Not Watching the Beijing Olympics

[Alinestra Covelia]

Xinhua's listing

[Alinestra Covelia]

BBC's listing, showing a slight British bias

[Japher]

[Grandpa Troll]

Originally posted by Japher

QFT

[Asher]

"I've been cheering for the Vancouver Canucks for how long? And they still have never won a Stanley Cup," said swimmer Brent Hayden, whose team is well on its way to being shut out here. "I still love them, and I hope Canadians can still think of us the same way."

Well, that explains it. The Canadian olympians compare themselves to the Vancouver Canucks. No wonder there's no winning attitude or results.

[Winston]

Fools. You're as bad as Denmark.

[Zero]

Originally posted by CrONoS


If you were free to pick between 1 gold medal or two bronze medal, what will you take?

neither. I'd forfeit early and armchair command comfortably at home.

[Ben Kenobi]

No wonder there's no winning attitude or results.

Still not as bad as at Athens. We went 9 days before we got a medal and ended up with 14 overall.

[Asher]

How can you say it's "not as bad as Athens" when we have zero medals currently?

Logically that comment makes no sense. So far it's just as bad as Athens, certainly no better.

[Ben Kenobi]

It's certainly not worse then Athens, being on day 6 so far.

[Asher]

That is not what you said...

[Alinestra Covelia]

On a sadder note, the practice for one of the routines in the opening ceremonies may have paralyzed a dancer.

The routine is the one where a female dancer dances in Tang Dynasty costume on top of a carpet held up by dozens of men with carrying platforms.

Also (and this is not in the article) the woman had recently married a man who had already been through several divorces. There is a fair bit of speculation that he might not be the most devoted husband to a paralyzed wife.

NYT article

August 15, 2008
Behind the Opening Ceremony, a Paralyzing Fall
By DAVID BARBOZA

BEIJING — A talented, 26-year-old Chinese dancer was seriously injured during a rehearsal for the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic games just 12 days before the show, and faces the prospect of being paralyzed for the rest of her life.

Liu Yan, considered one of the country’s top classical Chinese dancers, was preparing the performance of a lifetime: the only solo dance in a four-hour spectacular that was expected to be seen by a global audience of more than one billion people.

But on July 27, during an evening rehearsal at Beijing’s National Stadium, the so-called Bird’s Nest, she leaped toward a platform that malfunctioned and plunged about 10 feet into a shaft, landing on her back, according to family members.

She was rushed to a local military hospital and underwent six hours of surgery but suffers from nerve and spinal damage.

Her head was not badly injured, and she can move her arms. But she has no feeling below her chest, she said in a hospital bed interview. She cannot move her lower body, including her legs.

Doctors have told her family it is unlikely she will ever walk again.

During an interview in her hospital room on Wednesday, Liu was teary-eyed and said she was in disbelief about the accident.

“I never imagined I could suffer such a tragedy,” she said.

The organizers of the opening ceremony initially asked witnesses and friends not to disclose the accident ahead of the Olympic Games on Aug. 8, according to people who have visited Liu in the hospital.

But earlier this week, after inquiries from several newspapers, members of the Beijing Olympic Committee visited Liu and announced that they would soon hold a news conference.

For the most part, the Chinese state-run news media have not reported the accident, although Peoples Daily, the Communist Party’s official organ, mentioned it in a small article on Tuesday.

Zhang Yimou, the show’s artistic director and one of the country’s leading film directors, expressed deep sadness following a visit with Liu’s on Monday.

“I feel sorry for Liu Yan, my heart is full of regrets,” he said in an interview. “I’m deeply sorry. Liu Yan is a heroine. She sacrificed a lot for the Olympics, for me, for the opening ceremony.”

In an earlier interview with the Chinese media, after his artistic direction of the opening ceremony won high praise from around the world, Zhang said he was pleased with the show but added that there were some serious problems in rehearsals for a show that involved more than 15,000 performers.

“I regret many things, many details of this performance, many things I could have done better,” he said. “For example, there are performers who were injured. I blame myself for that. It might well have been avoided if I had given more detailed instructions.”

Following the accident, Liu’s parents flew to Beijing from their home in northern China’s Inner Mongolia region. Her husband and friends were seeking a specialist to help determine whether she can regain her ability to walk.

Liu, a graduate of the prestigious Beijing Dance Academy, was widely considered one of the country’s leading classical dancers. Dance experts call her movements incredibly fluid, and say her beauty radiates on the stage. Over the years, some of her performances have also been popular on YouTube.

She has won most of the nation’s top dance and drama awards, including the Lotus Cup.

She also performed last year at the country’s New Year’s Eve Gala, which is televised nationally every year and draws some of the country’s most famous singers, dancers and actors.

Liu, who recently married, is the only child of a judge and a doctor and grew up in northern China. She entered the middle school of the Beijing Dance Academy at age 11.

Her planned performance in the opening ceremony, The Silk Road, was the only solo dance in a show that was rich in traditional imagery and synchronized performances. Another dancer took her place.

Liu said it was a dream that she could be chosen for such a role. But Wednesday, she said she was hoping for a miracle, so that she might some day walk again.

“I hope one day I can just stand up like a normal person,” she said wiping away tears.

Chen Yang contributed research.

[Alinestra Covelia]

Originally posted by Asher

Today, China's Internet web forums lit up with anger.

"This is really the number one scandal of the Olympics and it will certainly shock the entire the world," said one outraged netizen with the name of Hu Zibo, on webforum tieba.Baidu.com this morning.

"The truth is this: It's just so sick," Hu wrote.

Chinese bloggers and commentators blamed organizers for manipulating the girls.

One blogger on China's Sina.com, Jiang Jiang, angrily wrote, "It's unfair that these two little girls should have to pay for adults' stupidity."

http://www.smh. com.au/news/ letters/hypocrit es-render- one-little- girl-an-ugly- duckling- another-a- fake/2008/ 08/14/1218307111 028.html

Hypocrites render one little girl an ugly duckling, another a fake

August 15, 2008

Sydney Morning Herald

Billions watch Olympic opening ceremonies and most expect success - indeed the sponsors demand it, the politicians require it and the viewers provide marketing opportunities. So why is there this nit-picking about the Chinese using miming and other established theatre techniques to ensure success?

At the opening ceremony of the Sydney Olympics, the Sydney Symphony was playing at the water cascade. When the carriage with the flame momentarily stalled on the way up, part of the apparatus was derailed and the plastic membrane which contained the cascading water was breached. Water flooded the performance area and the heavy-duty backstage power installations. Huge power-carrying cables running across the floor under the feet of the musicians were becoming submerged, and the moment the music finished the musicians were moved to less dangerous territory as the rising water saturated plugged connections.

Do we imagine that if the orchestra had been removed earlier, the show would have stopped? Or that if it had rained, the musicians would have sat there playing the music while moisture destroyed millions of dollars worth of instruments?

The fact is the ceremony was guaranteed to proceed by good production planning. The music was fully recorded in the preceding weeks and the Sydney Symphony was miming on the day. Director Edo de Waart was conducting to prompts and click-tracks in his headphones. It simply didn't matter on the night if the musicians didn't play a note, provided they looked like they were. I know because I was there.

This is normal for mega events and the big outdoor pop concerts around the world. China is not the inventor of this technique - they learnt from those who have done it before.

But worse than this duplicity, the two little girls have each been needlessly robbed of their individual pride: "I sang at the Beijing Olympics" has been rendered by brainless critics into "I am an ugly duckling" and "I am a fraud for miming".

We have some monster glass houses in this country and we should take care that China doesn't throw our stones straight back at us. Our media commentators richly deserve it for their one-eyed, simplistic, indecent China-bashing beat-up.

Martin Foster (Sydney Symphony musician, retired), North Sydney

[Winston]

Hypocrites render one little girl an ugly duckling, another a fake

Martin Foster can't tell apart popular fairytale metaphor and own left foot.

[DaShi]

I just wonder why they didn't go with a cuter girl than the one they used.