Olympics 2008

The media, most especially the American media, are going hysterical over the Gold Medal haul being racked up by the American swimmer, Michael Phelps. The 11th Olympic gold medal that he won on the day this review was written makes him the holder of the record for the greatest number of Olympic gold medals of all time, beating the previous nine of athletes, Paavo Nurmi and Carl Lewis, swimmer, Mark Spitz and gymnast, Larysa Latynina. What makes this, it would seem, all the more remarkable is that he has achieved this record in such a short period of time, in just two Olympics. It does appear to demonstrate such a clear superiority over his competitors that it ...  Read the complete review

The Olympics are going to be held in Beijing for the first time in the history of the event. There have been quite a few protests taken place because of the human rights violation record of China but once the games begin all eyes would be focused on the athletes. Their performance would be what counts. There are a few countries that would be vying for the total medal count. This would include the US, Russia and China, the host nation. To try and figure out who would end up with the most medals, I am just going to got back and look at the record for the number of medals counts for the favourite countries to lead the medal count. The last three ...  Read the complete review

I'm all for China getting the games as it's the best way to bring some sort of democracy there, its recent boom party down to it being awarded the games six years ago. The Tiananmen Square slaughter was not because China didn't want capitalism but they wanted it too quick. The frightened government has to keep control of one billion people somehow. China now bankrolls the world's economies and they will soon be the next superpower. That to me is a country that deserves the Olympics. Their human rights record is not about hating and exploiting their own people like you see in the third world but purely crowd control. They are one fifth of the world's population and one ...  Read the complete review

I was lucky enough to have business in Beijing in the summer of 2006 and witnessed the build up to what will be the most amazing world-wide spectacle (sporting or otherwise) of the decade and quite possibly the century. China and the Chinese China is well known as an ancient country with a civilization several thousand years old, with evidence of sport going back over 4,000 years. However, China's Olympic history has been brief, after having only started to participate in 1984 at the Los Angeles games (Taiwan competed as China prior to this) and in Athens 2004 won 35 Gold medals (17 silver, 14 bronze) coming only second to the USA. ...  Read the complete review