According to reports, Beamon has complained to London bid leader
Lord Coe, alleging that the publication breaches his image
rights.
"I was surprised to see that you used my image to promote London
2012 without any consent or consultation," he said in a letter to
Lord Coe, according to The Telegraph newspaper. "This is not just a
discourtesy but is, I believe, a fundamental breach of an
Olympian's right to determine how his or her name and image is used
for promotional purposes."
He demanded that Lord Coe, who won four Olympic medals and set
eight world records in middle-distance running in the 1980s,
withdraw the brochure, issue a public apology and advise the
International Olympic Committee that Beamon supports the New York
bid, not London's.
To use a celebrity's image in an endorsement without permission
can be an expensive mistake.
In the UK, racing driver Eddie Irvine's won a lawsuit in the
High Court in 2002 after a promotional brochure was sent to less
than 1,000 people advertising radio station Talk Radio, with a
photo that had been doctored to show Irvine holding a radio bearing
a Talk Radio logo, instead of a mobile phone, which he was holding
in the original photo.
The photo of Beamon in the London brochure is well known: it
shows his jump of 29ft 2½in in the 1968 Mexico Olympics, a jump
that beat the previous world record by 21¾in and stood until
1991.
However, according to the Guardian newspaper, Sebastian Coe has
now written back to Beamon, explaining that the brochure showed
many pictures celebrating the Games' history, and also included
pictures of other sporting greats, including Carl Lewis and
Muhammad Ali.
"The photograph you refer to formed part of a montage of
photographs celebrating unforgettable memories from Olympic history
and does not associate you or the other Olympic legends in the
brochure with supporting London 2012," he wrote, according to the
Guardian. "I am, of course, aware that you are closely involved in
New York's bid."
The IOC has just over a month in which to decide on the host
city for the 2012 Games.
