These were really cute videos about how to pronounce Beijing (hint: it’s a “j”, not a “zh” sound, and most newscasters are getting it wrong), how to do the official Chinese Olympic cheer and a bit about the other locations that are hosting Olympic events.
An angry Swedish wrestler threw down his bronze medal on the podium and walked off, saying he was quitting wrestling. Ara Abrahamian was angry over officiating in an earlier bout. He said that he wanted the gold, and a bronze was a failure.
Wow, you don’t see that very often in the Olympics, do you?
Here’s a video (sorry it’s not in English, but YouTube pulls all the NBC stuff— you’ll get the idea, though):
I know he burns a lot of calories, but I don’t even know how it’s possible to eat 10,000 calories per day. Wow! You can watch a couple of videos about Michael, including his eating habits below.
Bela Karolyi said the U.S. Women didn’t want to finish first in the preliminaries. Well, they didn’t. They did make the final cut but struggled. The team is suffering from some injuries, which is really unfortunate. Chellsie Memmel and Samantha Peszek are both suffering from ankle injuries. Samantha’s ankle, which she hurt warming up for the competition, was bad enough that she only performed on bars. You can watch the preliminaries tonight on NBC.
If you’d like to watch Nastia Liukin perform before tonight, I’m including her floor routine below.
Michael Phelps EASILY won the 400 meter Individual Medley to start his attempt at Olympic history. He set a world record of 4:03.84 as he won his 7th gold medal in his Olympics career. And he wasn’t even breathing hard. Nice of him to make it look so easy.
If he can win 7 more golds during the Beijing Olympics, he’ll beat Mark Spitz’s record of 7 gold medals in one Olympics, which was set in 1972. He only needs three more gold medals to hold the record for most gold medals by an Olympian.
Here’s the video of his gold medal swim, in case you missed it.
If you just can’t wait for tonight, a few You Tube videos are already showing footage. So, if you want a sneak peek, watch the videos below.
This is a really great interview with the New York foster parents of Lopez Lomong.
Yesterday, I wrote a post about ten U.S. athletes to watch. One of those I mentioned was the Sudanese “lost boy” Lopez Lomong. Now the whole world will be watching Lopez, as he has been chosen by his fellow teammates to carry the U.S. flag at the Opening Ceremonies this Friday in Beijing. I’m very excited by this choice and can’t wait to see him lead in the U.S. team.
Here’s an interview with Lopez from the track and field Olympic Trials:
I’ve been trying to take a break from the politics surrounding the China Olympics, keep it positive and just speak on the athletes and the sport. But this really irks me. Joey Cheek heads a group called Team Darfur, which seeks to bring attention to the situation in Darfur. Because the Olympics are being held in China this year, it makes sense that they would target China’s unique opportunity to intervene in Darfur as part of their platform.
Joey Cheek was set to head to Beijing this week. He had previously been granted a visa, but now that has been revoked. I understand that a country has the right to grant or deny visas to anyone for basically no reason. The U.S. has repeatedly denied visas for certain performers because they can’t seem to obey the law. But I don’t understand why the Chinese government initially approved Cheek’s visa, only to turn around and revoke it. Presumably, they knew of his involvement with Team Darfur when they approved it to begin with. AND Team Darfur has been a strong opponent of an Olympic boycott. I don’t think their focus on Darfur would be any less if the Olympics were being held somewhere else— after all, Joey Cheek first began his campaign to help Darfur when he won a gold medal in Turino. This is yet another example of China’s complete unwillingness to allow anything that might possibly be construed as criticism.
So, since Joey won’t be able to speak out at the Olympics, here are a couple of You Tube videos. You can also visit Team Darfur’s website and Save Darfur to learn more.
In preparation for the Olympics in China, the US Basketball team got a scare from the Australian team. Australia, who was resting their top player, lost by 11 points in a game that could have easily been won by the Australians.
The US did manage to win the game 87-76, but they played like it didn’t matter (and it didn’t really). Dwayne Wade said that they were playing “lazy” basketball. My guess is that they are tired of the exhibition games and just want to start the “real” olympic games.
Anyway, if you missed last night’s game here are some video highlights I found on youtube:
Lego enthusiasts in Hong Kong created some awesome recreations of Beijing Olympic venues, such as the Bird’s Nest, Water Cube and more. You can check out lots of pictures here.
People who like Legos must love the Olympics because I also found these tributes to the Olympics on YouTube.
And here’s my own Lego maniacs’ contribution to the Lego Olympic mania:
There are only six days until the Opening Ceremonies for the Beijing Summer Olympics. Beijing officials are gearing up for the Opening Ceremonies with rehearsals that have been shrouded in secrecy. They can’t hide the fireworks, though.
So much of the news about the Olympics right now is, well, not good. So, I thought I’d spend some time printing a bit of lighter news— or in this case, just plain entertainment. The following are some Olympics commercials put out by Coca-Cola. They’re pretty fun, and I haven’t seen them here in the U.S., so I thought you might be interested in them, as well.
This is a neat little video of them putting up the Olympic rings in Hong Kong.
Perhaps you’ve read that Beijing is, um, a bit smoggy these days. Officials have taken drastic measures, including shutting down factories and clearing half the cars off the road, in order to try to cut down on the smog. But perhaps you’re thinking, “What’s the big deal? It’s just a little smog”. Watch the following video to see just how heavy the smog is. I live in Houston, and we certainly don’t have great air quality, but I’ve never seen anything quite like this.
Earlier today some of the US Olympians visited the White House before heading off to Beijing China for the 2008 Summer Olympics. US President George Bush gave a speech to encourage the Olympians in their quest for medals. Too see George Bush’s encouraging speech watch the video below:
Yes, that’s right. I said trampoline. Now, you may be thinking, “trampoline’s not a sport!” (I know that’s what I thought). But trampoline has been a part of the Olympics since the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. This year 32 Olympic athletes from around the world will compete in trampoline at the Beijing Olympics.
Olympic trampoline athletes are scored on difficulty and execution by eight judges. A 16 is considered very difficult for the men, a 14 for the women. Points are deducted from a maximum score of 10 for execution, which is judged by five judges (separate from the judges who determine the difficulty score). The highest and lowest scores are dropped, leaving a maximum execution score of thirty. The overall score is the sum of the difficulty score and the execution score.
Women from Russia, China, Canada, Germany, Belarus, Great Britain, Japan, Uzbekistan, Portugal, Ukraine, Georgia, United States, and the Czech Republic will be competing at the Beijing Olympics. They will be joined by men from China, Japan, Russia, Germany, Italy, Ukraine, Canada, Denmark, Belarus, France, Portugal, Australia, and the United States.
In the United States, trampoline athletes fall under the umbrella of USA Gymnastics. You can visit their site to learn more about the state of trampoline in the United States. It’s actually quite an interesting site.
The finals for trampoline for the Beijing Olympics will be held August 18 and 19. I’m not sure yet whether you’ll be able to watch on television. In the meantime, here’s some video from the USA Gymnastics Winter Classic 2008. (Like snowboarding, it may not sound like a sport, but it looks pretty impressive.)
