A former Beijing official who oversaw citywide construction projects for this year’s Olympic Games has been given a suspended death sentence for corruption in a case that involved bribery and lavish living, state news outlets reported on Sunday.
Xinhua, the state news agency, reported that the sentence, suspended for two years, meant that if the defendant “shows good behavior, his sentence will be commuted to life imprisonment.”

The official, Liu Zhihua, 59, once exercised immense power as Beijing’s vice mayor and chief director of the agency that supervised construction projects, including the citywide makeover to prepare for the Games.

But in June 2006, Mr. Liu was stripped of his post after being linked to a bribery scandal. He was expelled from the governing Communist Party six months later.

Mr. Liu’s case was a major embarrassment to the party. Corruption is endemic, but party leaders had pledged that the $43 billion preparations for the Games would be the “cleanest in history.”

Mr. Liu’s case was doubly upsetting because of revelations of his opulent lifestyle, including expensive villas and mistresses provided by developers seeking his favor.

On Sunday, Xinhua said Mr. Liu had taken roughly $1 million in bribes during his tenure as vice mayor and as overseer of construction for a scientific research park in the city’s university district from 1999 to 2006.

The court found that Mr. Liu and a mistress had kept the money, Xinhua said, adding, “Liu abused his power to get contract projects, loans and offer promotions for others in exchange for profits.”

After his arrest in 2006, reports in Hong Kong’s news media portrayed Mr. Liu as having spent many weekends at luxurious villas in the mountains north of Beijing.

The South China Morning Post, an English-language newspaper in Hong Kong, reported that Mr. Liu had used a suburban compound called Xanadu that was “full of luxury villas belonging to senior Communist Party officials and rich business figures.”

His defense lawyer, Mo Shaoping, said Mr. Liu had not decided whether to appeal his conviction.

Irish rider Denis Lynch was officially disqualified Friday from the Beijing Olympics equestrian events for a positive drug test on his horse.
The International Equestrian Federation (FEI) also suspended the 32-year-old Lynch from competing in the sport for three months.
The ban runs out Nov. 21 after taking effect from the day Lynch was provisionally suspended from the Games.
His horse Lantinus tested positive for capsaicin, a banned pain relieving medication derived from chili peppers.

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Peter Ueberroth took a swipe at international officials critical of the money the U.S. Olympic Committee receives, setting up some possibly uncomfortable moments for the Chicago group trying to land the 2016 Games.
“Who pays the bill for the world Olympic movement?” Ueberroth said Saturday in his final speech as USOC chairman. “Make no mistake about it. Starting in 1988, U.S. corporations have paid 60 percent of all the money, period. Be sure you all understand that. The rest of the world pays 40 percent. It’s pretty simple math.”
It was Ueberroth’s first extensive response to comments made by European IOC members Denis Oswald and Hein Verbruggen, who said earlier this year that the amount of money the USOC received was not morally acceptable and called for the revenue-sharing deal to be revisited.
As part of a long-standing deal with the International Olympic Committee, the USOC receives about 13 percent of U.S. TV rights fees and 20 percent of global marketing revenues. That added up to about $300 million in the four-year period ending in 2008.

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A Canadian tour operator is being sued by a group of Americans for breaking a deal to provide tickets to the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.

A lawsuit filed in a Texas court alleges that Winnipeg-based Roadtrips Inc. sold tickets for the opening ceremonies as part of their tour packages but failed to deliver them.
“The people that I represent would not have gone to Beijing had they not believed what Roadtrips said and believed that Roadtrips actually had the tickets that they were selling,” Jim Moriarty, the lawyer representing the three Americans who allege they were scammed out of tickets, said Wednesday.
In a statement filed in court Tuesday, the company characterized the lawsuit’s claims as wildly inaccurate and defamatory.
“Roadtrips did not receive a number of Beijing Summer Games opening ceremony tickets from a supplier which, up until this incident, had been a secure and reputable source in North America,” said the statement from company president Dave Guenther.

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London Games will be much more fun than those in Beijing, says London mayor

Boris Johnson said today that the 2012 Olympics would be “much, much more fun” than the Beijing Games as he unveiled a vision of the “party atmosphere” they could bring to London.

Giving evidence to a committee of MPs, the London mayor suggested that visitors could be issued with BlackBerry-style gadgets to help them follow events.

And he also insisted that the cost of the Games would not rise above the £9.3bn ceiling set on the budget, even with economic conditions worsening.

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At its first hearing since the Beijing Olympics, Johnson told the Commons culture committee that the event in China was “fantastic” but that he wanted the London Games to excel in a different way.

The 2012 Olympics would be “more friendly, more intimate”, he said. The venues would be “cosier”.

“We can produce a Games that’s just as good, if not better, without spending all that money,” said Johnson, referring to the £20bn cost of the Chinese Olympics.

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China knew about the contamination of milk products months ago but covered the scandal up to prevent it tarnishing the Beijing Olympics, according to journalists, rights groups and media critics.

The crisis broke in mid-September, a month after the Olympics, but several Chinese reporters had long known about babies being hospitalised after drinking tainted milk, yet were muzzled by the authorities, the critics say.

An editor at a respected southern China newspaper said that as early as July one of his reporters was investigating how milk powder might have been to blame for children developing kidney stones and falling seriously sick.

“As a news editor, I was deeply concerned because I sensed that this was going to be a huge public health disaster,” Southern Weekend news editor Fu Jianfeng said on his blog.

“But I could not send any reporters out to investigate. Therefore, I harboured a deep sense of guilt and defeat at the time.”

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For days, Albert Kirchmayr has been melting, molding and cooling gallons of milk chocolate, all for the glory of Michael Phelps. For as many mornings, Darlene Castle has lain in bed, composing rhyming couplets for her grandkids to chant in praise of Phelps and his eight gold medals from this summer’s games.
Others around town have been rehearsing songs and crafting everything from “Will you marry me?” posters to canvas oil paintings detailing step by step Phelps’s journey toward the Beijing Olympics. And yesterday, all of them converged on Towson, Md., to try to throw the largest and most extravagant parade ever for the swimmer.
It was a day of glory not only for Phelps, who looked relaxed in a hoodie and sunglasses as he rode in a military Humvee past the throngs of screaming fans, but also for the town he came from. As with any hometown parade, part of it — the fireworks, crowded streets and adulation — was about pride in claiming this hero as one of their own, as though to catch reflected glory for everyone around him.
“Towson’s pretty much still a small town,” said John Cadigan, who manages the pool where Phelps trained. “It’s a source of pride, a sense that one of us from little Towson went off into the big world and did something great.”

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Equestrian rider Rodrigo Pessoa has been stripped of his fifth-place finish at the Beijing Olympics and banned from competing for 4 1/2 months after a positive drug test on his horse.

The sport’s governing body Friday also fined the 36-year-old Brazilian $1,766. He is suspended until Jan. 10, 2009.

Pessoa’s horse Rufus tested positive Aug. 23 for nonivamide, a banned pain-relieving medication.

They placed fifth in the individual jumping final. Pessoa lost in a jump-off for the bronze medal won by Beezie Madden of the United States.

Pessoa was defending the individual title he won at Athens in 2004. He also won bronze medals for Brazil in team jumping at Atlanta in 1996 and Sydney in 2000.

from: ap.google.com

Michael Phelps who claimed a record eight gold medals at the Beijing Olympic Games said it was harder for him to learn Chinese than to win swimming races.
Before the American came to China for the 2008 Games he seriously took a few Chinese lessons. A popular online video shows how hard he tries to imitate the voice of a Chinese learning multimedia software in saying such basic words as “guo zhi” (juice), “nan hai’er” (boy) and “nu hai’er” (girl).
But still, the 23-year-old rated his Chinese language studies as the most difficult thing he had tried in his life. “Learning Mandarin is even harder than winning eight gold medals in the pool.”
In primary school Phelps took French and German courses, but the swimming ace said, “all the words, characters and pronunciations in Mandarin are so different. All of them are hard to manage.”
He was not the only star athlete trying to learn some Chinese language and culture. When gymnast Nastia Liukin arrived back home in Dallas, Texas, with five medals around her neck, the Russian-born blonde appeared in front of her reception wearing a black T-shirt with two big Chinese characters “Beijing” in the front. (blog)
“The Beijing Olympics have brought world attention to the Chinese civilization and further enhanced the utility of the Chinese language worldwide,” said Zhao Guocheng, the Office of Chinese Language Council International (OCLCI) deputy director general.

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Chinese Olympians auctioned off everything from swimsuits to ping-pong paddles in Beijing last night in a benefit for Sichuan province, amid calls to turn the nation’s attention back to the quake-stricken region after the distraction of the Games.

Auction proceeds from the memorabilia offered by 23 Chinese athletes raised about four million yuan, or roughly $600,000, while the fundraising event raised 19 million yuan overall, according to the Chinese Athletes Fund, one of the organizers of the auction. About 80% of the money will be used to build youth sports facilities and infrastructure in Sichuan, the fund said, while the rest will be used provide training courses for retired athletes and coaches in fields including language skills, sports management and entrepreneurship education.

Guo Jingjing and her blue swimsuit

Female table tennis champion Zhang Yining’s ping pong paddle fetched 400,000 yuan, the highest price for an individual item. One sought-after item was the blue swimsuit worn by gold medal diver Guo Jingjing, which was sold for 300,000 yuan.

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The International Federation of Gymnastics (FIG) have concluded their five week investigation into the scrutinised ages of the Chinese gold medal-winning gymnastics team at the Beijing Games, however doubts continue to shroud their participation at Sydney in 2000.

Due to concerns about the wellbeing of young gymnasts, whose bodies are under huge stress when they reach the elite level, the FIG introduced a ruling in 1997 stating that athletes had to turn 16 during an Olympic year in order to compete at the Games.

Questions were raised throughout the Games about China’s squad of gymnasts with many critics suggesting some of the girls were as young as 14.

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Speaking to the Guardian, Wiggins admitted that he had been struggling to give his all in the event after winning gold in the individual and team pursuits, and the pair finished only eighth despite being reigning World Champions.
Wiggins said: “Cav is like my little brother and I love him dearly. But we left the stadium without saying a word to each other and we’ve yet to speak.”
The Belgium-born cyclist, who also won gold, silver and bronze in Athens, admits the result in Beijing was a shock to both of them.
“We should have been good enough to win the Madison but in the past I’ve always been the leader so it was weird when the roles were reversed.

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China kicked off its National Day celebrations Monday by highlighting its hosting of the Beijing Olympics and the country’s first spacewalk, two hard-won successes in a tumultuous year marked by natural disasters, ethnic unrest and another food safety scandal.

The spacewalk on Saturday boosted a wave of Chinese pride and patriotism stemming from the Olympics, which is still a big news story in the domestic media one month after it ended. China’s Olympic heroes were honored in a three-hour ceremony at the Great Hall of the People that was broadcast live on national television.

State broadcaster CCTV showed the three returning astronauts, with flower garlands around their necks, waving and smiling as they were treated to a homecoming parade in Beijing. Their mission, including China’s first spacewalk, put the country closer to building a space station and landing a man on the moon.

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Emma Pooley, the Olympic silver medallist, missed out on a medal in the women’s time-trial at the Road World Championships in Varese, Italy.

The 25-year-old, who finished second in the time-trial in Beijing Olympics and played a key role in Nicole Cooke’s gold medal success in the road race, posted a time of 34min 48.87sec to finish eighth.

Amber Neben, of the United States, claimed the title in a winning time of 33min 51.35sec, a result that put her ahead of her more fancied compatriot Kristin Armstrong, the Olympic champion, who could only finish fifth.

Christiane Soeder, of Austria, took second place with Germany’s Judith Arndt in third.

from: timesonline.co.uk

The Beijing Olympics have given sportswear firm Nike a windfall, with orders surging 50 per cent after the Games.
The company today unveiled surprisingly strong results, with robust sales in the US despite the financial meltdown and recession fears, and a weak dollar adding to its international bottom line.
Revenue from Nike’s Asia businesses grew 36 per cent to $861million (£465.3million), boosted by sales in China, the world’s fastest-growing major economy.
Nike gets more than half its sales outside the US and so was helped by the decline of the dollar against foreign currencies. European sales grew 20 per cent to $1.8billion while in the US they also rose to $1.8billion.
Nike said advance orders were up 3 per cent in the US, with gross profit margins at 47.2 per cent in the first quarter, up from 44.8 per cent a year earlier, helped by higher prices in its home market.
Net profits fell to $510.5million on revenue up 17 per cent at $5.4billion in the quarter. Last year’s result was boosted by a $105.4million tax credit.
In Europe, 15 per cent of the 20 per cent growth came from the weaker dollar and Forex accounted for 10 per cent of the Asian growth.
Global orders for delivery of shoes and apparel from now until January rose 10 per cent, with gains of 4 per cent and 27 per cent, respectively, in europe and Asia.

source: dailymail.co.uk

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Returning to the Baltimore pool where he honed his swimming skills, Michael Phelps accepted a $250,000 donation Thursday from Kellogg’s for his charitable foundation.
Phelps was home after a whirlwind journey that began with his record-setting performance winning eight gold medals in the Beijing Olympics.
Kellogg Co. will feature Phelps’ photo on Frosted Flakes, Corn Flakes, Club Crackers and Rice Krispies treats.
The Michael Phelps Foundation promotes water safety and youth swimming. It got started with a $1 million bonus Phelps earned from another sponsor, Speedo, for his gold-medal haul.
Phelps appeared for a news conference at Meadowbrook Aquatic Center, which he’s negotiating to buy. He began training there when he was 7 years old.
“This is my home pool, so I’m happy to be back,” Phelps said before accepting the grant. “I’m trying to get settled in a new house, and I kind of get lost from time to time because I have no idea what the roads are anymore.”
Phelps had not seen his image on the Kellogg’s products before they were unveiled in a ceremony at the pool. Seeing them for the first time, he smiled broadly and exclaimed, “Awesome!”

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from: ap.google.com

China’s gold medal gymnasts aren’t the only ones whose ages are getting a closer look.
The investigation into the eligibility of the Chinese women’s team in Beijing has been expanded to include members of the 2000 squad, which won the bronze medal in Sydney, The Associated Press has learned.
International gymnastics officials are examining whether Yang Yun and Dong Fangxiao, in particular, were old enough to compete.
“If we had a look at all the articles that came before, during and after the games, there were always rumors about the ages of China’s athletes in Sydney,” Andre Gueisbuhler, secretary general of the International Gymnastics Federation, told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
“We did not have another choice,” he said. “If we want to remain credible, then we have to look into things.”
No other Chinese teams are being looked at, Gueisbuhler said.
“At this moment in time, we just have concerns about 2000 and 2008,” he said.
The investigation is ongoing, a month after the Beijing Games ended, and there is no timetable for when it will be finished.
“It’s a work in progress,” said Emmanuelle Moreau, spokeswoman for the International Olympic Committee. “Until the work has been completed, there is nothing we can say.”
Yang’s age has long been an issue for debate.
In a June 2007 interview that aired on state broadcaster China Central Television, Yang said she was 14 at the Sydney Games.
Gymnastics rules require athletes to be 16 during an Olympic year in order to compete.
“At the time I was only 14,” she said in the interview, done in Chinese. “I thought that if I failed this time, I’ll do it again next time. There’s still hope.”
That interview, which has been widely reported, contradicts her official birthdate, which is listed as Dec. 2, 1984 and made her eligible for Sydney.
Dong’s birthdate is listed as Jan. 20, 1983, making her 17 at the time of the Sydney Games. Her blog, however, includes a reference to being born in 1985.
Yang is now engaged to Olympic all-around champion Yang Wei. Dong was a national technical official at the Beijing Olympics, serving as the secretary on vault. She was not part of any judging panel.
Kui Yuanyuan, Ling Jie, Liu Xuan and Huang Mandan were the other members of China’s 2000 squad.
Age falsification has been a problem in gymnastics since the 1980s, after the minimum age was raised from 14 to 15 in an effort to protect young athletes, whose bodies are still developing, from serious injuries. Younger gymnasts are also thought to have an advantage because they are more flexible and are likely to have an easier time doing the tough skills the sport requires. They also aren’t as likely to have a fear of failure.
The minimum age was raised to its current 16 in 1997.
There were questions about the ages of China’s Beijing squad months before the games, with media reports and online records suggesting several of the gymnasts on the six-woman squad might be as young as 14.
In August, The Associated Press found registration lists previously posted on the Web site of the General Administration of Sport of China that showed He Kexin and Yang Yilin were too young to compete. A Nov. 3 story by the Chinese government’s news agency, Xinhua, suggested He was only 14.
But Chinese officials insisted — repeatedly and heatedly — that all of its gymnasts were old enough, and they had not cheated their way to their first Olympic team gold. The FIG and IOC hoped the matter had been put to rest before the games, when the IOC said it had checked all of the girls’ passports and found them to be valid.
The controversy never went away, though, and the IOC announced three days before the games ended that it had asked the FIG to investigate one more time.
China turned over birth certificates, passports, ID cards and family residence permits for He, Yang, Jiang Yuyuan, Deng Linlin and Li Shanshan.
“The international federation has required the delivery of birth certificates and all the documents like family books, entries in schools and things like that,” IOC president Jacques Rogge said on the final day of the games. “They have received the documents, and at first sight it seems to be OK.”
If evidence of cheating is found, it could affect as many as four of the six medals the Chinese women won in Beijing. In addition to the team gold, He won gold on uneven bars and Yang got bronze medals on bars and in the all-around.
“We are waiting to hear the outcome of the IOC investigation just like everyone else,” said Steve Penny, president of USA Gymnastics.

from: ap.google.com

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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 4x100m 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