Olympic Times – Sports Daily

Israel has halted military operations in Gaza for three hours in the first of a daily, planned ceasefire, it says.

An Israeli spokesman said it would allow Gazans to “get medical attention, get supplies… whatever they need“.
There were at least two air strikes on Gaza in the first few minutes of the ceasefire, and correspondents say it is unclear if it covers all of Gaza.
Israel’s move came as pressure built on it and the Palestinian militant group Hamas to accept a ceasefire deal.
The plan, backed by the UN and the US and proposed by Egypt and France, calls for an immediate ceasefire.
Responding to the proposal, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel viewed talks with Egypt “positively”. Israel’s security cabinet is meeting to consider the deal, but ministers are also expected to discuss expanding operations in Gaza.

Blockade
Israel’s military said the three-hour pause in operations to create “humanitarian corridors” for supplies and fuel would happen every day.
A Hamas spokesman told Al Arabiya television that the group would not launch any missiles at Israeli targets during the lull.
Israel has been criticised by aid agencies who have warned of a mounting humanitarian crisis for the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza, who are unable to escape from the conflict because of Israel’s blockade.
However Christopher Gunness, a spokesman for the UN relief agency Unwra, said the move did not go far enough.
“When you are trying to feed 750,000 people a day in Gaza as we are, you need a permanent ceasefire. You can’t do that in a three-hour window,” he said.
It follows one of the deadliest days since the offensive began last month, with more than 130 people killed on Tuesday.
Overnight, Israeli forces launched 40 fresh air strikes in Gaza, while Israeli media reports say nine rockets were fired into southern Israel from Gaza early on Wednesday.
Little official detail has been given about the French-Egyptian ceasefire proposal, but diplomats say it centres around measures to halt weapons smuggling from Egypt into Gaza, coupled with moves to ease the blockade.
A Palestinian official said Gaza’s Hamas rulers, who want an end to Israel’s blockade of the enclave, were debating the proposal, the Reuters news agency reported.
Israel wants to stop rocket attacks on southern Israel and to stop Hamas smuggling weapons into Gaza via Egypt, while Hamas says any ceasefire deal must include an end to Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip.
More than 600 Palestinians are now believed to have been killed since Israel began its offensive on 27 December.
Palestinian health ministry officials say at least 195 children were among those killed.
An Israeli attack on Tuesday on a UN-run school building, being used to shelter people who had fled their homes, killed 40 people, UN officials say.
The Israeli military said its soldiers had come under mortar fire from Hamas militants inside the school.
However, Unwra’s Christopher Gunness said the agency was “99.9 per cent certain” that there were no militants or militant activity in the school compound, and called for an independent investigation into the incident.
A spokesman for Hamas denied there had been any hostile fire coming from the school.
Since the start of its military operation in Gaza, Israel has lost seven soldiers on the ground. Four people within Israel have been killed by rockets.
At least five hit southern Israel on Tuesday, one of them injuring a baby.

Support for truce
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice welcomed the French-Egyptian plan, saying the US was “pleased by and wish[es] to commend… that initiative”.
Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gabriela Shalev, did not say whether Israel would accept the proposal but said it would take it “very, very seriously”.
The contours of a possible diplomatic agreement are in place, the BBC’s Laura Trevelyan reports from the UN.
However, if Israel continues to control the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza and can choose to stop it at any time this seems unlikely to command the support of Hamas, our correspondent notes.
Casualty claims in Gaza cannot be independently verified. Israel is refusing to let international journalists into Gaza, despite a supreme court ruling to allow a limited number of reporters to enter the territory.

source: bbc.co.uk

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has written to all of the 205 national Olympic committees asking for nominations for the 2014 Summer Youth Olympic Games. The initial deadline for submissions is February, while official bids must be entered by next July, reports the Associated Press.

The IOC’s executive board will select a shortlist in October and IOC members will vote on the host city for the 2014 Youth Games during the Vancouver Winter Olympic Games in February 2010.

According to the Associated Press the event is scheduled to take place over 12 days with up to 3,500 athletes ages 14-18 competing in as many of the 26 official Olympic summer sports as possible.

Meanwhile the 2012 Winter Youth Olympic Games will be announced at IOC headquarters next week. Innsbruck Austria and Kuopio Finland are the final two candidates competing.

source: gamesbids.com

The Beijing Olympics were an “indisputable success” that brought change to China in areas as diverse as press freedom, the environment and public health, according to an assessment released by the International Olympic Committee that activists criticized as ignoring human rights violations that occurred during the Games.

The review, released by the Olympic committee during meetings in London this week, credited the Beijing Games with attracting broader participation and larger audiences than any other Olympics.

“The Games expanded and strengthened the Olympic movement by advancing the universality of sport,” the three-page fact sheet said. “They also brought many tangible and intangible benefits to China, especially in terms of public infrastructure improvements. While some of the positive benefits were immediately apparent, others will emerge with time.”

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Tokyo 2016 today called on the National Olympic Committees of Asia to share in its unique vision to inspire the world by hosting the Olympic and Paralympic Games at the heart of city life in one of the region’s most vibrant capital cities.
Bid Chairman and CEO, Dr Ichiro Kono said he was humbled by the support Tokyo 2016 had received from Japan’s partner nations within the Olympic Movement in Asia and expressed his pride at leading Asia’s Bid for the world’s greatest event in 2016.
Addressing the 27th Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) General Assembly in Bali, Dr Kono said:
“Japan needs an iconic event with new sports venues to help inspire millions more Japanese to play and stay with sport. This will be made possible, because the 2016 Games coincide with Tokyo Big Change – our Ten Year Plan for the comprehensive urban and environmental transformation of the Greater Metropolitan Tokyo area.
“The 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games will be a catalyst for the world’s greatest, metropolitan make-over. This will leave the Olympic Movement with an incredible legacy to inspire future bid cities.
“We aim to unite the Olympic Family with the heart and soul of our cosmopolitan capital city. That is why our vision and theme is called: ‘Uniting Our Worlds’. To ensure this vision becomes a reality we plan to create the most compact Games ever, based in the very centre of Tokyo, and promise athletes and the whole Olympic Family the friendliest, most exciting and most memorable Games in history.”
Dr Kono began Tokyo 2016’s presentation. He was joined by International Olympic Committee (IOC) Member and IOC Vice President, Chiharu Igaya; IOC Member, Shunichiro Okano; Japanese Olympic Committee President, Tsunekazu Takeda; Executive Director of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Bid Promotion Division, Nagatoshi Nakamura; and Chair of the Tokyo 2016 Athletes’ Commission and Seoul 1988 Olympic medallist, Mikako Kotani.

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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.

The London Olympic Games budget will break through the 10 billion ($A22 billion) barrier, largely because officials have ”vastly underestimated” the cost of protecting the event from terrorists, The Independent on Sunday has revealed.

Security costs for the 2012 Games were now likely to reach $A3.3 billion nearly three times the original estimate, a senior official involved in planning the event said.

The army was to be drafted to help protect athletes and spectators from an atrocity, the official revealed. Military helicopters would patrol overhead and jets would be on standby to intercept any suspect private plane heading for the main Olympic stadium in east London. Under Treasury rules, the Ministry of Defence would charge the Olympic authorities for such a deployment.

The security operation is expected to be the largest in peacetime Britain, with the two-week event classed in Whitehall as a major terrorist target. Yet detailed planning for policing and security has barely started.

Insiders said a price could not be put on preventing a large-scale terrorist attack on the main Olympic site or in London’s parks, where thousands will watch the events on giant TV screens.

The London bombings of July 7, 2005, took place the day after the capital celebrated winning the 2012 bid.

”It will cost whatever it takes to ensure terrorism does not once again try to rob London of celebrating the 2012 Games,” a source said.

The insider said security planning was ”basically starting from scratch. There are no detailed plans yet but of course it will cost far more, around 1.5 billion [$A3.3billion].”

Balancing security concerns with ensuring spectators can enjoy a friendly and open atmosphere in contrast to Beijing’s rigid controls is proving to be the greatest headache for organisers, alongside transport.

Officials want the experience of 2012 to be open and shared by all Londoners, with street parties similar to those in Sydney at the turn of the millennium. Giant video screens will be placed in Hyde Park and at other sites where events will take place.

In addition to police officers from Scotland Yard and other forces, tens of thousands of volunteers will be needed to check bags and tickets. Unmanned military planes, as used to monitor the Taliban in Afghanistan, could be deployed to monitor suspected terrorist aircraft.

The transport network is likely to carry 240,000 passengers an hour during the Games. Extra officers will be needed to identify suspected bombers, and stadiums will be built with special blast-proof material, including shatter-proof glass.

Officials from the Cabinet Office and the Home Office have been meeting regularly to discuss the operation.

If organisers are to keep to budget promises, cuts will have to be made elsewhere, such as in the construction of stadiums and the Olympic village to house 17,000 athletes, and in the funding of the 2012 ”legacy”, intended to promote sport in the community.

source: canberratimes.com.au

Beijing has announced a series of post-Olympics car restrictions, which will take effect next month and hopefully sustain the hard-won smooth traffic and good air quality during the Games.

Under the new traffic restrictions, 30 percent of government vehicles will be sealed off as of October 1, said a circular issued by the Beijing municipal government on Saturday.

The remaining 70 percent of government vehicles, as well as all corporate and private cars, will take turns off the roads one out of the five weekdays as of October 11, it said.

Cars whose number plates end with 1 or 6 will be taken off roads on Monday, while those ending with 2 or 7 will be banned on Tuesday, 3 or 8 on Wednesday, 4 or 9 on Thursday and 5 or 0 on Friday. The ban does not apply on weekends.

The ban will be applicable within the Fifth Ring Road inclusive, from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. for private cars and round the clock for government and corporate vehicles.

The new restrictions will take effect on a trial basis on October 11 for six months until April 10, but does not apply to police wagons, ambulances, fire engines, buses, taxies and other public service vehicles.

“It’s expected to reduce Beijing’s average road traffic flow by6.5 percent and speed up traffic within the Fifth Ring by 8 percent at least,” said Wang Zhaorong, an official with the Beijing Municipal Committee of Communications, at a press conference on Sunday.

In compensation, the restricted vehicles will be exempt from one month of vehicle tax and road maintenance fee a year. Drivers who are caught to have breached the new rule will not enjoy the exemption, according to Wang.

While most people applaud the ban on government and corporate vehicles, the ban on private cars, however, has sparked an outcry from car owners, many of whom complain it is “unfair”.

“I need to take my daughter home from boarding school on Friday night,” said Beijing bank clerk Zhang Min, whose number plate ends with “0″ and will be banned on Friday. “Probably we need to buy another car.”

More than 2,400 people posted online comments on China’s leading portal website sina.com within two hours after it published the ban. Very few postings were supportive of the ban on private cars.

“To ban should not be the ultimate way to ease Beijing’s traffic woes,” reads one of the postings. “Instead, our city should be better planned and the road network better designed.”

While most people were tolerant of the two-month ban on vehicles on alternate days during the Olympics and Paralympics, many are now fed up with the idea to take public transport just once every week.

But to like it or not, the Olympic traffic ban, which took nearly 2 million cars off the roads, was not only successful in easing congestion but also cleared the skies.

During the ban, traffic flow within the Fifth Ring was reduced by an average 21.2 percent and the average speed at rush hours increased by 25.8 percent to 30.2 km per hour, according to the Beijing Municipal Committee of Communications.

The city returned to its normal congestion after the ban was lifted on Sept. 21. Urban streets are unbearably jammed in the rush before the week-long National Day holiday set to start on Monday.

The debate over whether the ban should stay after the Games has lasted for weeks and Beijing authorities, apparently hard to find a solution that is effective and acceptable to all, are rather late in announcing the new ban.

Alongside the ban, city authorities have also encouraged employers to adopt more elastic working hours — even to work at home, if possible — in order to ease congestion.

Downtown department stores have been advised to open at 10 a.m. instead of 9 a.m., as of Oct. 11 and close one hour later than before.

Except for schools, governments and the public service sector, many Beijing organizations will be advised to readjust their office hours to avoid the rush hour.

The government is also considering raising downtown parking fees to ease congestion but no details are available yet.

To improve the city’s air quality, Beijing plans to ban a total of 357,000 “yellow label” vehicles from entering the Fifth Ring starting on Jan. 1, said Du Shaozhong, deputy chief of the municipal environment protection bureau.

By October next year, all the yellow label vehicles, mostly tippers and heavy-duty trucks, will be banned across Beijing, he said.

Beijing’s vehicles were issued green or yellow labels according to their emission levels and cars with a yellow label were banned from entering the city center during the day since two years ago.

Exhaust emission from a yellow label vehicle is equal to that from 28 low-emission vehicles of Euro-IV standards, said Du.

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mayumi

The real He Kexin‘s age! two gold medal stolen by the cheating Chinese?
There has been a controversy as to He Kexin’s actual age. Her 2008 passport and the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique (FIG) list her date of birth as January 1, 1992, which would make her 16 years, during the 2008 Olympic opening ceremonies and therefore old enough to compete. However, before the 2008 Olympics, He’s age was reported by the Chinese press, including the state news service, Xinhua, as 13 in 2007 and 14 in 2008 in news articles that were later taken off-line. Her birth date has also been given on several registration lists of the General Administration of Sport in China, the Chengdu Sports Bureau and other registration sources as “1994-1-1″ (January 1, 1994), which would make her 14 years old during the Opening ceremonies, and therefore too young to participate in the 2008 Summer Olympics.In addition, in a November 2007 speech in Wuhan, Chinese sporting official Liu Peng introduced He as a 13-year-old.
Chinese officials have denied the allegations, stating in August 2008 that Xinhua had not confirmed He’s age before filing their news reports. He herself, speaking to reporters after the Olympic team final, noted, “my real age is 16. I don’t pay any attention to what everyone says.” On August 2, the International Olympic Committee stated that they would not investigate the discrepancy in He’s reported age, stating that the FIG’s own verification system would be acceptable proof of eligibility. The FIG, in responding to the situation, stated that they would not ask for additional proof of age beyond the passport already supplied by Chinese officials.

How old are you He Kexin?

However, the matter continues to be a source of controversy among members of the gymnastics community and the media. The Times reported that a computer expert “Stryde” working for a New York based firm called the Intrepidus Group was able to access cached pages on the search engine Baidu showing He to be underage after websites concerning the athlete on the search engine Google were blocked.
On August 21, the IOC announced that, in light of the new evidence, they had asked the FIG to reopen the investigation into He and her teammates’ ages. On Friday August 22, 2008, the IOC said they had not uncovered any evidence of wrongdoing “so far” and expressed confidence that the Chinese Federation’s documents were correct. However, the FIG held an emergency meeting about the situation on August 23 and requested additional documentation for every gymnast on the Chinese team, with the sole exception of team captain Cheng Fei. On August 24, a Chinese official addressed the registration lists found online, stating that the discrepancy was due to an administrative error which took place when He was transferred between teams while participating in the InterCity Games in 2007.The FIG has not set any official timeline on closing the investigation, stating on August 23, “this process may take some time, but in due course, the FIG will make a full report of our findings to the International Olympic Committee.” The IOC confirmed on August 28 that the FIG investigation was still active and in progress.

How hacker found proof of He Kexin’s age

In his spare time Mike Walker likes to find things on web servers that were never meant to be found.

On Monday, after curiosity got the better of him, the 33-year-old computer security consultant toiled for hours without success, as he tried to dig up more information about the allegedly under-aged Chinese gymnast He Kexin.
On Tuesday, after redefining the parameters of his Google Hack, he hit the jackpot. Bingo! The mother lode.
On Google’s cache he found evidence of a record of He Kexin’s birth on a spreadsheet belonging to the General Administration of Sport of China – the country peak sports body.
But the data had been removed.
On the Chinese search engine Baidu, he went one better. He found two caches of Excel spreadsheet which had been published on the web and both of them showed He Kexin’s birthday as January 1, 1994.
The cache is the snapshot of web pages crawled by search engine spiders which map the web and database their findings.
The following day on Google’s Chinese search engine, google.com.cn, he found yet more cached spreadsheets from the General Administration of Sport of China also showing the birth date as January 1, 1994.
This would make the tiny gymnast – who won two gold medals at the Olympics – 14 years old. Her Olympic credentials list her birth date as January 1, 1992, which would make her 16.
Regulations that were introduced in 1997 by the world gymnastics federation require gymnasts to turn 16 in the year of the Games to be eligible to compete.
“I spent a large amount (of time) failing (to find anything) and a small amount succeeding,” Walker, who works for the Washington DC-based Intrepidus Group.
“It takes a little bit of faith to believe that you can find something out there and sometimes it pays off.
“I put it on Blogger (a free Google blog service) and went out to dinner and the world came calling.”
As a direct result of Walker’s findings and the resulting press coverage that it sparked, the International Olympic Committee yesterday announced that it had called for a review of the age falsification allegations surrounding China’s dual gold medal-winning gymnast.
“We have asked the gymnastics federation to look into what have been a number of questions and apparent discrepancies on this case. And they’ve been working with the [Chinese] national federation … to have a full clarification on this topic,” IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davies told a news conference yesterday.
Late last night, the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) issued a statement saying that it had widened its inquiry into the age falsification claims.
The federation said it had asked the Chinese Gymnastic Association to submit further documents testifying to the birth dates of He Kexin and four fellow gymnasts – Jiang Yuyuan, Li Shanshan, Deng Linlin and Yang Yilin.
“On receipt of these documents, the FIG will forward its conclusions to the International Olympic Committee. It is in the interests of all concerned, not least the athletes themselves, to resolve this issue once and for all,” the statement said.
Walker is still surprised by the reaction to his findings. “It’s become the centre of a maelstrom and international media attention,” he said.
“I never set out to change the course of the Olympics; I set out as I always do, a curious researcher, intent on the search for truth and the knowledge I could acquire along the way,” he said in a blog post.

The governing body of world gymnastics has demanded additional documentary evidence to prove that five gold medal-winning China gymnasts were old enough to compete in the Olympic Games.

The Chinese Gymnastics Association has been asked to supply further evidence to prove the birthdates of Jiang Yuyuan, Li Shanshan, Deng Linlin, Yang Yilin and He Kexin, after more questions emerged over the stated ages of He and Yang.
The five competitors won gold medals in the team gymnastics event, while He became the darling of the host nation after she won gold on the uneven bars and Yang picked up two bronze medals in individual events.
A US computer expert told The Times on Thursday that he had uncovered Chinese government documents proving that He and Yang were only 14. Both appeared to have been registered as two years younger in previous years.
The online documents were the latest pieces of evidence to have emerged in recent months suggesting that the two athletes were two years beneath the minimum age of 16, in a sport where younger gymnasts are thought to have an advantage, being more flexible and thus better able to perform more difficult routines.
In a statement issued last night, the International Gymnastics Federation said that it was demanding additional evidence from the Chinese association “to resolve this issue once and for all”.
The federation did not specify precisely what documents it would require to satisfy itself that the two gymnasts were eligible. However, Lu Shanzan, China’s coach, said that the documents that had now been passed to the federation included He’s present and former passport, her ID card and family residence permit.
Lu said that all of these documents showed her to have been born in 1992 and complained that coaching staff and the girl’s parents were indignant and upset at the investigation. “Surely it’s not possible that these documents are still not sufficient proof of her birth date,” he said. “The passports were issued by the Chinese Foreign Ministry. The identity card was issued by China’s Ministry of Public Security. If these valid documents are not enough to clarify this problem, then what will you believe?”
The investigation has not been reported in the state newspapers. Leading Chinese news websites also failed to cover the story, and yesterday sites running reports of the inquiry appeared to have been closed down. Even the debates of the issue in Internet chat rooms, which raged yesterday morning, disappeared in the afternoon as site-hosting companies moved to censor what could be a sensitive topic.
Some web commentators blamed the Americans for the inquiry and called for a retaliatory investigation of Michael Phelps, the US swimmer, who won eight gold medals at the Water Cube. Others were not surprised by the controversy. One wrote: “They will certainly now say that reports that she was 13 in 2007 were incorrect – so that she keeps her gold medal” – an apparent reference to a theory that He might previously have registered as younger than she was, in order to compete in a Chinese competition.
“Plank of Wood” commented: “Changing one’s age in China, especially in the past, is very common. When I was at school I changed my age to get into the class I wanted. Later I changed it back.” All of these comments had vanished from the web by the afternoon.
The latter point was repeated by a former Chinese sportsman yesterday. He told The Times that in his youth he had once changed his age to participate in competition with younger players. “It used to be very common, but it is getting less and less so,” he said.

How would you strip athlete of a medal?
Under statute of limitations rules, the IOC and other sports bodies can go back eight years to request the return of medals and nullify competition results. This means that even if the He Kexin case becomes a protracted affair, as is likely, the Committee has until 2016 to decide if it wishes to act on the findings of the investigation by the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique.
However, once a decision has been reached, action is usually swift. When last year Marion Jones, the American five-time 2000 Olympic champion, admitted using steroids, she was officially stripped of her medals within weeks.
Given that the IOC is based in Lausanne, on the banks of Lake Geneva in Switzerland, the usual method of return once the Games have ended is by postal courier. Two athletes have handed their medals straight back in Beijing – Ara Abrahamian, the bronze-medal winning Greco-Roman wrestler from Sweden, and Jong Su Kim, the North Korean shooter who won bronze and silver.
After disqualification, standings are normally readjusted, with the second-place finisher moving up to gold, third to silver and fourth to bronze.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) will not yield to “political pressure” from US lawmakers to strip Russia of the 2014 Winter Games, says a top Russian official.

The IOC “adheres to the principle that ‘sport is separate from politics’ and will surely not yield to political pressure,” Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov said in an interview with Russian daily Kommersant.

“The location of the Olympics is not determined by American laws,” Zhukov said in response to an initiative by two US lawmakers to ask the IOC to strip Russia of the Games as punishment for sending troops into neighboring Georgia.

“The Olympics will only be in 2014, and now it’s just 2008. Do you think this will still be a conflict zone by then? I don’t think so,” he said.

from: inquirer.net

Stupid Americans!Сувенири

His phenomenal swimming performance was in the books, and not even Michael Phelps himself was interested in watching the rest of the Olympic Games.
Asked if he would stay in Beijing for the Closing Ceremony, a week after his final race, Phelps said, “I have some other things . . . obligations that I’ve got to do.”
So while Phelps attends to sponsor promotions, the Games organizers and NBC Sports are committed to playing out the schedule through Sunday. It’s just that without him, the 2008 Olympics are limping toward the finish.
That’s more than an expression, in China’s case. Track hurdler Liu Xiang, a defending Olympic champion and a Yao Ming-sized star in this country, pulled out of his 110-meter heat Monday because of a foot injury. He walked slowly away from the starting blocks and off the track, taking the hopes and years-long anticipation of China with him into the tunnel of the “Bird’s Nest” stadium.
The Chinese still have Yao and his basketball team, which qualified for the quarterfinals, but Liu’s absence causes “major trauma,” said Jamie Metzl, an executive of the New York-based Asia Society.
“It is impossible to overstate the impact of Liu Xiang to the people of China,” said Metzl, a former State Department official. He had predicted if Liu lost his final race, “you would feel the air going out of the stomachs of 1.3 billion people.”
That may describe how NBC executives felt when Phelps climbed out of the pool for the last time. The network was enjoying a record pace for Olympic ratings, averaging some 30 million viewers nightly as Phelps was shown live (or close to it) in U.S. markets, winning a record eight gold medals while competing in the mornings in Beijing.
The American women’s gymnasts also helped boost the ratings, and they’re down to one event: All-around champion Nastia Liukin and Shawn Johnson will compete Tuesday on the balance beam.
So what’s left after that? Not much. There’s still some drama in the gold medal count, being led by China, but few high-profile contests will spice the competition. Track and basketball usually drive the second week of the Summer Games. With Liu out, the biggest track event is Wednesday’s 200 meters, with Jamaica’s Usain Bolt attempting to duplicate his world-record performance in winning the 100 last weekend.
For Utahns, there’s intrigue in Wednesday’s quarterfinal basketball game, featuring former University of Utah center Andrew Bogut of Australia against the U.S. team with Jazz players Deron Williams and Carlos Boozer. But the Americans have played so well, in contrast to 2004, that little mystery remains in the tournament. What’s more, Sunday’s gold medal game begins at 12:30 a.m. Utah time.
At this point, NBC’s best strategy might be to superimpose an image of Phelps swimming alongside sailing vessels or canoe paddlers, or just show a lot of beach volleyball.

from: sltrib.com

Chinese officials defended their decision to pass off the voice of a 7-year-old songbird as that of another girl at the Olympic opening ceremony, calling it a simple casting choice. Critics said it was a step too far in China’s obsession with the perfect Olympic Games.

Beijing organizers of the games faced tough criticism Wednesday after a whistleblower revealed that the 9-year-old who performed a song during the spectacular opening ceremony was lip-synching to another girl’s vocal track.

Yang Peiyi, a 7-year-old with bright eyes and a smile made crooked by the stubs of her first grown-up teeth, was heard by an audience estimated in the billions during Friday night’s ceremony, singing “Ode to the Motherland.”

But they never saw her face.

Organizers passed the song off as being sung by Lin Miaoke, another perky schoolgirl who donned a sparkly red dress and soared on wires above the 91,000-strong crowd at the Bird’s Nest stadium.

Beijing officials on Wednesday defended the decision to use both girls, saying the artistic directors could cast whoever they saw fit. And they were unapologetic about keeping the lip-synch a secret.

“There were a number of candidates to sing that song and at the end of the day the artistic directors picked the best voice and the best performer,” Beijing organizing committee spokesman Sun Weide said.

Wang Wei, executive vice president of the organizing committee, said the job of the ceremony’s directors was “to achieve the most theatrical effect.”

“I don’t see there is anything wrong with it if everybody concerned agrees,” he said.

But the world’s press ridiculed the move on front pages from Romania to Australia.

“The counterfeit Games: designed to look good from every angle,” said a headline in The Times of London. The Daily Telegraph urged organizers of the 2012 London Games to “bring some sanity and proportion back to both the opening ceremony and the games themselves.”

In Spain, one newspaper called it “Olympic karaoke.” A commentator for The Age newspaper in Australia called it “the great Beijing lip-synch switcheroo” and news on the incident was headlined “China’s wrong child policy.” The Romanian daily 7Plus ran this on its front page: “Hoax! Made in China.”

Baltimore Sun reporter Jill Rosen said the switch was hardly the first case of lip-synching, but was “possibly the cruelest.”

New York Magazine called on record executives to give Peiyi a record deal, saying “She’s 7! She has buckteeth! She is adorable!”

The Chinese leadership consider the Beijing Olympics a matter of national prestige and the opening extravaganza, attended by a host of leaders including President Bush, was intended to wow the world.

“Our president may have gone there just to watch the games. The Chinese leadership does not take that view,” said Andrew Nathan, political science department chairman at Columbia University. “They want to send a message … the message of flawless execution.”

He said reports that a top official from China’s highest decision-making body, the Politburo Standing Committee, demanded Miaoke’s voice be dubbed at the last minute “shows once again how political the sponsorship of the Olympics is for the Chinese.”

The secret of Peiyi was revealed Sunday by the ceremony’s musical director Chen Qigang in a radio interview. He said a senior Politburo member had said after the final dress rehearsal that Miaoke’s voice was not good enough and that Peiyi did not look right.

Chen, a French national, told AP Television News he felt compelled to “to come out with the truth.” Peiyi was “a magnificent singer” who “doesn’t deserve to be hidden,” he said, declining to comment further.

The parents of both girls said separately Wednesday they did not want their daughters to speak to the media, and said each felt privileged just to have taken part.

But many Chinese said Peiyi deserves the spotlight, and some suggested organizers find a place for her in the games closing ceremony Aug. 24.

“This is pretty unfair for the girl who was not picked to perform live,” said Cui Fengsi, a Beijing driver-for-hire in comments typical of several people who spoke to The Associated Press on Wednesday, and of numerous blog posts. “This girl has a great voice and they should recognize that she deserves to be seen. She should definitely perform at the closing ceremonies.”

Officials sought to avoid the idea that Peiyi did not appear because she was judged to be not cute enough, suggesting instead that the two girls were a sum greater than their parts.

One International Olympic Committee member, Gilbert Felli, likened the decision to a coach benching one player in favor of another.

“If your son is playing on a football team, suddenly the coach may decide that he’s not playing, he’s going to stay on the bench,” Felli said. “That’s what it is in sport, and in life.”

But he added, “The right information has to be given to the people.”

Wang Liping, one of Peiyi’s tutors, posted photos of the girl on her blog because she wanted the world to know the face behind the voice.

One photo shows a pretty girl in a white dress with a pink clip in her hair. She appears to be losing her milk teeth, and her new front teeth are only partially grown, and angled slightly. Another shows her rosy-cheeked with fluffy pink toy bunny ears.

Wang said Peiyi was backstage during the opening ceremony and recognized her voice when she heard the song.

Miaoke’s father, Lin Hui, said both girls are cute but he agreed that Peiyi’s voice was “a bit better” than his daughter’s. He said both girls played important roles, but the organizers should have made clear who was singing.

“Letting everybody know is a must,” he told the AP.

from: ap.google.com

Japan hopes to match its excellent showing from Athens at the Beijing Olympics, with chef de mission Tomiaki Fukuda giving a competitive outlook on Wednesday.

“We are likely to win 10-20 gold medals in Beijing. (But) the results remain unknown until you try,” he said.

Japan have a 339-strong team at the August 8-24 Games, led by 200m breaststroke world record holder Kosuke Kitajima.

“He is very competitive and likely to win the gold medal. He is also likely to break the record again,” Fukuda said.

Apart from swimming, the official said that Japanese athletes can medal in synchronized swimming, baseball, judo, gymnastics, athletics and wrestling.

Japan came a strong fifth in the medal standings at the 2004 Games in Athens with 16 gold medals, nine silver and 12 bronze.

Olympic supremo Jacques Rogge mentioned the country as part of “an awakening of Asia” at the time along with China, South Korea and Thailand. Rogge said last week he expected a similar trend in Beijing.

But American magazine Sports Illustrated, in its famous forecast, saw Japan drop to 11th place with an 8-8-12 result.

from: bangkokpost.com

Should and can athletes stand up and take a stance on political issues? DW-WORLD.DE spoke to the German Olympic Sports Federation amid a growing debate on human rights as the Beijing Olympics loom.
This weekend, the president of the European Parliament, Hans-Gert Poettering called on athletes traveling to the Beijing Olympics to protest against human rights violations in Tibet. “Each athlete can, in their own way, give a signal. No official should prevent that,” he added, insisting that a love of sport and the Olympic Games is no excuse for “blurring our outlook” on human rights.

Last week, under the slogan “We are all Chinese,” nine German Olympians posed in their sports kit for a Munich magazine while holding pictures of Chinese dissidents in front of their faces.

Many of the National Olympic Committees (NOCs) have been criticized by human rights groups for their stances on the situation in China and the regulations that some of them have applied to their athletes traveling to Beijing

As the debate over press freedom and human rights abuses intensifies in the run-up to the Olympic Games in Beijing, DW-WORLD.DE spoke to Michael Schirp, head of the media department at the German Olympic Sports Federation’s (DOSB) about what’s acceptable and what’s not.

DW-WORLD.DE: Amnesty International (AI) has called for the DOSB to clarify its rules on political protests by athletes. Has the DOSB taken any action on this or does it believe the rules are clear?

Michael Schirp: DOSB states that rules have been made clear by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). In Germany, the DOSB has explained the rules both in public and on the German team’s internal Olympic Web site.

Generally, athletes are free to say what they think, be it inside or outside of the Olympic venues. They may express their opinions in press conferences or even in the mixed zones, in our “Deutsches Haus” or anywhere else. There is only one issue that is prohibited according to the IOC charter: the showing of signs, flags, bracelets, pins, banners with political, racial, ethnic, religious content or propaganda if shown inside of areas where an accreditation is needed such as the Olympic venues.

Apart from that, Amnesty International and the DOSB have worked together on the subject of human rights since May 2007.

Amnesty International has criticized the DOSB for saying that the wearing of wristbands (AI’s “Gold for Human Rights” or the German athletes’ “Sports for Human Rights” bands) are forbidden as they are political statements. Does this ruling still stand? What is the DOSB’s definition of a political statement?

I would point you to my first answer. This is not limited to Olympic Games. You’ll find this in any major sport event. If every political, religious or ethnic conflict in the world would be carried into sporting events, the weight of such statements would be marginalized anyway. But the most important thing is to keep these conflicts out of the event itself.

Sport is intended to build bridges, not to further build walls. It is only at the Olympic Games that 205 NOCs and the countries they represent come together in a peaceful competition.

What are the DOSB guidelines in terms of punishments for athletes who make political statements or protests in Beijing?

We don’t have any of those. We are sure athletes are aware of their responsibility and have made up their minds regarding human rights in China. They will find ways to express their opinion or, if they choose, not to, which also has to be respected as their free will.

Before the Chinese crackdown in Tibet, neither the IOC nor DOSB mentioned anything about China’s human rights record. Did the Tibet situation force the Olympic committees to accept that China had a human rights problem?

To be perfectly blunt, this is just wrong. Before Tibet, the media were not interested in sporting organizations which dealt with the issue. It was in May 2007, almost a year before the incidents in Tibet, that the DOSB published a declaration on human rights in China. This was unique at the time.

We clearly stated that we consider the situation to be unsatisfactory. But we are a sport organization and cannot solve the problems that the UN and others couldn’t solve for 50 years. Sport is communication, not isolation. We repeated this during Easter 2008 and urged the parties in Tibet to stop violence and bloodshed. Again, this was all published.

Amnesty International has said that it has held meetings with the DOSB to discuss human right. What has been the outcome of the meetings with AI?

This was just the start. Cooperation with AI, Human Rights Watch and the human rights spokesperson of the German government continues. All three of them have met with the team leaders in an attempt to pass on their information to the Olympic Team. The team’s internal Web site provides all this information. In addition, every German athlete who goes to Beijing carries with him or her material from these human rights organizations and the UN.

source: dw-world.de

Japanese officials on Tuesday denied a report that the track cycling sport of keirin may have bribed its way into the Olympic Games.
The BBC said an investigation had uncovered documents outlining payments of $3 million from the Japan Keirin Association (JKA) to cycling’s world governing body the UCI.
But a senior Japanese official insisted there had been no wrongdoing before keirin first entered the Olympics at the 2000 Games in Sydney.
“The JKA has been co-operating with the UCI for many years to develop keirin and we have been involved in various activities to improve the sport,” the JKA’s Akihiro Matsukawa said.
“I have not been able to verify the documents the BBC say they have but the JKA denies the claims (of bribery).”
Keirin, which involves riders following a motorbike for several laps before a sprint finish, is big business in Japan, its country of origin, generating huge gambling revenues.
Hein Verbruggen, president of the UCI from 1991 to 2005, also protested his innocence.
“It has been done in total transparency,” Verbruggen, currently the International Olympic Committee’s chief inspector, told the BBC.
“This was done for the development of track cycling around the world.”
Britain’s Chris Hoy won keirin gold at this year’s world championships in Manchester and will start as favorite in Beijing.

(Writing by Alastair Himmer in Tokyo; Editing by Ed Osmond)

from: reuters.com

Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda said Monday that he hopes to see the finest performance of Japanese athletes at the upcoming Beijing Olympic Games.

The Olympics, which is of lofty value, will inspirit every Japanese national to cheer for their team, said Fukuda in a send-off ceremony held for the Japanese Olympic delegation.

He expressed the hope that the athletes will recognize the value of the Olympics and put in their finest-ever performance.

He also expected the athletes to make their respective effort to present a vigorous Japan to the audience.

As Japan won a record 37 medals, including 16 golds, at the Athens Olympic Games four years ago, Fukuda said his expectation is that every Japanese athlete will be awarded a medal at the Beijing Olympics.

The Japanese Olympic delegation, composed of 339 athletes and 237 officials, is Japan‘s largest deputation to participate in an Olympics held outside the country.

The delegation is headed by senior Japanese Olympic Committee official Tomiaki Fukuda, who said that the goal for the Japanese Olympic team is to win double digit golds and at least a total 30 medals.

Present at the ceremony was 19-year-old table tennis player Ai Fukuhara, who will lead the delegation as the flag-bearer during the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics on August 8.

Earlier Monday, the Japanese Olympic Committee announced the inauguration of the 576-strong Japanese Olympic delegation, which will head for Beijing in separate batches.

from: jappone.blogspot.com

Iraq have been banned from next month’s Beijing Games because of a government decision to disband the country’s National Olympic Committee (NOC), a senior official said on Thursday.

“This morning we were informed of the final decision of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to suspend the membership of the Iraqi Olympic Committee,” NOC general secretary Hussein al-Amidi told Reuters.

“It is a blow to Iraq and its international reputation, its athletes and its youth.”

The government of Iraq disbanded the NOC in May because of a dispute over how it had been assembled. The IOC gave Iraq a deadline to reinstate the committee but the government has refused to back down.

Iraq had planned to send a small team despite violence that has killed more than 100 athletes in the country since the 2003 United States-led invasion.

At least seven Iraqi athletes, two rowers, a weightlifter, a sprinter, a discus thrower, a judoka and an archer, had won places in Beijing.

“There’s nothing I can do. The government of Iraq wanted this. I can’t believe I’m not going to take part in the Beijing Olympics. The news is hard to take,” archer Ali Adnan told Reuters from Egypt where he had been training.

IOC DISAPPOINTED
The IOC, which has long supported Iraqi athletes training abroad to prepare for the Games, said it was very disappointed.

“We sent a letter to the Iraqi government today saying that as the situation stands today it is unlikely to have Iraqi athletes at the Beijing Games,” said IOC spokesperson Emmanuelle Moreau.

The chances of Iraq reinstating the NOC seem slim. The government has said the committee was illegitimate because it lacked a quorum and had failed to hold new elections.

“There is no review of the government’s decision because it was taken in accordance with the law,” Youth and Sports Minister Jasem Mohammed Jaafar told Reuters.

However, the IOC said the Olympic Charter forbids political interference in the Olympic Movement.

Rule 28(9) of the Charter provides for the suspension of an NOC in the event “any governmental body…causes the activity of the NOC…to be hampered.”

The Iraqi government was invited to go to (the IOC’s headquarters in) Lausanne to discuss possible remedies but did not positively respond to the invitation, the IOC said.

DETERMINED ATHLETES

Iraqi athletes had been determined to make their presence felt in Beijing despite the difficulties they faced.

Athletes’s reputations and international links make them and their families targets for violence in Iraq and the country’s sports infrastructure has decayed over decades.

Former basketball player and NOC boss Ahmed al-Hadjiya was kidnapped along with other sports officials by gunmen who stormed a conference in broad daylight in 2006. They are still missing.

Sport gave Iraqis arguably their greatest moment of unity since the fall of Saddam Hussein when the national soccer team, including members of all its main warring groups, defeated a heavily favoured Saudi Arabia to win the Asian Cup last year.

Over the last five years the IOC and the wider Olympic family have provided funding and training opportunities to support Iraq’s NOC and more than 50 Iraqi athletes and coaches.

“The Iraqi government’s actions have destroyed this progress,” an IOC official said.

(Writing by Mohammed Abbas; additional reporting by Karolos Grohmann in Athens and Wisam Mohammed and Tim Cocks in Baghdad; editing by Jon Bramley, Ken Ferris and Pritha Sarkar)

source: reuters.com

Fireworks will be set off during the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games on August 8 to create a joyous and festive atmosphere, an official said on Wednesday.

Wang Ning, deputy director of the Opening & Closing Ceremonies Department of BOCOG, said fireworks of different shapes will be displayed above the main stadium of the Games, Olympic Forest Park and the Juyongguan section of the Great Wall.
“For the first time, the shape of the Olympic Rings will be formed in the sky,” said Wang, adding that Olympic symbols and elements will be a part of fireworks’ designs with an aim to promote Olympic ideals.

Firing skills will feature compressive air launches, chamber pressure launches and computerized ignition technologies, employed for the first time in the display of fireworks, he told the media attending a press conference in Beijing.

To reflect the “Green Olympics” concept, some of the fireworks will use less smoking powder to minimize smoke and dust pollution, Wang said.

The designers intend to highlight the fireworks’ effect both on the ceremony’s stadium and larger areas around the facility so that the Olympic central zone will be an extension of the ceremony owing to the splendid fireworks.

Cai Guoqiang, a member of the core creative team in charge of visual & special effects of the opening and closing ceremonies for the Beijing Olympics and Paralympics, updated the press on the implementation of a comprehensive design and production project.

He said he joined the team in 2005 and it took him 2 to 3 years to do preparatory work. “Gunpowder is one of the inventions of China, but the fireworks this time are not only for the sake of pumping up the atmosphere, but also have a goal to achieve – playing the role of storyteller,” he said.

Cai gave an example: Along the dragon-shaped landscape water system of the Olympic Green, the fireworks will be fired up into yellow and red peonies. The computer ignition system will control the fireworks, and within seconds, the fireworks will span 2 to 3 kilometers following the flag raising process.

During the climax of the art performances, the firing squad will display thousands of pictures of smiling faces collected from around the world, according to Cai’s design. At that moment, fireworks will mimic 2008 smiling faces in the sky, said Cai.

from: beijing2008.cn

Gourmets with a special predilection for dog meat will be disappointed if they come to the Chinese capital in the coming two months, according to a Beijing Tourism Bureau official on Friday.
Xiong Yumei, the bureau’s vice director, said if a customer ordered dog meat restaurant staff should “patiently” suggest another entree.
“Conflicts should be avoided,” she stressed.
Earlier, the Beijing Catering Trade Association (BETA) issued a circular that forbade all 112-designated restaurants to provide dog meat dishes during the August Olympics. It added, as for other establishments, they were strongly advised to suspend serving dog until September.
As for dog meat for medicinal purposes, the circular said the ingredient should be listed clearly. The meat is believed by many Chinese to be an effective element to lower high blood pressure.
Any restaurant found violating the ban would be blacklisted by the association, though the exact punishment was not specified.

from: xinhuanet.com