Sticking their oars in to supreme effect
August 19, 2008
The 2008 Olympic rowing competition has reached its climax over the past two days with a total of 14 gold medals awarded - eight to the men and six to the women.
Most decorated rower
Looking back to the Olympic history of rowing, seven was the magic number as far as Romania’s Elisabeta Lipa was concerned. The most decorated of all Olympic rowers, Lipa won seven medals in total at five different Olympic Games, with at least one medal at each Games. In 2000 in Sydney, Lipa, who made her living working for the Romanian equivalent of the CIA, became the oldest oarswoman to win a gold medal in the eight with coxswain event at the Games.
Single sculls masters
Having won the double sculls in 1984, Lipa shares the record for most years between gold medals (16) with Britain’s Steve Redgrave, the only rower to earn gold medals at five consecutive Games. Redgrave’s victories came in fours and pairs between 1984 and 2000. Meanwhile, Vyacheslav Ivanov of the Soviet Union (1956-1964) and Pertti Karppinen (1976-1984), a two-metre tall fireman from Finland, share the distinction of being the only men to win the single sculls on three separate occasions.
Inauspicious start
Rowing made an inauspicious start to its Olympic career – included in the programme for the first Games in 1896, it was cancelled owing to bad weather. Four years later a boy was plucked from the streets of Paris to act as cox for the Dutch team in the paired-oar event and, after steering them to the gold medal, joining in the victory ceremony and having his photograph taken, he disappeared back into obscurity, his name unknown to this day. He was quite possibly the youngest champion in Olympic history.
Closest final in history
Certainly the youngest since then was 11-year-old Carlos Front, coxswain for the Spanish eight in 1992, the final of which was the closest rowing final in Olympic history, Canada beating Romania by less than 30 centimetres. Finally, back in Paris but this time in 1924, a member of the Yale University crew that won the coxed eights for the USA was Ben Spock, who 20 years later wrote The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care which went on to sell more than 35 million copies.
World-wide readers love “Olympic Express”
August 19, 2008
The e-journal “Olympic Express” the IOC is running on www.olympic.org in collaboration with the French number one sports newspaper “L’Équipe”, and its special outlet “L’Équipe junior” for a younger audience, is reaching out to a large world-wide audience that obviously appreciates this special initiative for the Beijing Games. Here are some quotes from the very generous feedback “Olympic Express” receives.
From Brazil:
“Olympic Express shows everything that is important in a sport! I think Olympic Express should be published on more sports websites or something like this!”
“Olympic Express deserves the gold medal in Olympic communication.”
From China:
“This is very good; it provides all the information indeed to be able to follow the planet’s biggest sporting event.”
“We want to know more about the news of the Olympics. How do people prepare? I think e-books are very interesting and convenient.”
Belgium:
« Bonjour, quelle bonne idée cette brochure. Je suis instituteur primaire et je me base sur celle-ci pour mes leçons.” (“Hello. This brochure is a great idea. I am a junior school teacher and use it for my lessons.”)
USA:
“I just love this website because it gives you all the latest info on the Olympics and facts on each sport, and I am very thankful that I found this website because I have a report in school on the Olympics and I’m doing ice-skating. So everyone out there who’s interested in the Olympics should go there.”
“I love all your articles! They are very informative and fun to read!”
England:
“I really like Olympic Express and so do all of my friends.”
Australia:
“Hi, my children and I love reading your magazine. I am also a teacher and my class is also enjoying the magazine. Thank you very much!”
England:
“I really like The Olympic Games and this great magazine ‘Olympic Express’. I can’t wait for 2012 as my host country will host the Games in London. I hope to be a spectator, watching the opening/closing ceremony and the athletics and aquatics events. My first Olympic memories are from Sydney 2000, seeing Sir Steve Redgrave winning his fifth gold medal. Of course in Athens 2004, I can remember Kelly Holmes winning two gold medals. She is an Olympic legend. I will try my best to share the Olympic spirit with everyone around the world and seek for peace.”
Record women’s participation
August 19, 2008
With more than 42 per cent female athletes, Beijing sets a new record for women’s participation in Olympic Games. Out of 11,196 total athletes, there are 4,746 women currently giving their best across various Olympic sports. Women’s participation in the Olympic Games has grown increasingly, particularly within the last two decades.
Women in the spotlight
The 2008 Beijing Olympic Games kicked off with 63 female flag bearers leading their delegations into the Olympic stadium during the Opening Ceremony on 8 August. On 9 August, Katerina Emmons from the Czech Republic became the first woman to win a gold medal in the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games by winning the women’s 10m air rifle event in shooting. Among the female competitors in Beijing, the female athletes from Europe have won most of the medals so far, followed by their Asian counterparts.
From Rome to Beijing
Whilst the 611 women who participated in the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome represented just 11.5 per cent of the athletes, women’s participation had leaped to represent close to 22 per cent by the Olympic Games in 1980 in Moscow. At the Sydney Games in 2000, the number of female athletes reached more than 38 per cent, with 4,069 women of a total of 10,651 athletes. Athens, four years later, saw 4,306 female athletes competing out of a total of 10,568. In 2004, women were in the spotlight in no less than 135 events and in 26 of the 28 Olympic sports. In Beijing, women will compete in the same number of sports but in 137 events.
Badminton: Asia continues to dominate
August 19, 2008
Badminton crowned its women’s singles champion, Zhang Ning of China as well as its men’s doubles champions, Kido Markis and Setiawan Hendra of Indonesia, as Asia continued its domination of this relatively young Olympic sport.
Hoyer-Larsen out on his own
Ever since it was introduced to the Olympic Games in 1992, only one gold medal has ended up outside Asia, with Denmark’s Paul-Erik Hoyer-Larsen winning the men’s singles in Atlanta in 1996. The remaining 19 gold medals prior to these Games were shared between just three countries: China, South Korea and Indonesia, whose five Olympic gold medals have all come in badminton.
Gigantic shuttlecock
The first of these was Susi Susanti’s victory in Barcelona in 1992, and just two hours later her fiancé, Allan Budi Kusuma, won the men’s title. When Susanti and Kusuma returned to Indonesia the celebration in their honour included a two-hour parade through the streets of Jakarta that was led by a car carrying a gigantic shuttlecock. Susanti returned to win a bronze medal four years later in Atlanta, and in 1997 Susanti and Kusuma were married.
Model of dedication
At the last two Olympic Games, in Sydney and Athens, China has been utterly dominant in women’s singles and doubles, as well as mixed doubles. The story of 2004 champion Zhang Ning is a model of dedication: she left her home in Liaonong Province at the age of 12 to train full-time, and when she and her fiancé received their marriage licence in 2001, they delayed their ceremony for three years until after the 2004 Games, during which time they never spent more than two months together at a stretch.
Childhood team-mates
Ge Fei and Gu Jun from Jiangsu Province began playing badminton together when they were nine years old. Twelve years later, they ran through the field at the 1996 Olympic Games to win the women’s doubles gold medal, and four years later in Sydney they did the same, only once conceding more than seven points in a game. Ge, whose specialty was playing close to the net, also won a world championship in mixed doubles in 1997 while pairing with Liu Yong.
Nice to meet you, Zhang Jiayu
August 11, 2008
Volunteers make up a large part of the Summer Games. Not just in help, but also in mass. The National Stadium holds 91,000 people. The Olympic volunteers consist of 70,000 people, the Paralympic volunteers another 30,000. There are more volunteers than seats in the “Bird’s Nest”. The majority of the volunteers (who must be 18 or older) are stationed in and around the venues, and offer services to just about every department (e.g. guest reception, translation, transport, medical services, security, etc.). We met Zhang Jiayu at the Information Desk at The North Garden Hotel, and asked her a few questions about herself.
Why did you want to volunteer for the Olympics and how did you get chosen?
I took an examination that tested our English and I passed. Because we have to communicate a lot with foreigners, they were looking for students with language skills and knowledge about different countries and cultures. And I wanted to volunteer because I wanted to work for the Olympics. This is the first time for China to host the Olympics and I thought I had to do something for the Games, so I became a volunteer.
What does your day consist of as a volunteer?
I work about 8 hours, and my shift is 2.30 to 10 p.m. Mostly we explain many, many questions to all our guests. For example, where is the accreditation centre? Where is the subway? Can you write down the Chinese name of a place? But the most common question is, “How do I get to the Beijing Hotel?”, which is right across the street.
What do you like most about being a volunteer?
Because Beijing is such a big city there are many places that I don’t know, so I cannot guarantee I will know the answer to every question without getting on the Internet or calling someone. But every time I help a guest solve a problem I learn a new place and how to go there, and maybe next time I won’t have to check and can tell them the exact information. I think it is helpful for me to do all these things.
What will you do once the Olympics are over?
In September I will go back for my last year at Beijing Foreign Studies University. After that, I want to take a job.
Beijing 2008: GE and their bright ideas for the 2008 Games
August 11, 2008
Without GE there wouldn’t be much of an Olympic Games. That is of course unless the athletes have been practising in the dark! The company has been working around the clock to make sure all 37 official Beijing Olympic venues have a variety of essentials, power and lighting being key among them.
“Build our brand”
But this isn’t the company’s first time around the block. Director of PR for GE, Deirdre Latour, says the reason GE has once again teamed up with the Olympic Games is because “it’s a great opportunity for us to build our brand around the world in key cities like Beijing, Vancouver and London. And the values of the Games align with the values of GE.”
Leading by example
One of GE’s strategies is to provide environmentally advanced technologies to the Games from cleaner energy generation and water purification to efficient lighting technology. And they are doing that by providing water recycling technologies to the National Stadium as well as supplying more than 100 wind turbines to wind farms north of Beijing, which will supply energy to the Olympic central area.
A hands-on approach
On-site GE is showcasing its innovative technology via its Imagination Center. The 1,500 square-metre pavilion allows visitors to see first-hand the pioneering solutions GE created in order to help Beijing host the largest, most technologically advanced Olympic Games to date. Latour adds, “The Imagination Center brings to life GE’s sponsorship of the Beijing Games. It showcases our innovative technologies like wind, water and lighting that have contributed to building the infrastructure of all 37 venues and 168 commercial buildings around Beijing.”
Waterfall and interactive tour
The two-storey building features an outdoor waterfall and interactive tour and is located in the Sponsor Village on the Olympic Green. It is open daily to the public from 4 to 24 August between the hours of 9 a.m. and 10 p.m. After the Games, the Center will be moved and installed in the lobby of the new GE-China headquarters in Shanghai.
The 2008 Beijing Games also focus on French
August 11, 2008
When Chinese President Hu Jintao declared the Games of the XXIX Olympiad in Beijing open, these simple words - long-awaited by 20 per cent of the world’s population and some 10,500 athletes from the five continents – also appeared in French on the giant screens inside the Olympic Stadium.
Initiative of the International French-speaking Organisation
This presence of the language of Olympic Games reviver Pierre de Coubertin at the first Games organised in the People’s Republic of China marked the kick-off of a Francophone event which took place in the Chinese capital the day after the Games Opening Ceremony. At the initiative of the Secretary General of the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF), Abdou Diouf, this meeting brought together several heads of state and of government, sports ministers, Olympic family members – both French-speaking and international – around a message to promote the French language and the values that the French-speaking family and the sports movement share.
French on the same level as Chinese and English
French, an official language of the Olympic Movement, along with English, is of fundamental importance for the Olympic Games. That is why the OIF signed a convention with the Beijing Games Organising Committee (BOCOG) proposing a series of measures to accompany BOCOG’s efforts to encourage the use of French. These include translating the Games web site and the official information platform, INFO2008; signage in French at the Olympic venues; translating the main publications by BOCOG, including the Spectator Guide; recruiting 40 translators and French-speaking journalists for the period of the Games for written and oral announcements and the ceremonies; not forgetting providing French training for several hundreds of Chinese; and finally, organising French-speaking cultural events.
Beijing under the magnifying glass of the Grand Témoin
Like in Athens in 2004 and Turin in 2006, a Grand Témoin [Great Witness] – in this instance former French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin – will visit the sports venues, Olympic enclosures and other public places and attend the competitions and official events in Beijing. To date, like its predecessors, Beijing in 2008 is taking the same approach to being loyal to the French culture and language and taking it beyond the promotion and development of cultural diversity, values shared by Olympism and the OIF. Expect to go further and stronger in Vancouver in 2010, London in 2012 and Sochi in 2014….
Fencing: Duellists take centre stage
August 11, 2008
The first fencing medals of the 2008 Olympic Games were won in the men’s épée when Matteo Tagliariol from Italy beat French Fabrice Jeannet 15-9 in the final to take gold. It was the first gold medal for Italy in Men’ Individual Epee since 1960, the Rome Games. Tagliariol was overwhelmed: “I have lost my voice, I am so excited right now and I have no way of expresing myself.”
Successful defence
Fencing is one of only four sports to have featured at every modern Olympic Games, and was the first to allow professionals to take part. The men’s épée, the traditional sword of duels, was not among the disciplines at the first modern Olympic Games in 1896 but was introduced four years later in Paris, when Cuba’s Ramón Fonst Segundono took gold at the age of just 16. He successfully defended his title at the next Games in St Louis, and is still the only man to have done so in the individual épée. He also won the foil for good measure.
Nedo Nadi
However, Fonst’s versatility could not compare with Italy’s Nedo Nadi, the only man to have won with each of the three main weapons at the same Games. In 1912, when only 18, he won the foil. Then, after being decorated by his government for bravery in World War I, he won an unprecedented and unequalled five gold medals in Antwerp in 1920: the individual foil and sabre, plus the team foil, épée and sabre. His brother, Aldo, also won gold in each of the three team events.
Mighty Magyars
No account of Olympic fencing would be complete without mention of Hungary’s astonishing run of gold medal winners in the men’s individual sabre from 1908 all the way through to 1964, missing out only in 1920 when they did not compete. Meanwhile, the fencing prowess of Italy’s men has continued to this day. In Athens four years ago, Aldo Montano won the sabre, and became the third generation of his family to win an Olympic medal in the competition.
Ilona Elek
On the women’s side, Ilona Elek was already 29 when she competed in the Berlin Games, her first. In the foil she defeated the winners of the two previous Games, Helene Mayer of Germany and Ellen Preis of Austria, to take the gold medal. When the Games resumed after the war in London in 1948, Elek became one of only two champions from 1936 to successfully defend her title. Many years later, Elek’s fellow Hungarian Timea Nagy, who began fencing at the age of 14 to impress a boyfriend, also managed to defend her Olympic title by winning the épée in 2000 and 2004.
Amazing Photos from the Opening Ceremonies
August 11, 2008
Here is a link to some incredible photos taken at the opening ceremonies on Friday.
Ahadgar winning the women’s race
June 4, 2008
Series on Olympic Scholarship Holders Beijing 2008: today Mahbooba Ahadgar
Although Afghanistan has been competing regularly in the Olympic Games since 1936, it was only in 2004, with Friba Razayee and Robina Muqim Yaarit, that female competitors first took part. Mahbooba Ahadgar is pleased to ensure that this encouraging development becomes a trend when she runs in the Olympic 800 and 1500 metres events in Beijing this summer.
Records
Now 23, Ahadgar began in road races in 2004, moving to the track two years later. In 2007 she broke the Afghan record at both 800 and 1500m. “Achieving this for both events gave me some ‘oomph’ to move forward in athletics and to bring some glory to myself and to my country,” she said. “Being a Muslim woman we are restricted to a certain lifestyle which doesn’t [traditionally] allow us to participate actively in sports.”
Now 23, Ahadgar began in road races in 2004, moving to the track two years later. In 2007 she broke the Afghan record at both 800 and 1500m. “Achieving this for both events gave me some ‘oomph’ to move forward in athletics and to bring some glory to myself and to my country,” she said. “Being a Muslim woman we are restricted to a certain lifestyle which doesn’t [traditionally] allow us to participate actively in sports.”
High performance centre
Since the start of this year, thanks to the Olympic Solidarity scholarship programme, Ahadgar has had the opportunity to train at the high performance centre in Kuala Lumpur, benefiting from the experience of qualified IAAF coaches and meeting new friends and sparring partners from all over Asia. “I want to remain the record holder for my country in my selected events,” she said. “To achieve that, I need high performance training with good facilities.”
Since the start of this year, thanks to the Olympic Solidarity scholarship programme, Ahadgar has had the opportunity to train at the high performance centre in Kuala Lumpur, benefiting from the experience of qualified IAAF coaches and meeting new friends and sparring partners from all over Asia. “I want to remain the record holder for my country in my selected events,” she said. “To achieve that, I need high performance training with good facilities.”
Nine siblings
Ahadgar is one of nine siblings. Her father works as a carpenter and her mother is a housewife. “Apart from running, I just help out at home due to our family background, which requires me to take care of the house properly, as a woman,” she says, adding: “I need to change this concept. and I presume my country will accept and adhere to it.”
Ahadgar is one of nine siblings. Her father works as a carpenter and her mother is a housewife. “Apart from running, I just help out at home due to our family background, which requires me to take care of the house properly, as a woman,” she says, adding: “I need to change this concept. and I presume my country will accept and adhere to it.”
Active lifestyle
“I like an active lifestyle, and athletics is a sport in which you certainly need to be actively involved. I’m the model for my country, being a woman in a typical Muslim nation. I’m very proud to say that I will be participating in the Olympic Games. By virtue of these opportunities, many women from my country are participating in many sports, and this will help to develop a better managed sports country.”
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