Now I wish I was on CST haha...oh well gotta love PST

Although the Opening Ceremonies are on Friday, the Olympics have already begun. I'm presently watching Canada-Argentina women's soccer (Canada leading 2-1 in the 87th minute). Men's soccer apparently starts tomorrow.

The torch is in Beijing. The countdown begins.

It has been confirmed that the Beijing 2008 theme song at the opening cerimony will be performed by Liu Huan and Sarah Brightman.

Female soccer's first day results:
Canada-Argentina 2-1
Germany-Brazil 0-0
Japan-New Zealand 2-2
China-Sweden 2-1
North Korea-Nigeria 1-0
Norway-USA 2-0 (Noeway scored 2 goals in the first 5 minutes)

So you have to hand it to Beijing translators for trying to make the Olympic stories interesting but this one HAS to take the cake.

Mouthwatering women's soccer?

It looks like the second Hamm is out of the Olympics with an injury. Morgan Hamm withdrew from the US team after suffering an ankle injury to his left ankle, the same one he was cited for after receiving a cortisone shot by the US Doping Agency.

Raj Bhavsar of Houston has been tagged to replace Hamm.

I got a kick out of this, written by Matthew Pinsent.

http://www.javno.com/en/sports/clanak.php?id=170085

It looks like quite a number of basketball players will be carrying the flag for their respective countries during the Opening Ceremonies, including: Yao Ming (China), Dirk Nowitzki (Germany), Manu Ginobili (Argentina), Andrei Kirilenko (Russia), and Sarunas Jasikevicius (Lithuania).

Acclaimed film director Zhang Yimou (House of Flying Daggers, Hero, Happy Times, To Live--my favorite-- and Raise the Red Lantern) is overseeing the 3 hour Opening Ceremonies production.

CBC's coverage of the Opening Ceremonies begins at 7am EST Friday morning.

Get your Olympic wear:
US Olympic Shop
HBC - Team Canada

Once again NBC wants to put us on NBC-Olympic time. We have to wait until 7:30 PM EST to watch it delayed. I checked the NBC online and they are delaying that as well. Maybe I can watch it online with CBC. (Nope, I'm blocked. Thank you CBC for being as much of a turd as NBC.)

Apparently the word "mouthwatering" is the Chinese equivalent of exciting. I found 4 other references to "mouthwatering" games or matches, especially the matchup between Nadal and Federer.

Here's to a mouthwatering Olympics.

I told you. They want the prime time ratings. And CBC blocks live online coverage like that to the USA, presumably because they don't have the right to show it in this country.

Yea, probably too hard on CBC. I was blocked by ABC when I was in Buenos Aires last year. I can say that I love the deal TW cable did with NBC. I get a TON of HD coverage of the Olympics this year, all free (well, after I pay the hefty TW cable bill I'm stuck with each month).

I'm watching the CBC coverage now. Alas, I have to leave for work soon and will miss the start of the Opening Ceremonies (at 8:08 Beijing time). On of the office towers (the former BCE Place) near where I work will be showing the Olympics on some big screen TVs in their food court (as they did for the Euro soccer and World Cup), so I can go there to catch some coverage during the day.

This is so anachronistic and annoying. The whole idea of tape delay just doesn't make sense any more. Everybody's on the internet--we already know what happened. ARRRGHHH.

I caught most of the Opening Ceremonies before having to come into work this morning - and all I can say is - WOW - ABSOLUTELY AMAZING! And I know most do not have HD yet - but the 3+ hours I watched this morning made that investment all worthwhile. The colours, the vibrancy - incredible!

And I think it is an absolute farce that NBC was not showing them live. Not only did CBC show them live - but will be showing them again at 6:00PM tonight as a lead in to live Beach Volleyball and cycling.

Fortunately the NY Times listed several European sites that were broadcasting them live over the Internet. I can't wait for the network folks at work to send out the stern e-mail to quit clogging up the bandwidth.

The ceremonies were awesome and VERY colorful. You could tell it was hot in the Bird's Nest. Bush shucked the jacket several times during the ceremony. Nowitski was soaking on the floor of the stadium. The athletes were ready to get out of there from the heat and stifling air.

Then the dramatics of the ceremony kicked in. The choir of children was great. I still want to know how they got those flags to fly perpendicular to the poles with such stifling conditions. Then the torches and the lighting. No hints here but it was rated 2nd only to the Barcelona lighting in dramatics.

I have to say, that was the best olympic opening I'd ever seen. It blew me away. The lighted drums at the beginning with the countdown, breathtaking. And then those Chinese printing blocks moving up and down, finding out it was actually humans doing it, not computers, jaw dropping. I watched it at my brothers house in HD and surround sound.
It just amazes me the beautiful things we humans can do when we put our mind to it. Unfortunatly we're to busy dropping bombs on each other.
Politics aside, I'm happy for the average Chinese citizen. These games mean the world to them. When you get right down to it, it's just national pride. We would do the same thing, as all countries would.



I wondered that also about the flags. Then I saw holes in the side of the flagpole which appearantly blows air onto the flags to make them wave. Pretty clever.

I wathched the Opening Ceremonies on my digital cable and the picture was unreal. I can only imagine what it looked like in HD. But the ceremonies were great. Sometimes, even ours when we have the Olympics, can get a bit hokey. But this one will be hard to top at the next one. Good luck to Vancouver in 2010 for the Winter ones to come close to this.

As far as being tape delayed, I didn't care. It was just the Opening Ceremonies where getting results didn't matter. It was still awesome to watch. But I think with the money that NBC shells out for it, I guess they would have wanted to kinda of influence in it. But would have been good to show it live in the morning and again in Prime Time. It wouldn't have hurt anything. I mean, have you seen morning tv? AWFUL!!!!

Ok, first off. I love the Olympics. Doesn't matter who's hosting. In fact I'm watching the repeat of the opening ceremonies at 5am, (the artistic show still blows my mind.)
And I'll repeat, Costas needs to shut up. (yes I know the broadcast is a repeat.) But sometimes when the NBC broadcast sucks, I have to repeat also.
And yes, I get emotional when the human spirit out shines all political platforms. So when Yoi Ming carried in the China flag with that sweet little survivior boy of the earthquake, I lost it. I boo hoo'd like a baby. And I'm sure I'm not the only one who got a lump in the throat.
And speaking of sad moments, poor Zambia, walking into the 'birds nest' just before the Chinese.
Still, I might be a naive and simple person, but on days like this, I'd rather be that kind of a person I am.
Not the type of person who wishes to hate, fight and drop bombs on others.
Lets hope, with all hope, others feel the very same way. For the human spirit.
NAMASTE' !!For the human spirit!! 'PEACE & HOPE' NAMASTE'

A relative of a US Olympic volleyball coach was stabbed to death and his wife and tour guide were also attacked at a tourist site in Beijing.

http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-gener...merican.Killed/

Amazing Opening Ceremonies. I was following reports (live blogs and photo galleries) from work during the day and watched parts of the CBC and NBC coverage at night. Many amazing feats--sychronization of so many performers, the giant globe that rises out of the middle of the field, the torch lighter hanging from a wire and going all around the opening of the roof and lighting the caudron that appeared out of nowhere. Lavish fireworks displays. Costumed performers performing in the stifling heat.

Presently watching women's volleyball (USA vs. Japan) on NBC, and Canadian men's gymnastics qualifying on CBC. Good luck to Kyle Shewfelt, reigning Olympics men's gold medalist in the floor exercizes, who broke both his legs in competition less than a year ago and is coming back from surgery.

The opening ceremony was spectacular.

An absolutely amazing opening ceremony. I can't see how any future city will even come close to what Beijing pulled off last night, but at a cost of $300 million dollars anything less would have been disappointing (lol). The highlights for me were the moveable type display, the tai chi display and the lighting of the torch.

Best funny moment of the night from my group watching the ceremonies came when the performers held up the photos of the children in addition to the photos being displayed on the screen around the stadium. My friend Jenny said..."These are all the kids that Brad and Angelina are going to adopt." Our entire group was rolling.

Totally agree on the comments about NBC's coverage. Just curious if anyone knows of any other athletes competing for the US other than the men's basketball team, Jenny Finch and Misty May and Kari Walsh? Those seemed to be the only ones that they seemed to think were important. Ugh

BTW did anyone else catch the shot of the George and Laura Bush when they were BOTH checking their watches!

Best opening ceremonies I've seen yet. 2nd best torch lighting (Barcelona is still #1).

Constant reminder that China invented gunpowder. I bet no one slept around the Bird's Nest until the ceremonies were over. But I have to say the pyrotechnics were incredible and impressive.

The drums were great but what was even greater were the expressions of the drummers during the performance. Those guys were having a blast down there. That's what made it even more fun to watch.

The movable type was awesome. To think that those were people working in harmony and not some mechanical contraption making it work. At the end when they opened the hatches and popped out waving to the crowd was great.

Lot and lots of hot flag bearers. Of course my favorites were Manu (gotta cheer for my Spurs), Lopez Lomong (what a story especially after denying Joey Cheek entry), and Yao Ming and Lin Hao (who would have thought that the expressions of a 9 year old earthquake survivor could steal the $100M show).

The precision of the Chinese Army as they raised the flags shows me how much that really means and seeing the soldier fling the flag into the air as the national anthem is played is something we should take a cue from. Apparently they do it all the time.

The childrens choir singing the Olympic Anthem was touching. Forget the well trained voices of a professional chorus. I'll take a childrens choir every time.

Finally the lighting of the torch was great. I espeically liked the images of the torch relay following the gymnast was a great ending to show the culmination of the torch's journey.

Was there even an Athlete's Oath taken? In previous opening ceremonies, an athlete was chosen to recite it for all athletes. Did NBC just edited it out?

I have to think that it was. I imagine that NBC edited it out. The can give us two hours of athletes marching in a circle, but the athlete's oath was an afterthought.

Double Ugh

Yup - NBC edited out about 5-10 minutes worth of stuff immediately preceding the flame, including the athlete's and official's oaths and about two minutes of the lap the Olympic flag did before being raised. NBC only showed the last 100 metres or so of that procession. We got those things on CBC.

And boy after those opening ceremonies I wouldn't want to be the person in charge of the Opening Ceremonies 2 years from now for the Winter Olympics in Vancouver. How do you follow that. Although with the ceremony inside at BC Place Stadium with its white roof - I suspect they will be using the entire roof as a screen. Let's see how creative they can get from there.

Watching the swimming I have to say I was surprised at how many swimmers were NOT wearing the Speedo LZR suits. Leading up to the Olympics I was under the impression that all the elite swimmers would be wearing them (also noted that some swimmers were wearing body suits by other manufacturers, such as Arena). But Michael Phelps, for example, won the 400 IM bare-chested.

And on that note, I'm disappointed to read on the Jock Talk Blog that the LZR suit is "ruining swimming." As if the sole purpose of competition swimming is so that gay men can check out the bodies of the swimmers. Please.

Current medal leaders (gold silver bronze - total):

China 6 2 0 - 8
USA 2 2 4 - 8
S. Korea 3 2 0 - 5
Russia 0 3 1 - 4
Japan 1 0 2 - 3
Italy 0 2 1 - 3
North Korea 0 1 2 - 3

One thought about the Opening Ceremonies that a friend and I talked about this morning.

Think about the precision of the guys who made movable type come to life. Imagine being inside a box with the instructions to move up and down at variable points as a part of an animated experience.

You cannot see anyone next to you on any side and you have to move perfectly to keep the animation look smooth. You don't know if you hit or missed your mark until after the entire thing is over. You can't rely on audible cues from your neighbors because you have 8 neighbors to listen to.

All you know is to move up and down and do that A LOT! Remember when we do the wave in stadiums we can see and hear each other. The guys in the boxes couldn't. At the end you hit it flawlessly.

That's why the movable type animation was so impressive in my mind.

Now maybe in China's innovation they had some chips implanted in these guys heads to make them move. Just kidding. Great job China on the Opening Ceremonies.

Team Canada is still without a medal. It's enough to make you want to cry:

Yesterday on MSNBC they had a 12-hour block of programming, 5 am-5 pm ET. Since baseball was listed as part of the show, I taped it. They ended up showing the USA-S. Korea game in full, though tape delayed. But their announcers were actually in New York, not Beijing. That had to be difficult considering that, from what I saw, the camerawork was shoddy at times. And they seem to have a chain-link fence as the backstop instead of what we see in ballparks here, and the camera from behind the plate was not high enough to see over it. So the picture was really sort of distorted, or an optical illusion occurred, or something, whenever that camera moved to follow the ball.

Meanwhile, Bill Clement was let go from his NHL duties by NBC, but he's calling Olympics table tennis. I don't know if he was in Beijing or New York, though.

Talk about poor sportsmanship..

The wrestler from Sweden won bronze, (85k). At the medal ceremony, he rejected it. He immediately took it off, put it on the floor and walked off yelling his career was over.

The two British sync diving guys got into a fight before their final dive. Yelling and cussing at each other, they ended up in last place.

Talk about great sportsmanship...

The other night in the mens gymnastic all around the cute German guy came in fourth. Several times throughout the evening he almost broke into tears due to a bad ruetine. I felt so bad for him. But on every round, every time another gymnast came down off the stage, he would give them a high five and pat them on the back. Didn't matter what country they were from. That in itself deserves gold.

The medal hunt continues to be a horse race. USA leads in total medals, but China leads in gold (despite all those golds by Phelps):

Country - gold - silver - bronze - total
USA - 14 - 12 - 18 - 44
CHN - 23 - 9 - 5 - 37
AUS - 5 - 7 - 8 - 20
RUS - 3 - 8 - 8 - 19
KOR - 6 - 8 - 3 - 17

The games have been a hit on the Internet for CBC and NBC:

It's been an exciting Olympics so far but I'm a little concerned with all the broken World Records in swimming. It used to be that breaking a WR meant something, but now with these crazy new suits, it kind of taints the whole thing.

Then again - the same arguement can be made for newer golf clubs and even the new synergy hockey sticks.

Australia's Matthew Mitcham's quest for gold. You can send him a text message of encouragement:

http://www.ontopmag.com/article.aspx?id=22...amp;Category=26

It's not only the suits. I've heard the pool is larger and deeper with drainage on either end to cut down on waves and choppy water. Guess China wanted something to be remembered by.

What a difference a day makes! Just like that Canada has 3 medals, one each of gold, silver and broze. O Canada!

Gold: Carol Huynh in 48 kg weight class freestyle wrestling. pic

Silver: Scott Frandsen and Dave Calder in men's pairs rowing

Bronze: Tonya Verbeek in 55 kg weight class freestyle wrestling

========

Just saw Caroly Huynh interviewed. She seems like such a nice person. Her parents were Vietnamese refugees. She was born in B.C., but lives and trains in Calgary.

OH CANADA!!!!!!!! What a great way to start the weekend with its first three Olympic medals

Unfortunately, the men's 100 meter run is completed and the winner is not "Gay!"

Here we gold again! After an achingly slow start (with much groaning and complaining reported in the Canadian media--really, Canadians are so good at complaining about our mediocre medal tally in the Olympics, yet do we, as a country, support our athletes like other countries ie. USA, China, Australia? Uh, no).

4 more medals, including a gold for the men's 8 rowing. Also, 3 bronze: women's double sculls, men's lightweight 4, and Ryan Cochrane's 1500m freestyle in the pool.

Huge redemption for our Men's Eights - who were gold favourites in Athens but had a meltdown (choked) and came last in the final there. Great to see them bounce back for gold. You might be able to watch it at some point in the next 24 hours on NBC.

I don't know what has happened to the U.S. Cycling Track team- they used to be very strong and all of a sudden, they aren't even being found in several of the team events. The Brits are doing awesome and are dominating on the track- which should be exciting for 2012.

The U.S. Track and Field team is not performing well either- in several cases, they aren't even performing up to their personal bests, especially in the field events. I know that Jamaica is really stepping up, and I do not care if they win medals- but they should at least be peaking in their performances to make the finals- i.e. Lomong and Lagat in the 1500, Gay in the 100, the favored shotput team. They have been disappointing quite a bit. Kudos to the rest of the world.

Team China is doing great- shows how a governmently funded machine will find (and or pay) its way to victory every time.

Woke up to the stunning news that Liu Xiang had pulled out of the men's 110 hurdles with a hamstring injury. Liu is the defending gold medalist, the first Chinese to win gold in a track event, and is a bigger star in China than Yao Ming. His coach was reduced to tears at the press conference afterwards.

Hi Kick!

Found your comments incredibly interesting.

As a Track fan I can explain, from my point of view, that the reason why so many of your Track and Field athletes are under-performing (and quite outstandingly at times) is almost entirely due to the antiquated and insensitive selection system that has been used in the States for decades.

Your athletes are expected to "peak" for those trials. In doing so they have no other option but to accept the stressful and aggressive system of selection that ignores the rights, expectations and past achievements of anyone who does not finish in the top three of their specific event.

This, to my way of thinking, makes the whole process a matter of proving who is best in the nation, rather than proving who is able to contend with the pressure of the Olympic timetable.

So many superb athletes are left behind at the expense of many who just at one moment, on one day, perform way above their normal ability and expectation.

Check the following list of under-performing athletes.........

* Your trio of male shot-putters
* Your trio of male discus throwerrs
* Your trio of male long and triple jumpers
* Your trio of male high jumpers
* Your 1500 metres runners

.........and the list goes on and on......

........and I have not mentioned all those who have carried injuries form the trails....... Tyson Gay, Wallace Spearmon, Terence Trammell.........and many of your female team-members.

The whole selection process MUST be looked at and re-assessed or you will never achieve at the level we once expected of you.

A sad situation.

Superman UK

What a magnificent strategic run by the veteran Simon Whitfield. (Totally worth staying up till midnight to watch.) Coming from behind, sprinting ahead, but being nipped by the German. Still, a silver in the triathalon for the gold medalist from the 2000 Sydney Olympics. What an exciting finish. Yay Canada!


And congrats to Ian Miller. The 61 year old, who recently lost his wife, in his 9th Olympics, finally gets a medal: a silver in team show jumping. He's apparently the 7th oldest person to medal in Olympic history, the oldest in Beijing so far, and the oldest to medal in equestrian.

Finally, the 'NBC network' is showing mens wrestling. I tuned in last weekend when I saw wrestling on the channel guide. They were girls, ewwwww. But watching the guys tonight has made up for it.

I've also noticed during these wrestling matches, no one is wearing their headgear. Anyone know why this is?

This is pretty shocking...didn't believe my eyes when I was watching NBC the other day...

I'm getting real tired of the judges giving higher scores to the Chinese when they don't deserve it. Or, lessor scores to others when they do. Countless times this has been appearant. It's happened to many times. Not to mention the age questions on their womens gymnastic team. Why most on that team are still suckeling on their mothers tits. Or more likely on the governments bureaucratic tits.
So give me a break. They look on the passports of the atheletes to see their age. Like no passport has ever been forged. Way to many questions have risen for an inquesition not to take place.

Makes me wonder just how many dollars of the over all cost of the games has gone into the bribing of judges. Remember the judging in figure skating a few years back? When the french judge was caught manipulating her scores? evil evil EVIL

I hope Chicago is the winner of the 2016 games. By then, I'll set aside my pocket change of $36 million and bribe the judges against those communist Chinese bastards. Or maybe I'll just buy a cat.

Just noticed this Reuters article in the Globe and Mail, Gay Olympians in short supply, that's all about Outsports's coverage of LGBT athletes in the Olympics.

Damn! They may as well have lifted the entire article written. I guess the free advertisement is nice though.

The Chinnes are getting score they don't deserve and the little girls from there on the gym mats need to have there gold metals taken away they are not old enough.Cheat cheat thats the only way they can win.Wait until winter Olympics Canada gold in hockey all the way


You got that right

Baxion

Loved reading your wonderfully non-biased, Commie-hating remarks.

Perhaps I can assume that you might be American?

Sour grapes perhaps?

Get real, the Chinese have been superior in almost every imaginable way!

Cut the jingoistic crap and redneck views.....there is a great world outside Uncle Sam......a world that at least expresses balance and acknowledgement of the talents and skills of others!

Superman UK