Beijing Olympic Games Opening Ceremony

The Beijing Olympic Games are finally underway and boy, did they put on quite a show for their Opening Ceremony! It helps when the host country has a storied history like China. I've been a veteran Olympic Game watcher of previous Olympiads and I have to say this ranks one of the best. From the opening drummers, the themes of the four Chinese inventions: gunpowder, paper, movable printing type, compass, it was nice to learn what the country was about. The precision in which they did everything was just amazing... I also noticed they used a lot of children in the Opening Ceremony. I guess that with all it's gloried history and recent troubles with human rights issues, China is looking forward to making amends with the future generation.

The Olympic cauldron was lit by Li Ning, a legendary Chinese gymnast from the Los Angeles Games. It was really neat how it was lit too. He was hoisted in the air by wire fu and he mimicked running a lap around the birdnest Olympic stadium as a paper scroll unfurled. It must have taken a lot of strength to keep the legs moving and also the arm up.

In all, it the Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony was a very impressive fusion of history and art. You passed the first hurdle Beijing, and it went off without a hitch. Congrats. Prove the naysayers wrong the rest of the way!

Bad Luck Beijing

It seems as though the Beijing Olympics can't buy a break. There have been earthquakes, floods, train wrecks, and protests. There was even a joke that the Beijing FUWA mascots were bad luck instead of good luck as each of the mascots had some sort of motif dealing with the tragedies.

Now the latest incident is despite putting billions into security, there was an attack by a Muslim ethnic group in a Chinese city near the Afganistan-Pakistan border. 16 Chinese border officers were killed. I guess the media will be all over this one and security will get even more antsy.

This also does not include the leaked video of the opening ceremonies and the ever looming clouds of pollution. Will it or won't it dissipate in time? All this bad luck and the Games haven't even opened yet!

Allowing Steroids in the Olympics

I turned on the TV today and was hooked on a documentary called "The Man Whose Arms Exploded". Now I had also read an article recently that this guy got arm transplants so I had automatically related the two events together thinking it was a medical special. To my surprise, it was a show on bodybuilding and steroids. This 5'5 guy had 28" arms and looked like a freak in general. Finally, one arm exploded when he got an infection and his biceps and triceps looked like they had been inflated to the size of small melons.

So where am I getting at this? I wonder whose athletic career is going to explode for the worse at the Olympics. My thoughts on steroids at the Olympics is just screw it. Let them do it. Aren't we skeptical of the Olympic winners anyways? I don't even know if any Olympic medal winners can be clean. And don't we want a spectacle? Don't we like to watch trainwrecks? Let them get juiced up out of their minds and push the limits of human capabilities. Or die trying. Our kids revere these athletes but then they can see who these freak shows really are and what steroids can truly do to you.

Let's peal back the layers of hypocrisy and not have our kids worship false idols. And in the meantime, let the athletes put on a good show.

Beijing Getting a Bum Rap

So I've been really excited about the Beijing Olympics and I've been following it closely in the newspapers and online. Boy, for a city that's getting so much flak, you'd think that they would have awarded the Games elsewhere.

Let's see, it beat out Toronto (sniff, it could have been in Canada), Paris, Istanbul and Osaka. All these cities would have been a lot less controversial. Kind of makes you wonder that a city/country with all that humans rights violations, pollution, censorship problems could be awarded the Olympics.

I remember that a few years ago, the ex-IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch was accused of corruption but was cleared of wrongdoing. I also remember reading about bribing votes for the host city. The thought is in the back of my mind that maybe this is still going on.

Now don't get me wrong, I do think that the criticism Beijing has received up to this point has been excessive and that's before the Opening Ceremonies. You also can't deny that China is becoming an economic superpower. It seems right that the Games be awarded to it. However, did the IOC really believe that magically, the country will change it's ways, free Tibet, lift censorship, become Green suddenly? Please.

And now one of the most ludicrous thing I read recently was that someone tested positive for anabolic steroids because he ate a piece of barbecue meat from Beijing! That's the best excuse I've heard yet. First off, the athlete was Chinese so I didn't think it was right piling the criticism onto the cuisine of your own country. Second, because he was Chinese and he was accostumed to eating Chinese food on a regular basis, why didn't he test positive for steroids before?

So while I don't agree with some of the Chinese politics, I think the city is getting a raw deal. The IOC knew what it was getting into and reform doesn't happen overnight. Lets just wait and see what happens at the Games and then people can say I told you so.

Welcome to Olympic Glory!

Hello, and welcome to my Olympic Glory blog. Every 2 years (yes, I'm counting the Summer and Winter Olympics) I like to play the armchair Olympian. I watch sports that I normally wouldn't watch on TV like volleyball, swimming and heck throw in some kayaking in there. But there's something compelling about the Olympics. I don't know if it's national pride or the drama of watching athletes fulfill their dreams or crash and burn. It just makes good sports drama. So I'll be glued to the TV set this August to the Beijing Olympics. I am Canadian and I don't think our Canadian team will do all that well. That's okay, I'm banking on the Vancouver 2010 Games. While I don't expect many podium finishes from our Canadians, I'll still be tuning in to the greatest sporting show on earth. Join me as I share my opinions on the Games to come!