recharged in 80 minutes.

If that still sounds easy, then consider that each of the three remote-control vehicles will cover as much as 3.7 miles per day going to and fro, across nine days of Olympic and nine days of Paralympic competition. That's tougher than some of the atheletes have to face...

Each car is roughly quarter scale and specially designed for the Olympics. They may be small, but the role they're playing is as important as any other in the official olympic fleet. Best of all? They're zero-emissions, of course!

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to The MINI Olympics: Meet the games' tiny auto helpers
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/In-Gear/2012/0803/The-MINI-Olympics-Meet-the-games-tiny-auto-helpers
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe