Beijing Olympic Games 2008

The organizers of the Beijing Olympics have said that test samples from athletes competing at the Games will be kept for eight years for possible doping retests, national media reported on Monday.

Chen Zhiyu, head of the Beijing anti-doping division, said the samples could be reexamined as more advanced testing techniques are developed, the China Daily said.

Previously, samples that tested positive were stored for 90 days and those that tested negative for 30 days, according to the anti-doping rules of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

The 29th Olympic Games in Beijing are due to see a record 4,500 doping tests, some 25 % more than at the 2004 Athens Olympics, and 50% more than in Sydney in 2000.

China opened the world’s biggest and most advanced anti-doping laboratory specifically for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Chinese authorities spent $10 million on the new laboratory, including $2.7 million on state-of-the-art testing equipment. The lab employs 100 experts from 10 countries.

Seven Russian female athletes, including five selected for the Beijing Olympics, were recently suspended for providing false urine samples and “tampering” with doping control procedures.

source: rian.ru

Michael Phelps said rest was the first thing on his agenda in the wake of his epic Olympic performance in Beijing, before he and coach Bob Bowman chart a new course for London 2012.
Despite his remarkable achievement - an unprecedented eight gold medals in nine days to take his career total to a record 14 Olympic titles - Phelps says there is plenty left to do to achieve his goal of changing the sport of swimming in the United States.
“There are some things I still want to do to raise the bar a bit more in the world of swimming,” Phelps said. “For me, it’s still work in progress.”
But Phelps, whose Beijing programme matched his schedule in Athens, will spring something new on the world of swimming in London.
He hadn’t even dried off after winning the 400m individual medley here when he said he was through with that event - although coach Bob Bowman may have other plans.
“I would say I would like to go down and start sprinting, but Bob isn’t so keen on that,” said Phelps, who showed in Beijing just how dangerous he could come to be in swimming’s shorter races.
Phelps swam the lead-off leg of the 4×100m freestyle relay in 47.51sec, making him the third-fastest performer in history in the prestige event behind current world record-holder Eamon Sullivan and former world record-holder Alain Bernard of France.
Phelps was also the second-ranked swimmer in the world in the 100m and 200m backstroke in 2007 - one of the top performers all time in each event although neither was on his Beijing programme.
“We’ll see how keen he is on going to the sprints,” Bowman said. “There is more and different training. He’s more naturally suited to longer events.”
Phelps said he and Bowman would experiment a little, as they did at the 2005 world championships in Montreal in the wake of his impressive Athens Games.
“I think over the next four years, I would like to try new events and see what happens.
“Bob has said he wants to start fresh and do things he hasn’t done before, new training methods and stuff like that.”
After moving from his hometown of Baltimore, following Bowman to a coaching job in Michigan, both are planning a return to Maryland.
“We are going to look at some different events, mix up the training programme a little bit and do some experimenting,” Bowman said. “We have plenty of time and we will look at reinventing ourselves.
“We have accomplished this set of goals and I would dare to venture to say we are not going to do it again, at least not like this.
“We will start coming up with some goals that excite him and start working towards them.”
But first, Phelps said a little vacation was in order.
“It’s something I haven’t done for a long time,” he said. “I am looking forward to seeing friends, hanging out and sitting down. Not moving.
“Bob has a saying about putting money in the bank and this week was about making withdrawals. I guess I’ve gotten through every penny. Now it’s time to start making redeposits.”
But Phelps won’t rest too long, especially since his over-arching aim is to raise the profile of swimming in his home country so that it can garner headlines outside of Olympic years.
“I don’t want this sport to be an every four year sport,” he said. “We get lots of attention every four years, but for the rest of that time there is really not a lot of attention.
“We swim every single day, there is never really an off-season. I just want more people to get involved in the sport and I think it will happen in the next four years.”
Besides, Phelps can’t take too much time off, since he has to book a spot in the 2009 World Championships in Rome.
“My mom has told me I have to make the (US) team so she can go to Rome,” Phelps said. - AFP

from: nst.com.my

THE QUESTION OF whether the Beijing Olympics can be compared to the 1936 Berlin Olympics has recently become a popular topic of conversation. Watching the opening ceremony, where renowned Chinese director Zhang Yimou (???) mobilized a large number of performers to extol ancient Chinese culture, it was hard not to think of the well-known documentary Leni Riefenstahl made about the Berlin Olympics.

Certainly, anyone comparing the Beijing Olympics with the Berlin Olympics is not doing so out of good will to Beijing. After all, Hitler used the Berlin Olympics, where Germany grabbed the most gold medals, to furbish the reputation of the Nazis before launching what developed into World War II. Those who loathe China have rushed to compare these two Olympic events, while those who support it have denounced such comparisons as meaningless.

Speaking of the Berlin Olympics, a competitor who is neither Taiwanese nor Chinese comes to mind — Sohn Kee-chung, the first Korean to win an Olympic gold at the Berlin Olympics marathon. Korea was then occupied by Japan, so Sohn represented Japan at the event. However, when the Japanese flag was raised at the awarding ceremony, he hid the Japanese flag on his shirt with a laurel awarded as part of the ceremony. Sohn made it clear during an interview that Korea was his home country. This made him a Korean national hero, and he was the one who carried the Olympic torch at the 1988 Seoul Olympics.

What does this Korean national hero have to do with Taiwan? I was born in the 1960s and Sohn’s story was included in elementary textbooks then. The story was introduced in Taiwan because the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government hoped that the Taiwanese, who had also been colonized by Japan, would emulate Sohn’s national consciousness and cast off the shadow of Japanese colonialism to become full and dignified Republic of China nationals.

This story appears rather embarrassing in the context of the Beijing Olympics. The national title, “Republic of China,” is all but invisible and Taiwanese athletes can only be “full and dignified” representatives of Zhonghua Taibei (????, Chinese Taipei).

Some supporters of the old party-state regime have called on Taiwanese athletes to follow the example of Sohn by displaying Taiwan’s “real flag” if they win. It is ironic then to see top-ranking leaders of the KMT — the party that established the old party-state system — shaking hands with Chinese President Hu Jintao (???) and telling the Taiwanese public that Taiwan has the “home advantage” in Beijing. This makes one wonder which national flag the athletes should display when they win a medal.

The spirit of nationalism abounds in this type of sporting event, where countries compete with one another. But with Taiwan still confused over its own national identity, what type of nationalism should it display — Taiwanese or Chinese? This is the tragedy of Taiwan.

Wang Yu-fong is a director of the North Pingtung Community College.

from: taipeitimes.com

Organizers say events are sold out despite appearances. One possible explanation is that Chinese bought cheap tickets but aren’t using them.

Tickets were in such short supply for Friday night’s field hockey match between Australia and Pakistan that some relatives of players couldn’t get any, and those who did had to fork over as much as $130 apiece. At the box office, clerks told disappointed ticket seekers that the game was “sold out.”
But inside the 17,000-seat Olympic Green Hockey Stadium, the stands were a sea of blue — the color of the rows and rows of empty plastic seats. When the game began, only a quarter of the seats were filled, leaving an incredulous Donna Dancer, wife of Australian hockey coach Barry Dancer, to ask, “Where have all the tickets gone?”

It’s one of the great mysteries of the Beijing Olympics: In what is reportedly the first sold-out Games in Olympic history, many venues are far from full, with the expanses of empty seats giving events a somewhat forlorn appearance.

“Everyone I know wanted tickets; we Chinese love to see sports,” said Mike Ma, 34, a Beijing office worker who scored a field hockey ticket through a German friend because he was unable to buy one in China. “It’s a pity there are so many empty seats. We would like to know who is responsible.”
And how it happened.

Demand for the 6.8 million tickets has been crushing. When tickets first went on sale, online ticketing sites around the world crashed because so many people were trying to buy. When the final batch of tickets was offered in July, Chinese fans waited in 90-degree heat for as long as two days to buy them, with near riots breaking out at many locations.

“This is our fourth Olympics, but getting tickets to this one really has been a nightmare,” said Stacey Watson, a 44-year-old Australian, as she watched her country beat Pakistan, 3-1. “Then you get inside and you wonder who got all the tickets, because there is nobody there.”

Dancer, wife of the Australian coach, knows how tough it was to scrape together tickets for the players’ families. She and others spent long nights trying to get through to jammed Internet sites. They called dodgy ticket agencies, scalpers and people they barely knew begging for tickets. About 300 of them finally got tickets, scattered around the stadium.

Not every venue is empty. There have been full houses for swimming and gymnastics finals. The 91,000-seat National Stadium, known as the Bird’s Nest, was packed Saturday for track and field. But at most other events, even table tennis and archery in which the Chinese are strong, the lack of fans is glaringly obvious, especially on TV.

Beijing Olympic organizers initially explained away the empty seats by citing the humid and rainy weather on the first days of the Games. But with the skies clearing, they have begun complaining about tickets that have been purchased but gone unused.

“All the tickets have been sold out; we will be encouraging all the ticket holders to watch the matches themselves,” Wang Wei, executive vice president of the organizing committee, said Friday at a news conference. “If they don’t want to go, they should give the tickets to those who do,”

Empty seats are a chronic problem at the Olympics, where large blocks of the best seats are set aside for sponsors, VIPs and media members who may not use them. The 2004 Athens Games were marked by vast swaths of empty seats.

But Athens was not sold out, and people could buy tickets at the on-site box office. Not so in Beijing. With no same-day tickets available, hundreds of people mill about outside the wire fences that separate the Olympic Green from the street, looking for tickets. Scalpers slink through the crowd, muttering their prices and avoiding police.

On Saturday morning, the cheapest price to see U.S. swimmer Michael Phelps in the 100-meter butterfly race was $570, for tickets with a face value of $21.

One reason for the shortage is that organizers wanted to make the Games accessible to China’s 1.3 billion people, so they sold more tickets domestically and at lower prices than usual, some for as little as $4. The low prices encouraged people to snap up whatever they could.

But it turns out there weren’t that many people truly prepared to spend their Monday morning watching Mali play New Zealand in women’s basketball.

Also, the custom in Communist China is to attend sporting or cultural events as part of official work outings. Large blocks of empty seats in the cheaper nosebleed sections of the stadiums may have been allocated to state companies that ended up not using them.

From the looks of the stands, the empty seats do not appear to be tickets that were sold in the United States, Australia or Europe, said Mark Lewis, president of Jet Set Sports, the affiliate of CoSport, which was the official sales agent. In the cases where foreigners decided not to go to China, their tickets were returned and resold.

“I know where our seats are. . . . The people who bought our tickets are attending,” Lewis said.

So many foreigners have complained that the Chinese have been busing in rent-a-crowds to lend the stands a festive atmosphere.

“It’s better. Nobody likes an empty stadium,” said Dave Andrews, 27, of Perth, Australia. “But you can tell they’ve just been brought in here to fill the seats. They know nothing about hockey. They cheer at all the wrong times.”

from: latimes.com

Controversy swallows Cube after Michael Phelps seventh gold.

What can happen in a hundredth of a second? The beat of a hummingbird’s wing, perhaps, or maybe sound moving across an imperceptible distance. Saturday morning here, at the Beijing Olympics, it was the difference between one man’s hand touching an underwater wall, another man’s hand behind him only because an electronic device said it was so. In that time, Michael Phelps made athletic history just when it looked as if an American-born Serb named Milo Cavic would snatch it away.
Milo Cavic slowed down at the end and Michael Phelps, who everyone wanted to win, won the race out of nowhere is somewhat suspicious. This created controversy, therefore more viewers, ad therefore better television ratings.

Do YOU think it was a set up and the other guy was asked to take the fall?

Jamaica’s Usain Bolt won the men’s Olympic 100 meters in breathtaking style on Saturday, thumping his chest as he streaked to victory in record time.

In an awesome display of power running, the 21-year-old obliterated his own world record, despite raising his arms in triumph well before he crossed the line in 9.69 seconds.

“I came here just to win, that was my aim,” said Bolt. “I didn’t even know I’d won the record till I did my victory lap.”

Bolt’s supremely self-confident run in the world’s most-watched race capped a magnificent day of sport in Beijing.

In the pool American Michael Phelps equaled Mark Spitz’s 36-year record of winning seven golds in one games. He could become an unequalled Olympian on Sunday if he and his U.S. team mates win their last relay race.

Phelps defeated Serbian Milorad Cavic in the 100m butterfly by one hundredths of a second, the narrowest margin possible.

Bolt’s victory was beyond doubt within meters of the starting block. He was ahead in a heartbeat and with 30 meters to go he glanced sideways and smiled in realization that he would win the showcase race of the Olympics.

The 21-year-old almost highstepped across the finish line to take the most coveted athletic crown meters clear of Trinidadian Richard Thompson who won silver in 9.89 seconds.

American Walter Dix won bronze in 9.91 but Bolt’s blistering speed made his rivals look like sluggards.

After scorching across the line, Bolt draped himself in a Jamaican flag, took off his golden running shoes and kissed them.

His performance sealed a remarkable transition from 200 meter specialist to winner of the showcase race of the Olympics.

Bolt only began racing the 100m in the last year, putting his fellow sprinters in the shade with his performances. He first really showed his threat in May, when he set a world record time of 9.72 in New York.

JOY AT HOME

Bolt’s father said “yam power” won it for his son. Wellesley Bolt said Usain son was partial to the vegetable grown in the Trelawny area of north-west Jamaica where he was born. Local citizens believe the local staple has medicinal powers.

Much of Jamaica clustered around televisions to watch the extraordinary run and jumped for joy at the victory of the man dubbed “Lightning” by the media.

Despite a tradition of producing world class sprinters, the Caribbean island had never before won a men’s 100m gold at the Olympics.

Bolt can now set his sights on becoming the first man to win the 100m and 200m Olympic double since Carl Lewis in 1984. He will be full of confidence ahead of Wednesday’s 200m final.

“I am just focusing on the 200 meters now,” said Bolt. “I came here prepared and I’m going to do it.”

The much-touted clash between Bolt, former world record holder and fellow Jamaican Asafa Powell and world champion Tyson Gay never happened.

Gay, suffering from a hamstring injury, failed to qualify for the late evening final in front of a roaring 90,000-strong crowd in Beijing’s magnificent Bird’s Nest stadium.

Powell, 25, who has never won a global sprint title, finished in fifth place.

“I messed up big time,” said Powell. “My legs died on me. Usain ran an awesome race. I’m very happy for him.”

PHELPS PHENOMENEN

Phelps’ victory was equally dramatic. He trailed Cavic but lunged forward on his final stroke to win. The sporting phenomenon of the Beijing 2008 Games punched the air and screamed with joy as a capacity crowd in the Water Cube rose to hail him.

“It’s pretty cool, that’s all I can say,” said Phelps, who thought halfway he had blown it. “I am in a sort of dream world.”

“He can be called the best Olympian of all time,” Spitz told America’s NBC television, “not because he has more gold medals than anybody but in the way he’s handled himself and in the way he’s actually won under a tremendous amount of pressure.”

Phelps now has 13 career golds, four more than anyone else in the 112-year history of the modern Games.

Phelps’s success is down to total focus and the perfect swimmer’s physique of large torso and huge reach on short legs. His arm span is 3 inches more than his 6ft 4 height.

The only surprise was that Phelps did not win in world record time, unlike his other six title-winning swims in Beijing.

The women, though, were in record breaking form.

Zimbabwe’s Kirsty Coventry, who had won three silvers already in Beijing, finally struck gold in the women’s 200 backstroke, bringing some rare cheer to her troubled homeland.

She shaved 0.85 seconds off the previous world best.

Britain’s Rebecca Adlington also smashed a 19-year-old world record to take gold in the women’s 800 freestyle.

LOWS AND HIGHS

Switzerland’s Roger Federer finally won the Olympic gold he craved to add to his well-stocked trophy cupboard. His doubles win will ease the pain of his quarter-final singles defeat and a poor season that has seen him lose his number one ranking.

Sweden’s greco-roman wrestler Ara Abrahamian was stripped of his 84kg-category bronze medal after he dropped it in disgust to protest a refereeing decision. Olympic organizers also threw him out of the Games for his medal ceremony protest.

Australia picked up two gold rowing medals but lost to Britain in a thrilling sprint for the line in the men’s four. Two more medals came Britain’s way in the cycling.

China’s gold medal charge paused on Saturday, with only one badminton gold coming the way of the host nation during the day as attention switched to sports where the Asian nation does less well.

China came second to the United States in the medal table in Athens and would dearly like to win this year to showcase a sporting superpower status to mirror a growing economic clout.

China leads the gold medal table with 27 to the United States’ 16.

from: reuters.com

The United States erased a four-run deficit to claim a crucial 5-4 victory over Canada on Saturday and keep alive their hopes for an Olympic baseball medal.

Cuba also left it late, Frederich Cepeda’s seventh inning solo home run accounting for all the scoring as the defending gold medalist edged reeling Taiwan 1-0 to maintain their unbeaten record.

South Korea (3-0) joins Cuba (4-0) as the only unbeaten teams, pushing across three runs in the ninth inning to take a 5-3 decision over Asian rivals Japan (2-2).

In other preliminary round action, the Netherlands scored their first runs and notched their first win, stopping China 6-4.

Trailing Canada 4-0 after four innings, the U.S. struck for five unanswered runs with Terry Tiffee driving in the winning score with a two-out, two-run double in the bottom of the seventh.

Brian Duensing tossed 3 1/3 scoreless innings of relief, retiring 10 of the 11 batters he faced, to seal the win and level the Americans’ record at 2-2.

“We came out a little dead,” Tiffee told reporters. “We’ve had a couple of close losses and three early games in a row. We came out slow and finally woke up.”

Cuba and Taiwan, coming off a gut-wrenching 8-7 extra-inning loss to rivals China on Friday, engaged in a riveting pitchers’ duel that was decided by Cepeda’s one swing of the bat.

Cuban starter Elier Sanchez and reliever Norberto Gonzalez combined on a four-hit shutout as the holders improved to 4-0 and Taiwan slipped to 1-3.

Japan’s Takahiro Arai broke open the scoreless contest with a towering two-run homer in the bottom of the sixth only to watch Korean slugger Lee Daeho answered back with a two-run monster shot in the top of the seventh to deadlock the contest at 2-2.

The contest looked head for extra-innings when the Koreans exploded for three runs in the ninth, Kim Hyunsoo and Lee Jongwook each driving in a run while another scored on a throwing error.

South Korea and China will be the only teams to see action on Sunday when they complete their rain interrupted game from Thursday.

from: reuters.com

Chris Hoy of Britain took his second cycling gold medal of the Beijing Olympics in the keirin Saturday, while his compatriot Bradley Wiggins got his first. Both are hoping the eventual tally will be three apiece.
Earlier, Joan Llaneras of Spain took gold for a second time in the men’s points race.
Two-time
keirin world champion Hoy dashed away from the field in the final of the keirin, a sprint race paced by a motorized bike, and none of his rivals could get near him.
Hoy’s compatriot Ross Edgar had a harder struggle, but he managed to slip across the line for the silver medal, just ahead of Kiyofumi Nagai of Japan.
The keirin is an eight-lap race, where riders spend 5 1/2 laps jockeying for position behind a pacesetting motorcycle that accelerates steadily before leaving the competitors alone on the track for the final 625 meters.
Hoy was part of the British team that won the team sprint on Saturday. He will be going for his third gold in the individual sprint on Tuesday.
The event in which Hoy won gold in Athens, the 1-kilometer time-trial, has been dropped to make way for the BMX competition.
It was a bad night for the Dutch sprinters. Theo Bos was brought down in the second round by Polish rider Kamil Kuczynski, who crashed in front of him, and he did not take part in the restarted race. His compatriot, world championship silver medalist Teun Mulder, also went out. He won the first-round repechage but was disqualified for riding outside the racing area.
In the 4,000 meters individual pursuit, Wiggins finished almost three seconds ahead of Hayden Roulston of New Zealand, completing the race in a time of 4 minutes, 16.977 seconds. Steven Burke of Britain _ selected to race only days ago _ took the bronze.
Wiggins, 28, is hoping to improve on the gold, silver and bronze he took on the track in Athens. The British are seeking eight of the 10 track golds, and they are on target so far.
If Wiggins wins three medals at these games, he will become the track cyclist with the most medals in Olympic history, breaking a record that has stood for 104 years.
Wiggins broke the Olympic record in qualifying Friday _ the record he himself set when he took gold in Athens.
Llaneras, the champion eight years ago in Sydney and silver medalist four years ago, scored 60 points in the race, coming in ahead of Roger Kluge of Germany and World Cup champion Chris Newton of Britain.
In the points race, racers ride 160 laps of the track, taking part in sprints every 10th lap for points. Most important, however, is the bonus of 20 points they get for lapping the field.
Llaneras, Kluge and Newton were the only three riders to lap the field twice.

Speaking shortly after his victory, Llaneras said he was thinking of his former madison partner, Isaac Galvez, who died after crashing during a race in Belgium in 2006.
«I remember all the people who support me. At this very moment, I remember Isaac,» Llaneras said.
Saturday also saw the first round of the women’s individual pursuit, and again it was a British rout.
World champion Rebecca Romero will face her compatriot Wendy Houvenaghel in the gold medal race on Sunday afternoon, while Alison Shanks of New Zealand will face Lesya Kalitovska of Ukraine for the bronze medal.
Shanks put out two-time world champion Sarah Hammer of the United States and Romero beat Athens silver medalist Katie Mactier of Australia.
Romero is competing in her first Olympic cycling event but already has a medal _ she was part of the British team that took silver in the quadruple sculls in rowing, four years ago in Athens.
Houvenaghel, a 33-year-old dental surgeon, began cycling only six years ago. She took gold with Romero in the women’s team pursuit at the world championships in March.

source: pr-inside.com

The ongoing Beijing Olympics have brought excitement and success to many, but for landlords in the Chinese capital who had hoped to reap a small fortune from the tourists, the Games have turned out to be a big disappointment.

Real estate agencies said the actual deal prices for short-term renting is generally lower than what the owners had expected, who raised their rental 4.6 times over the normal rate.

According to real estate agency Golden Key (Zhongda Hengji), more than 20,000 apartments had been advertised for short-term renting, but barely 8,000 of them - about 40 per cent - were leased out.

Contracts were signed largely for high-end apartments with monthly rental of 5,000 yuan ($727) or above, which more than tripled the average rent rate in the city.

Though deals are limited, the urge to make money during the Games pushed real estate prices even in the long-term renting market.

The first half of 2008 has seen the fastest growth of average monthly rental rate in the city, from 1,350 to 1,560 yuan, up 15.6 per cent, according to surveys quoted by China Business Times.

Though the short-term rental prices will drop after the Olympic Games, the long-term rental may rise higher, as the owners of the short-term renting apartments would seek to make up for their losses in the long-term renting market, analysts said.

from: indiatimes.com

A Swedish wrestler has been disqualified and stripped of his Olympic bronze medal for dropping it in protest.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) said Ara Abrahamian had been kicked out of the Beijing Games for violating the spirit of fair play during the medal ceremony.

Abrahamian walked off the podium and dropped the bronze medal on the mat after taking third in the Greco-Roman 84kg division on Thursday.

He was angry about a disputed penalty call that decided his semifinal match against Italian Andrea Minguzzi, who went on to win the gold medal.

The IOC executive board ruled the wrestler’s action amounted to a political demonstration and a mark of disrespect to his fellow athletes.

It said no athlete would receive Abrahamian’s medal.

from: sbs.com.au