Sailing scored a major coup as its television coverage of the Beijing Olympic Games was recognized as ‘The Best Sports Coverage by the Host Broadcaster’ at the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) “Olympic Golden Rings” ceremony, held last night (16 December) in Lausanne, Switzerland.
The IOC’s Olympic Golden Rings ceremony recognises the contribution made by the world of television to the success of the Olympic Games. Sailing won the gold award for The Best Sports Coverage by the Host Broadcasting Organisation, the Beijing Olympic Broadcasting (BOB). IOC President Jacques Rogge was amongst the leading figures from both the sporting and broadcasting world who attended the awards ceremony held at The Olympic Museum in Lausanne on Tuesday evening.

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THE high command of the Olympic movement is to meet in London to discuss what lessons can be learned from the Beijing Games.

Up to 70 VIPs will attend the “Beijing debrief” this month in a week-long summit which will begin with a lecture by Jacques Rogge, president of the International Olympic Committee.

Mr Rogge is expected to tackle the issue of how the scale of the Olympic Games can be adapted to cope with a worldwide recession. Last month he sparked a row when he said that to avoid the main 2012 stadium becoming a “white elephant” after the Games, the athletics track could be removed. Officials from the Beijing Games organising committee, Bocog, will brief their London counterparts on issues ranging from transport, catering and security. Bocog earned praise for the organisation of the Games and the sports venues, especially the Bird’s Nest and the Water Cube.

However, the London organising committee, Locog, will be keen to improve on public catering at venues and the poor atmosphere in the Beijing Olympic Green.

Meetings will be led by Hein Verbruggen, head of the IOC’s team overseeing the Beijing Games, and IOC chief technocrat Gilbert Felli.

Future Winter Olympics hosts Vancouver and Sochi will also attend, as will cities bidding to host the 2016 Games – Rio, Madrid, Chicago and Tokyo – who will also be given a tour of the Olympic Park. They will be discreetly trying to lobby the dozen IOC members in attendance, ahead of the 2016 vote next year in Copenhagen.

?BORIS Johnson has rejected claims that Olympic chiefs will struggle to put on the 2012 Games because of the financial downturn.

“Not only can we cope, but we can do a fantastic job,” he insisted, adding that this would be done within the £9.3 billion budget.

However, the Mayor admitted that Games organisers may have to attract more foreign investment, particularly from China, as a result.

The Standard reported last month that he was holding talks with some of China’s leading universities to establish a new campus in the Olympic Park.

Mr Johnson’s remarks on Channel 4 News come after Olympics minister Tessa Jowell said the Government would not have bid for the Games if it had known a recession was on its way.

source: thisislondon.co.uk

Sport News

KAWASAKI: Athens Olympic gold medallist Koji Murofushi of Japan won the hammer throw with his last attempt at the Kawasaki track and field meet on Tuesday.

Murofushi, who finished fifth at the Beijing Olympics in August, threw 81.02 metres to beat Krisztian Pars of Hungary. Beijing Olympic champion Primoz Kozmus of Slovenia was a disappointing third with 78.59 metres.

“It was a very good throw. I’m really glad that I was able to mark such a good record with my last throw in my last competition of the season,” said Murofushi. “I couldn’t practise well because of a cold so I think this is the result I achieved with my technique. It was a good competition and I’m looking forward to the next season.” Meanwhile, Nobuharu Asahara, who anchored the Japanese team to win the 4×100m relay bronze in Beijing, put an end to his career with a third-place finish in 10.37 secs. The 100 metre race was won by Harry Aikines-Aryeetey of Britain in 10.19, followed by Michael Rodgers of the United States in 10.26.

“I competed for more than 20 years. A great part of my life was to run. It’s great to finish my career by receiving a medal as a present at the end,” said Asahara, now aged 36.

Other Beijing Olympic champions duly won their events, with Tomasz Majewski of Poland winning the men’s shot put with 19.63m and Tatiana Lebedeva of Russia winning the women’s long jump with 6.81m. In the women’s 100m, Chisato Fukushima brought the title home for the first time for Japan by clocking 11.70 secs, beating American Candice Davis into second. The 2005 world champion Bershawn Jackson of the United States coasted to an easy victory in the men’s 400m hurdles in 49.33 secs, while 2007 world champion Donald Thomas of Bahamas won the men’s high jump with 2.24m.

from: dailytimes.com.pk

Two reigning Olympic champions, Tomasz Majewski of Poland (Shot Put) and Slovenia’s Primoz Kozmus (Hammer Throw), and two reigning World champions, Tatyana Lebedeva (women’s Long Jump) and Donald Thomas (men’s High Jump), competed in today’s edition of the annual ‘Super-Meet’ which was held in front of a capacity crowd of 25,000 spectators in Kawasaki, Japan (23).

Kawasaki is situated just south-west of Tokyo, and competitions were played out in Todoroki stadium, the site of this year’s national championships, under a sunny sky with a top temperature of 26.9C.

The meeting also featured the final race for Noboharu Asahara, 36, who has been the premier sprinter in Japan for many years.

Low key Shot won by Olympic champion; Murofushi prevails in Hammer

Poland’s Beijing champion Tomasz Majewski took the lead in the men’s Shot Put with a 19.37m release in the second round and never relinquished his lead. He improved to 19.63 in his fourth throw, while Ukraine’s Yuriy Bilonog, his predecessor as Olympic champion, could not put past 18m. He failed to improve his first throw of 17.66m and finished a distant second.

The men’s Hammer Throw featured a better quality competition. The Olympic champion Primoz Kozmus failed to throw past the 80m mark, while his fellow Beijing finalists Japan’s Koji Murofushi and Hungary’s Krisztian Pars battled for supremacy.

Murofushi took the lead with a 77.49m first round throw, while Pars’ first throw was 77.18m. Both throwers steadily improved with each round, with Pars going ahead with 80.67m in the fourth series of efforts. But Murofushi was not finished yet. He regained the lead with his sixth and final throw of 81.02m to win the competition, while Pars failed to improve.

Lebedeva dominates

Tatyana Lebedeva, the 2004 Olympic and 2007 World champion at the Long Jump, won this event today with a 6.81m performance. The Beijing silver medallist completely dominated the competitions, as any of her jumps, except for the first one, would have won the competition. The Japanese record holder Kumiko Ikeda was distant second with 6.45m.

Donald Thomas, who came from nowhere to win the High Jump in Osaka last year, won his specialty with a leap of 2.24m in Kawasaki, while Japanese national record holder Naoyuki Daigo finished second with 2.21m.

Although Kenji Narisako started the men’s 400m Hurdles fast and led most of the race, USA’s 2005 World Champion Bershawn Jackson, the bronze medallist in Beijing, came from behind to take the lead for good at tenth hurdle and won with 49.33. Narisako finished second with 49.68.

Two athletes who finished just out of medals in Beijing, Derek Miles and Damu Cherry, won in Kawasaki. Miles won the men’s Pole Vault with 5.60m. Daichi Sawano, the Japanese national record holder, also cleared 5.60m, he took two attempts to do so, while Miles cleared on his first attempt.

Although Candice Davis led the women’s 100m Hurdles until the 9th barrier, Damu Cherry came from behind to snatch the victory with 13.07, six one-hundredth ahead of Davis. An hour and half later, Davis finished second at flat 100m, while Cherry was fourth in the same race, which was won by Chisato Fukushima, the Japanese national record holder at 100m.

Other notable athletes in the meet were Briton Marlon Devonish, who won the men’s 200m and Hyleas Fountain, Beijing Heptathlon silver medallist, who finished third in both 100m Hurdles and Long Jump.

Asahara says his goodbyes and is greeted by Bolt

In Beijing, his fourth Olympics, Nobuharu Asahara anchored home the Japanese bronze medal winning 4×100m relay team, and in an emotional last race of his career Asahara competed along with his Olympic team-mates, Naoki Tsukahara, Shingo Suetsugu and Shinji Takahira, in the 100m in Kawasaki.

At the pre-meet press conference, Asahara said he would like to give what ever he has left in him, and asked his team-mates to give their 100% in the race also. He did not want any of his team mates to hold back so Asahara could win the final race of his career.

Tsukahara, the Beijing Olympic relay-lead off man started well and led for the first half of the 100m. However, he was passed by Asahara, Harry Aikines-Aryeetey of GBR and Michael Rodgers of USA in the last 50 metres to finish only fourth.

Aikines-Aryeetey won with 10.19, followed by Rodgers and Asahara.

“It wasn’t my best race, but it was exciting to run in front of so many fans. It was quite appropriate for my final race,” said Asahara who was greeted on the podium after the race by Jamaica’s mutliple Olympic champion Usain Bolt who was attending the meeting as a VIP guest of the meeting organsiers.

Ken Nakamura for the IAAF
Assisted by Akihiro Onishi

RESULTS

Men

100m -0.4m/s
1. Harry Aikines-Aryeetey (GBR) 10.19
2. Michael Rodgers (USA) 10.26
3. Nobuharu Asahara (JPN) 10.37

200m -0.7m/s
1. Marlon Devonish (GBR) 20.78
2. Hitoshi Saito (JPN) 20.83
3. Brendan Christian (ANT) 20.94

110mH -0.7m/s
1. Lee Jung-Joon (KOR) 13.71
2. Aubrey Herring (USA) 13.77
3. Yuji Ohashi (JPN) 13.83

400mH
1. Bershawn Jackson (USA) 49.33
2. Kenji Narisako (JPN) 49.68
3. Takayuki Koike 50.02

HJ
1. Donald Thomas (BAH) 2.24m
2. Naoyuki Daigo (JPN) 2.21m
3. Hiromi Takahari (JPN) 2.18m

PV
1. Derek Miles (USA) 5.60m
2. Daichi Sawano (JPN) 5.60m
3. Leonid Andreev (UZB) 5.40m

SP
1. Tomasz Majewski (POL) 19.63m
2. Yuriy Bilonog (UKR) 17.66m
3. Tadashi Ohashi (JPN) 17.31m

HT
1. Koji Murofushi (JPN) 81.02m
2. Krisztian Pars (HUN) 80.67m
3. Primoz Kozmus (SLO) 78.59m

Women

100m -0.6m/s
1. Chisato Fukushima (JPN) 11.70
2. Candice Davis (USA) 11.89
3. Momoko Takahashi (JPN) 11.90

400m
1. Miriam Barnes (USA) 53.18
2. Satomi Kubokura (JPN) 53.91
3. Maris Magi (EST) 53.99

1500m
1. Yuko Shimizu (JPN) 4:15.51
2. Minori Hayakari (JPN) 4:16.10
3. Mika Yoshikawa (JPN) 4:17.48

100mH 0.1m/s
1. Damu Cherry (USA) 13.07
2. Candice Davis (USA) 13.13
3. Hyleas Fountain (USA) 13.22

LJ
1. Tatyana Lebedeva (RUS) 6.81m (1.2m/s)
2. Kumiko Ikeda (JPN) 6.45m (1.2m/s)
3. Hyleas Fountain (USA) 6.23m (2.1m/s)

source: iaaf.org

Paralympic torch lands on Shanghai

The Paralympic torch was relayed on Monday in Shanghai, the third stop of the flame’s “modern China” route.
The relay started at 9:30 a.m. at the Shanghai Foreign Trade University as Zhao Jihong, a prolific Paralympic athlete, launched the 3km relay of 60 torchbearers.
Zhao, who doesn’t have eyesight, had won four golds, three silvers and one bronze in three Paralympics. She set a world record of women’s triple jump for the blind B in the seventh edition of Paralympics.
Xu Lijia, a Beijing Olympic bronze medallist in sailing, ran in the sixth place.
Xu won a bronze at Laser Radial, a class at which Europeans usually excel.
“I have my best two days this year. Last month, I won a medal in the Beijing Olympics and now I’m running as a torchbearer of Paralympics,” said Xu.
“My two dreams come true today. One is being part of the Olympics and the other is being part of the Paralympics,” added Xu.
Chinese swimmer Pang Jiaying lit the cauldron at 10:40 a.m. as the last torchbearer.
Pang, 23, notched up three Olympic medals, one silver and two bronzes, in the Olympics last month.
“It’s a great honor for me to get the opportunity to carry the torch and light the cauldron,” said Pang, who won four gold medals at the Doha Asian Games 2006.
Huang Wentao, another Paralympic athlete who doesn’t have eyesight, passed the torch in the 56th place. Huang was the Paralympic triple jump champion in 1992 and he repeated the feat at the Sydney Paralympics.
“We just held a successful Olympics. Now our first Paralympics is coming. We the disabled persons expect the Paralympics to be a great success,” said Huang.
Twelve out of the 60 bearers were disabled persons in the relay.
The next destination for the “modern China” route is Qiangdao, a coastal city in Shandong province.
The Beijing Paralympic torch relay will cover 13,181 kilometers over nine days, passing 11 cities.
The Paralympic torch relay was carried out along two routes, namely the route of “modern China” and the route of “ancient China”. “Modern” route covers Shenzhen, Wuhan, Shanghai, Qingdao,Dalian and Beijing, while the “ancient” has Xi’an, Hohhot, Changsha, Nanjing and Luoyan.

source: xinhuanet.com

jappone – recensioni blog – il bello della blogosfera - japan news- Free Advertising Forums

Paralympic torch lands on Shanghai

Semi-finals and final races in the men’s and women’s BMX competition have been postponed until Friday due to rain, officials said.

Heavy rain from the early hours of Thursday soaked the dirt course and cycling officials determined that it would be too dangerous to run the competition.

“In consideration of the fairness of the competition, and after negotiation with the UCI (Union Cycliste Internationale) technical delegate, as well as Beijing Olympic Broadcasting, the competition schedule will now run from 9:00 until 11:00 on 22 August,” said a statement from Laoshan cycling officials.

The change means the men’s and women’s BMX and the women’s mountain biking finals will all be held on Thursday.

Riders said they were disappointed that they would have to wait for competition, after getting mentally and physically prepared to race.

But one rider — American Kyle Bennett — was thankful for the extra time, after dislocating his shoulder in a high-speed crash in the quarter-finals on Wednesday.

“I think a day off wouldn’t hurt,” said Bennett, who got back on his bicycle and rode off the course after a doctor popped his shoulder back in.

Bennett qualified for the semi-finals despite the crash because he had finished second and fourth in the first two of three quarter-final runs.

“It’s going to be tough to race,” he said in an interview. “The plan is to do everything I can do to prepare it for tomorrow.”

Bennett, a pre-race medal favorite along with his two team mates, said the rain made the asphalt curves and the steep, three-storey high starting ramp too dangerous to ride.

The American said he and the other riders will have a hard time sitting around waiting for another day to race.

“The anticipation kind of gets to you when you have to sit around,” Bennett said. “But who knows, sometimes it works out for the best.”

from: reuters.com

Two elderly Chinese women who applied to hold a protest during the Olympics were ordered to spend a year in a labor camp, a relative said Wednesday. Police later squelched a pro-Tibet demonstration.
The women were still at home three days after being officially notified they would have to serve a yearlong term of reeducation through labor, but were under surveillance by a government-backed neighborhood group, said Li Xuehui, the son of one of the women.
Li said no cause was given for the order to imprison his 79-year-old mother, Wu Dianyuan, and her neighbor Wang Xiuying, 77.
“Wang Xiuying is almost blind and disabled. What sort of re-education through labor can she serve?” Li said in a telephone interview. “But they can also be taken away at any time.”
Meanwhile, swarms of plainclothes police set upon four foreign activists early Thursday as they tried to stage a protest against Chinese rule over Tibet — the latest in a series of unsanctioned demonstrations to occur during the Olympics.
Beijing announced last month that it would allow protests in three parks far from the Olympic venues during the games but they had to be approved in advance. Of the some 77 applications lodged so far, none have been approved, and rights groups have called the zones a charade.
The four unfurled a Tibetan flag and shouted “Free Tibet” south of the “Bird’s Nest” National Stadium, the New York-based Students for a Free Tibet said. It put the number of police at 50; a spokeswoman for the Beijing Public Security Bureau declined comment.
“The fact that there were so many undercover police following them it just made them go with the action urgently,” said Kate Woznow, the group’s campaigns director.
Two Associated Press photographers were roughed up by plainclothes security officers, forced into cars and taken to a nearby building where they were questioned before being released. Memory cards from their cameras were confiscated.
The four activists — whose whereabouts were not known — were identified by Students for a Free Tibet as Tibetan-German Florien Norbu Gyanatshang, 30; Mandie McKeown, 41, of Britain; and Americans Jeremy Wells, 38 and John Watterberg, 30.
The rough treatment and intimidation being meted out to foreigners and elderly Chinese underscore the authorities’ determination to prevent any protests during the Olympics, even though Beijing Olympic organizers last month said demonstrations would be allowed in designated areas.
The elderly women, Wu and Wang, small and gray-haired, make unlikely activists. Wang, who used to sell ice cream, walks with a wooden cane, one hand holding onto Wu for support. But Li said they have been fighting since being kicked out of their Beijing homes in 2001 to make way for redevelopment.
They complained to district officials, then to city authorities, and finally demonstrated 16 times this year in two of Beijing’s most sensitive areas — Tiananmen Square and Zhongnanhai, the compound where China’s leaders live and work.
After Beijing announced the Olympic protest zones, Wu and Wang applied repeatedly for a permit but failed to get one.
The cases of Wu and Wang “show that while China has now proven it is able to host international events to perfection, it still has a long way to go before it respects even minimal international human rights standards,” said Nicholas Bequelin of the New York-based Human Rights Watch.
“China is riding roughshod over its promises to allow lawful protests during the games,” he said.
The reeducation system, in place since 1957, allows police to sidestep the need for a criminal trial or a formal charge and directly send people to prison for up to four years to perform penal labor.
Giselle Davies, spokeswoman for the International Olympic Committee, said past Olympic hosts have designated protest areas and that the body hoped Beijing would stick to its promise of allowing demonstrations.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang declined to discuss the specifics of the protest policy at a regular news conference Wednesday. “In China, like in other countries, to apply for a demonstration, you have to obey the law,” he said.
Tibet supporters have been among the most dogged groups trying to break Beijing’s apparent ban on protests.
Five American bloggers writing about Tibet have been detained since early Tuesday in Beijing, said Students for a Free Tibet.
Also Tuesday, another five Americans who unfurled a “Free Tibet” banner near an Olympics venue were detained along with U.S. graffiti artist James Powderly, who planned to use laser beams to flash a similar message on buildings in Beijing, said Woznow. Powderly was still in detention, though the others have been released, she said.

from: ap.google.com

World champion Canada has won the men’s eights gold at the Beijing Olympic rowing competition.

It was the first time in more than 30 years that the reigning world champions also won Olympic gold.

Australia’s rowers were not able to reproduce last night’s success, with six-time Olympian James Tomkins in the Australian boat which finished in last place.

Canada blasted out from the start and built up a lead of more than 2.50sec on Britain by the halfway mark.

The Brits started to come back but ran out of water and only held off the United States for silver by 0.23sec.

from:abc.net.au

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

China has vigorously defended itself against accusations that it has not fulfilled promises it made when it bid for the Olympic Games.

Top Beijing Olympic official Wang Wei said the Olympics would allow China to open up further to the outside world.

He was responding to criticism about China’s pledges on issues such as human rights and media freedom.

International Olympic officials have voiced disapproval over the detention of a UK journalist covering a protest.

‘Stepping forward’

China has faced a barrage of criticism in the lead-up to the Games on a range of issues, including air pollution.

Critics also say China has failed to improve human rights and accuse it of reneging on a pledge to provide complete media freedom to report the Games.

But in an impassioned speech, Wang Wei, executive vice-president of the Beijing organisers, dismissed the bad publicity.

Speaking at a press briefing, Mr Wang said that when he was secretary-general of the Beijing Olympic bid committee, he was “confronted with many questions”.
“I did say that the Olympic Games coming to China will help China open up further and reform better,” he said.

The fact that China had set up protest areas for its citizens during the Olympics showed it was heading in the right direction, he said.

“I think China has been stepping forward, and if you ask the ordinary Chinese on the streets they will give you the same answer,” he said.

“Everybody is happy. People are optimistic about their own future. That is a fact.”

Mr Wang went on to attack what he termed the small number of people who criticised China. “That does not mean we are not fulfilling our promise,” he said.

Visitors coming to China for the first time would see a different country to the one represented in films and newspapers, he added.

“People will see better for themselves what China is like,” he said.

Despite the comments, International Olympic Committee spokeswoman Giselle Davies, sitting next to Mr Wang, said journalists should be able to do their jobs unhindered.

Her comments come after a British journalist was briefly detained while trying to cover a pro-Tibet protest near the main Olympic venues.

“We don’t want to see it happening again,” she said, referring to the detention.

from: bbc.co.uk

Beijing Olympic is a farce as China is caught red-handed cheating in the games!

India Daily wrote about it before the Olympics started. China, the country of fraud, deceit, and counterfeit is now caught red handed cheating the games to win more medals.

This has severe consequences for China in getting nod for future Olympics games in the next hundred years.

Claims of questionable officiating and even cheating flared on Wednesday with the Olympic gymnastics, shooting and boxing competitions coming under fire.

Australian veteran shooter Russell Mark alleged that Chinese judges cheated to favor Chinese counterpart. “One of them clearly he missed,” Mark was quoted as saying. “I don”t think anyone out there thought he hit it. If that had been for a gold medal, I would have been protesting.

“The referees have to be in unison but there was a lot of doubt about a lot of the shots out there. “I”m glad it wasn”t for a gold medal because that is all that this games would have been remembered for unfortunately.”

In gymnastics, China used underage girls to win the gold medals. The Chinese girls were clearly below 16 years of age but the communist Government has provided these athletes with false birth dates to make them older than 16 years of age as required by the regulations.

source: indiadaily.com

The director of security for the Beijing Olympic organizing committee said Wednesday the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and American Embassy were invited to directly participate in the investigation into the stabbing of two family members of the U.S. Olympic volleyball coach last week.

Liu Shaowu said Tang Yongming, 47, was “encountering family difficulties and was extremely depressed” when he attacked and killed Todd Bachman and seriously wounded his wife Barbara at Beijing’s Drum Tower, a popular tourist destination.
“This is an isolated incident,” he said. “The police have already investigated this whole incident very closely already and announced the results…. We don’t think there will be any effect on the Olympic Games themselves.”

Shaowu said recent increases in security–two armored tanks were parked outside the official media center Tuesday–did not indicate an increased threat to Olympic visitors or media.

from:washingtonpost.com

Olympic chiefs today said they were investigating reports that Beijing officials confiscated the notebooks and tape recorders of Chinese journalists covering the Games.

A witness at a press conference involving the US men’s volleyball team yesterday claimed local reporters were accosted after frank interviews with some of the players about the murder of Todd Bachman.

The 62-year-old American, who was stabbed by a Chinese man while sightseeing in Beijing on Saturday, was the father-in-law of Hugh McCutcheon, the US team coach.

The Beijing Olympic staff claimed they wanted to know what was said because they had not properly understood the discussion in English, despite the presence of official interpreters. But the Chinese journalists did not later recover their notes or tapes, according to the observer.
The incident raises concerns that the Chinese authorities are trying to erase the Olympics link to the murder of an American citizen in order to limit damage to the image of their games.

Mr Bachman’s connection to the US volleyball team was initially reported on CCTV, the state television channel, and in the Chinese-language press. However, the news was relegated to a paragraph on the front of the English-language China Daily and has subsequently been removed from some Chinese internet sites.

Comments relating to the “death” of Mr Bachman were carried on the Olympic News Service, the official intranet system in Olympic venues, but the quotes by American players had been edited.

Sun Weide, a spokesman for the Beijing Olympic Organising Committee (Bocog), claimed he had no knowledge of the incident. He said: “Chinese journalists have rights to cover the Olympic Games. Their rights are protected by the Chinese constitution.”

A spokeswoman for the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said the matter was being investigated. It has maintained that journalists would be free to report on the Games, not just inside official venues but outside as well so long as local laws were respected. The freedom is a contractual obligation between the IOC and Beijing, the host city.

But the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) accused the Chinese authorities of “snooping” after it received reports of security officials shadowing the media on assignments in Beijing.

On Saturday, as journalists covered the scene of Mr Bachman’s murder and the subsequent suicide of his Chinese attacker at the Drum Tower, a tourist spot near the Forbidden City, their notes were photographed by unidentified strangers.

In a separate incident, a foreign journalist told the IFJ he had been stopped by two men with no press accreditation who took pictures of him and his notes after he had interviewed a French athlete at the airport.

Similarly, journalists interviewing a discontented landowner in Tiananmen Square were photographed by strangers who refused to identify themselves.

“This is unacceptable interference in the work of journalists,” Aidan White, IFJ general secretary, said.

“Once again we call on the Chinese authorities to make good on their promise that journalists can work without intimidation. Protection of journalistic sources is a cornerstones of press freedom. This sort of activity shows complete disregard for that principle by the Chinese authorities.”

source: timesonline.co.uk

China has imposed restrictions on the access of Chinese and foreign media to Beijing’s sensitive Tiananmen Square, requiring them to apply in advance to film or conduct interviews there, the city government said on Tuesday.

“To maintain a good order of reporting activities at the square, Chinese and foreign journalists are advised to make telephone appointments with the Administration Committee of Tiananmen Area,” said a notice posted on the official website of the Beijing government.

The notice suggested that the new requirement was introduced because of the use of the square for Olympic-related events expected to draw large crowds.

“During the Beijing Olympic Games, one large-scale cultural event would be held each day at Tiananmen Square,” it said.

“A large number of people would come to the square and enjoy the events,” it said.

China has introduced temporary rules allowing foreign journalists to interview any Chinese citizen who accepts a request before and during the games.

But officials have also warned many Beijing residents to avoid discussing sensitive subjects with foreign media.

Tiananmen Square was the prime site of the 1989 pro-democracy protests, which ended after the ruling Communist Party ordered tanks and troops into the square, in a crackdown that is believed to have cost several hundred lives.

Rights groups and families of victims continue to urge the government to investigate and make a full report of the Tiananmen crackdown.

In recent years, many petitioners from outside Beijing have tried to stage protests in the square.

The government has tightened security and introduced regulations sepcifically for the square in the run-up to the Olympics.

Security guards and paramilitary police check the identities and seach the bags of everyone entering the square.

Members of three to five families staged a small protest near Tiananmen Square on Monday to voice dissatisfaction over housing compensation, state media said.

State media said police ended the protest about 30 minutes after the families began talking to foreign reporters at the redeveloped Qianmen commercial area to the south of the square.

The Beijing Olympic organizing committee, BOCOG, arranged a group tour of the square on Tuesday afternoon for foreign Olympic reporters.

source: bangkokpost.com

HE was just a self-conscious teenage boy, scatterings of acne spotting his face, gangly arms sprouting out of a torso still waiting for its last burst of manhood.

But it was his stammer that made him blush.
It was early morning in Beijing this week and as the smog began to lift after a night of fierce storms, the kid was just one of hundreds of volunteers manning one of hundreds of security checkpoints in the Chinese capital.
As each bag rolled through the X-ray machine his task was to approach its owner and ask them to unlock it and allow him a brief inspection of its contents.
But the English he had been taught was also locked inside him.
He stared at the floor, his mouth chewing over the phrases until, finally, he spat them out. “P-P-P-PLEASE,” he shouted. “A-A-A-A.” His voice trailed off.
He shook his head in disgust and tried again, his face a bright crimson. “A-A-A-ALLOWING ME TO P-P-P-PLEASE LOOK?”

Finally, he dared look up.
When he saw an understanding smile on the visitor’s face, relief washed through him.
For a second he had come close to enduring one of the most humiliating moments a Chinese person can experience.
No human enjoys being belittled, but in China a loss of face can be a character wound never to be forgotten, or forgiven.
It is a fear almost tattooed into the psyche of the world’s most populous nation and it has become the driving force behind China’s determination to stage an impressive and, more importantly, incident-free Olympic Games beginning next Friday.
“You have just no idea how exhaustive the Chinese have been when it comes to security,” says one leading Australian intelligence source who is familiar with the workings of Beijing’s secretive security agencies.
“I know the man they appointed to run security for the Olympics when they won the rights to have them. He was called in by the government minister and told, ‘the reputation of the People’s Republic rests on your shoulders”.
“Now how’s that for a bit of pressure?”
This week’s security crackdowns in Beijing and other provinces, and the Government reneging on its original promise of providing unfettered internet access during the Games, underline the ingrained determination within China to do whatever it takes, no matter the fallout, to maintain pride.
Just like the teenage volunteer manning the security checkpoint, China is nervous. And struggling a little in its first major meeting with the West.
But some high-profile Chinese are questioning whether their nation’s fear of losing face will hold it back from using these Olympics to open its door just a little further.
The young boy with his stammering command of a handful of English phrases probably learned them from Li Yang, an almost cult-like figure in China who has made a fortune in recent years encouraging his countrymen to master the language once despised by the Communist dictatorship as the devil’s tongue.
Li runs a lucrative nationwide language learning school he calls “Crazy English”.
It is not uncommon for him to appear on stage in front of thousands of followers, microphone in one hand, the other raised skyward, his style reminiscent of an evangelist preacher.
He will shout out an English word or phrase and the adoring crowd will leap to their feat and repeat it, screaming it out in unison.
Li, a man whose stature and success has guaranteed him more freedom to speak his mind than most, was signed up by the Beijing Olympic Organising Committee to teach many of its almost 500,000 volunteers how to speak the language used as the chief currency in the Western world.
One of the key ideas promoted at any of the hundreds of Li Yang Crazy English language training camps in China is that it is all right to make mistakes, to flub a word or mangle a phrase.
The Chinese must, he says, overcome this fear of losing face if they are ever to take their place on the world stage.
China’s economy has been surging for more than a decade – it is tipped to overtake the US within the next 10 years to become the largest in the world.
But Li says it is still an immature nation, held back by decades of suspicion and distrust of the West, along with an inability to admit its own weaknesses.
“We do stupid, childish things,” he says. “We shut down our critics, shut down internet pages. Our Government is too nervous about the Western media. To be a big nation you should be able to listen to criticism.”
Li has a deep radio announcer’s voice with a slight American twang.
He still stumbles over some English phrases and words, and on the telephone occasionally misinterprets the meaning or nuance of a question from an Australian reporter.
But he is quick to reveal his scepticism about the West’s belief that China is poised to take over the world economically.
“The world media is overly optimistic about China’s economy. I don’t agree with it,” he says.
“We are developing quickly. No doubt. We may be the most populous country. But we have a lot of problems. Our factories have low efficiencies. We have wasted a lot of energy on things that didn’t matter.
“Our culture has a problem. Our education system has problems. Maybe we are exporting lots of goods. But we have hurt our environment doing it.”
Li is not alone in voicing concerns over how China’s push over the past three decades since the death of dictator Mao Zedong to slowly open up its economic borders has cost it dearly.
In order to have a good time, China has become the chronic heavy drinker and smoker at the world’s economic party.
It is plagued by environmental problems. Its rivers are blocked and polluted. Its earth is bleeding and parched, and its skies blackened by factories that daily belch out toxic clouds that hang over its sprawling and crowded cities.
“We have not protected our environment,” says Li. “Our pollution is already affecting other nations, crossing our borders into theirs. Other countries regard us as a threat. But it is not the economy or our numbers that is the threat. It is what we have done to this land.”
For much of the past week Beijing has been smothered in a grey blanket of haze and smog, despite halving the numbers of cars on its roads and shutting down many nearby factories.
In the bathrooms of leading Beijing hotels, patrons are urged to reuse their towels and are reminded how “we do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors, but borrow it from our children”.
But Li believes such awareness campaigns pay lip-service to what could become a major environmental catastrophe for China if its pollution levels are not pulled back soon.
But Li has certainly picked up on the new wave of nationalism that has accompanied China’s rise as an economic superpower.
He tells his followers that while they need English to understand the West, they should avoid falling prey to the cultural weaknesses of materialism and obesity that now plague the US and other developed nations.
“We have spent so much time watching the West and not understanding it because we do not speak its language. Therefore, we do not quite know how it thinks, and what it thinks of us,” he says.
Will these Olympics be a trigger for China to take further steps towards becoming a democracy?
“Democracy should be given time to develop. Even people with democracy don’t know how to use it.” He laughs. “Everything is happening step by step. If we went any quicker there would be chaos.”
And chaos is one thing China wants to avoid. Since winning the right in 2001 to stage these Games, the Chinese have promised the International Olympic Committee China would use them as a platform to hasten democratic reform as well as lifting many of its restrictions on foreign media.
Yet frustrated IOC members have complained privately that, whenever pushed, Chinese authorities have reverted to type.
This week China reneged on a promise to allow unfettered access to the internet for all media covering the Games.
This backstepping reinforced Li Yang’s view that his own nation of 1.3 billion people, while having undergone such remarkable upheaval in recent years, still has a long way to mature.

source:news.com.au

The organizers of the Beijing Olympics on Thursday rejected criticism from the US House of Representatives, which accused China of cracking down on dissidents ahead of the Games.
Sun Weide, spokesman for the Beijing organizing committee, said in Beijing that the committee opposed any attempts to politicize the August 8-24 Games and argued that preparations for the competition had “promoted the social and economic progress in China, especially in Beijing.”
His comments came a day after the lower chamber of the US Congress voted 419-1 for a resolution that called on China to “immediately” end human rights abuses ahead of the Summer Olympics.
“In exchange for the privilege of hosting the Olympic Games, the Chinese government made commitments on freedom of the press, human rights and on the environment,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said. “Many of these commitments have been violated repeatedly and blatantly.”
China’s human rights record has come under increased scrutiny ahead of the Games, and civil rights groups have alleged Beijing has used the need to provide security as a pretext for pressuring political dissidents.

from: bangkokpost.com

Amnesty International has accused the International Olympic Committee (IOC) of caving in to China’s demands on Internet censorship and urged the IOC and Beijing to provide unfettered Internet access as they had promised.

“The International Olympic Committee and the Organizing Committee of the Beijing Olympic Games should fulfil their commitment to full media freedom and provide immediate uncensored internet access at Olympic media venues,” said Mark Allison, East Asia researcher for the London-based rights group, in a statement issued late Wednesday.

“Censorship of the internet at the Games is compromising fundamental human rights and betraying the Olympic values,” Allison said.

The organization was reacting to statements by Kevin Gosper, chair of the IOC’s press committee that “some IOC officials negotiated with the Chinese that some sensitive sites would be blocked on the basis they were not considered Games related.” In Gosper’s statements to the South China Morning Post Wednesday, he also said the IOC could not tell China what to do.

Amnesty, however, noted that on July 17 Jacques Rogge, the IOC’s president, said “there will be no censorship of the internet.”

“This blatant media censorship adds one more broken promise that undermines the claim that the Games would help improve human rights in China,” said Allison.

Beijing authorities have blocked access to internet websites considered politically sensitive or critical of China, including sites for Amnesty and other human rights groups, as well as websites for exiled Tibetan groups and the banned Falungong spiritual group.

Some foreign media websites, such as the BBC’s Chinese-language service, the German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle, the Hong Kong-based Apple Daily and the Taiwan-based Liberty Time, also are blocked.

The IOC said late Wednesday its officials are meeting with Beijing Olympic organisers to try to resolve the problem.

“We’ve learned there are issues accessing some websites and the IOC is talking with the organizers to see what may need to be rectified,” Sandrine Tonge, the IOC’s media relations coordinator said in an email to Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa late Wednesday.

“The IOC has always encouraged the Beijing 2008 organizers to provide media with the fullest access possible to report on the Olympic Games, including access to the internet. BOCOG has said ’sufficient and convenient’ internet access will be provided for the media to cover the Games,” said Tonge.

The French press freedom organization Reporters Without Borders on Wednesday also condemned the Chinese authorities for restricting journalists’ access to the internet and slammed the inability of the IOC to stop them.

Freedom House, a nonprofit organization which promotes democracy, said earlier this month that China has also put more pressure on Chinese journalists in recent days, banning them from covering sensitive issues.

from: bangkokpost.com

As the Olympic countdown ticked to 30-days the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee announced 30 new official songs for the world sporting extravaganza. Among the most prominent of the newly released tunes is Forever Friends. The work was composed by Kong Xiangdong and Giorgio Moroder.

In composing “Forever Friends”, Kong Xiangdong and Giorgio Moroder contributed immense time and energy. Kong Xiangdong says the composition was inspired by his friend Thomas Ho.

Thomas Ho is one of Kong Xiangdong’s best friends. He’s also a noted producer in the US. Ho has been involved in the production of movies like Platoon, Wall Street, Rain Man, Rwanda Hotel, and Curiosity Kills the Cat.

Right after Beijing was named as host for the 2008 Games, Thomas Ho made the suggestion that Kong Xiangdong compose a song for the Games. Thanks to Ho’s efforts, Kong Xiangdong met Giorgio Moroder, a master of sports anthems.

Kong Xiangdong believes that a song should have high artistic values. For a universal event like the Olympics, the theme should be accessible to average listeners and should resonate the spirits of participation and competition. He also says the Olympic song must be uplifting and inspirational.

A lover of traditional Chinese music, Kong Xiangdong made sure oriental elements figured prominently. In preparing to write the song, he went through more than a thousand Chinese folk songs. At last, he chose to focus on 40. These were his musical raw materials and his cultural inspiration.
It took Kong Xiangdong and Giorgio Moroder three years to write “Forever Friends.” The tune had its global release, August, 7th in 2007, in Beijing. Performing at the debut were the 14 finalists at the China Varsity Music Festival.

Since then, the two musicians kept working on the song. So far, both the Chinese-language and English-language versions have been produced. There’s an exquisite music video to go along.

A child prodigy, Kong Xiangdong began to study the piano when he was five. He gave his first public performance immediately after turning 15. Since then he has won many top awards at home and abroad. During a 20 year career as a concert pianist, he conquered audiences around the world.

Since 1997, Kong Xiangdong’s sphere has been confined largely to the Chinese mainland. He believes as an artist that he’s duty-bound to serve the people of his own country.

He has appeared at major events like the concert marking Macao’s return to China and the Spring Festival Gala on China Central Television.

Kong Xiangdong has earned his reputation as a brilliant artist, a musical activist, a cultural personality, and as a world renowned pianist.

from: cctv.com