Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Olympics 2012 - 9


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A Brazilian judoka will receive a new bronze medal from the International Olympic Committee after breaking his when he brought it into the shower… 

 Felipe Kitadai will receive a new bronze medal from the International Olympic Committee after breaking his when he brought it into the shower. (The ribbon broke and there is a small dent in it..not what I call broken)

 It was heartening to hear in the days where the whole Olympics seems to be about money that former Beatle Paul McCartney and other star performers who took part in Friday's opening ceremony essentially donated their time, receiving a mere pound ($1.57) for their performances.

 The nominal fee was offered to make the Olympics contracts binding, but pales in comparison to the millions big names like McCartney can command for a stadium gig.

 These are already the Twitter Games. The Solo/Lolo Show has dominated US Olympics talk. Soccer player Hope Solo went on a Twitter rant against Brandi Chastain. Hurdler Lolo Jones made an insensitive joke on Twitter about the US and guns.

And on Monday, a second athlete, Swiss soccer player Michel Morganella, was kicked out of the Olympics for racist comments on Twitter. 

 However it could be worse…

 A teenager has been arrested on suspicion of posting malicious Twitter messages directed at British Olympic diver Tom Daley, U.K. police said Tuesday.

 The first tweet told Daley that he let his dad down with his synchronized diving performance. Later, the tweeter threatens to drown Daley.

Daley's father died of brain cancer a year ago and the 18-year-old Olympian had hoped to win a medal ''for myself and my dad.'' But he finished fourth on Monday, out of medal contention, in the 10-meter synchronized platform competition with teammate Pete Waterfield.


Barry Eva (Storyheart)

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Book Information and Things UK - Across the Pond

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Monday, July 30, 2012

Olympics 2012-8


New Zealand's hopes of qualifying for the final of the women's quadruple sculls at Eton Dorney were dashed when an oar broke with about 400m remaining in the repechage race.


The Kiwis were third at the time - with four boats going through - when Fiona Bourke was left stranded on Dorney Lake. They finished last, 30 seconds behind winner Australia.

Tunisia may have missed out on its first medal at the London Olympics because of bad arithmetic. His coach made a mistake of starting weightlifter Khalil El-Maoui who was in second place of the men's 56kg at at 158kg instead of the planned 148kg putting Khalil out of the medals due to an arithmetic mistake.



In a story reminiscent of the Jamaican bobsleigh team and Eric "the eel" Moussambani, comes Djibo Issaka.

The 35-year-old from Niger was given a rapturous reception normally reserved for gold medallists after struggling to the finish line in the men's single sculls at Eton Dorney.

Why? Because he has only been rowing for three months.

Niger received a wild card to the Olympics, allocated to ensure all 204 National Olympic Committees can take part even if no athletes have qualified.

Djibo Issaka thinks his performance could mark the start of a new era for rowing in Niger.

"There are many people who want to start rowing because I have come to the Olympic Games," he said.

"We will start when I get back. We just have to wait for the boats to arrive."

Keep an ear out for a wide variety of music at London 2012, from the national anthems recorded by the London Philharmonic Orchestra to “Out of a Rainbow”, the song of mascots Wenlock and Mandeville. But will anything beat the music that greeted water polo teams as they entered the arena in 2008? Beijing’s brilliant choice: the theme from the movie “Jaws”.

The slowest marathon in history?

If you think that’s a long time, try the lifetime it took Japanese runner Shizo Kanaguri to complete the 1912 marathon. Kanaguri collapsed in the Stockholm race and reputedly woke up the next day in the house of a farming family who took him in. Having returned to Japan without telling the organisers, he was officially listed as missing by Swedish authorities. It wasn’t until 1966 that Kanaguri, long after his retirement, finished the race. Invited by a television company to complete the course, he accepted. His finishing time: 54 years, 8 months, 6 days, 8 hours, 32 minutes and 20 seconds.

Barry Eva (Storyheart)

My Blogs:

Book Information and Things UK - Across the Pond

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Funny, Weird Or Just Interesting News From Around the World - Laugh I Thought My Trousers Would Never dry

Sunday, July 29, 2012

Olympics 2012 - 7


It isn't just Chris De Burgh who is going on about a "Lady In Red" it seems the Indian contingent in the Olympic parade are also crating a flap about "a lady in red".

It would seem that during the parade a lady wearing a red top which stood out in contrast to the Indian team's yellow saris or blue blazers, joined the parade and walked next to India's flag-bearer, wrestler Sushil Kumar.

It now turns out the woman who appeared in India's Olympic contingent in the opening ceremony was a cast member in the event, London 2012's

Seb Coe stated.

"She was a cast member who got "slightly over-excited".

Criticism has erupted as seats at the Olympic Games have been left empty and athletes have performed in front of less than capacity crowds from the first day of competition.

It tuns out most of these are down to sponsors and Olympic officials not turning up and the Olympic committee are following up to make some of these tickets available for the many who are still trying to attend an event.

Not that "scalpers" are making a profit. A German man and a Slovakian woman were charged Saturday by British police over alleged attempts to illegally resell tickets to the Olympic opening ceremony, while 16 others have been arrested in the last two days over similar offenses.

Scotland Yard said it had also detained 11 men on Saturday over suspected ticket fraud — two have been bailed while inquiries continue, one has been freed and eight are being questioned.

"My team has been working tirelessly to clamp down on ticket touts. We have been, and will continue to seek out and take robust action," Det. Supt. Nick Downing said.

"Ticket touting is illegal and is a clear exploitation of those who genuinely wish to experience the games first-hand," he said.

Barry Eva (Storyheart)

My Blogs:

Book Information and Things UK - Across the Pond

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Funny, Weird Or Just Interesting News From Around the World - Laugh I Thought My Trousers Would Never dry

Saturday, July 28, 2012

Olympics 2012 -6

 

So the opening ceremony has taken place and it seems that most of world enjoyed the format the fun, the thought that her majesty the queen might possibly parachute into the stadium and so much more. Her in the USA it would have been great to see it live like the rest of the world… BUT NBC in their financial wisdom held off until US prime time some 5 hrs later, so it was over and done before in the United States were able to see the wonderful spectacle. In my search for some form of live broadcast I came across TV Chile which on the program news advertised the opening ceremony but it proved to be some soap opera where the men seemed to ware weird pullovers and the entire female cast had on scarves.

This “lack” of coverage type of issue within the USA media in the 2004 Olympics made headline, and I mean front page headline news around the world and is the one of the reasons the USA has not been granted the Olympics since. I have blogged about this issue in the past, and will go over the reason and what happened in a future blog.

Mean while what about day 1 and some weird news. Michel Phelps does not “so far” look like the champion he once was, and the Chinese machine is now spewing out unknown swimmers to take the pool by storm when Sixteen-year-old Ye Shiwen set a world record in the women's 400 individual medley.

Over at the rifle range, the noise of firing was mixed with the mixed with the cooing of Suryani Mohammed Taibi as she tried to settle her unborn baby from kicking her as she attempted to take part in the 10-meter air rifle. Not only is Taibi one of the few pregnant women in Olympic history, but she is also the most pregnant woman in Olympic history. Sometime in the next five weeks the shooter from Malaysia is going to give birth to a girl. The girl already has a name: Dayana Widyan.

Dayana Widyan has grown so large inside her mother that Taibi’s coach Natalia Zhukova worried her student might have her baby before the Olympics even began.

Back to the opening ceremony; don’t forget I did let you know that Mary Pippins might be needed to defend us in a previous blog. I’ll tell you something else… I think the most certain bet of 2012 is that Danny Boyle will receive a knighthood by the end of the year.


Barry Eva (Storyheart)

My Blogs:

Book Information and Things UK - Across the Pond

Book and a Chat Radio Show Guests - A Book and a Chat

Funny, Weird Or Just Interesting News From Around the World - Laugh I Thought My Trousers Would Never dry

Friday, July 27, 2012

OLYMPICS 2012 - 5

 

What has been around the world, has three sides and 8000 holes?

Answer the Olympic torch

Ed Barber and Jay Osgerby, designers of the London 2012 torch, explained that the triangular shape of the torch is for the three times London has been the host city - 1908, 1948 and 2012 - and the 8,000 holes in it match the number of relay runners.


London has become a hot ticket since it won the honor of hosting the 2012 Summer Olympics. Getting to the Games by plane from just about any corner of the globe can cost quite a big chunk of change if you don't have enough cash or frequent flyer miles to get you there. One Chinese man may have found a way around that, assuming you have super strong calves and a couple of years to spare.

Chen Guanming a 57-year-old farmer from the eastern village of Jiangsu, has made it to London just in time for the start of the Games today. He claims he got there on a rickshaw, according to the Associated Press.

His long journey started all the way back in 2008 during the Summer Games in Beijing. A British media outlet invited him to attend the Games in London but he couldn't pay for a plane ticket to get there. So in April 2010, he started pedaling toward Great Britain.

Chen told the AP that he had to traverse through some rough terrain to get to London, including flooding in Thailand and a dangerous snowstorm in Turkey, but he stuck through it and was able to ride his rickshaw all the way to France where he caught a ferry to get to London.

Of course, the irony is that after pedaling his rickshaw thousands of miles, there's no way he'll be able to find a parking space for that thing in London...

Before the games has been officially opened he first two world records of London 2012 have been claimed by South Korea in the men's archery ranking round. 

Im Dong-hyun, who is legally blind in one eye broke his own individual record by three points in Friday's ranking round, while in the team event, South Korea, who have won 15 gold medals since 1984 set a new world record for 216 arrows.

According to reports, nine athletes were told that their services would no longer be required on Wednesday due to a series of drug, doping, and other chemically-induced alterations were discovered in their small plastic bottle.

Barry Eva (Storyheart)


My Blogs:

Book Information and Things UK - Across the Pond

Book and a Chat Radio Show Guests - A Book and a Chat

Funny, Weird Or Just Interesting News From Around the World - Laugh I Thought My Trousers Would Never dry