Rio 2016: Olympic Event

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil’s largest city, prepared for the 2016 Olympics with a heroic feat of urban removal, evicting hundreds of families from the town’s poor neighborhoods, the favelas. Rio certainly didn’t win the gold medal for human rights.

More:

“2016 Olympics: what Rio doesn’t want the world to see,” Johnny Harris, Vox

“How evictions have laid bare Rio’s real Olympic legacy,” Niko Kommenda, The Guardian

_____________
Short link: http://wp.me/p6sb6-oiX

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

Sports Medicine, Russian Style

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) recently reported that Russia’s secret service intimidated workers at a drug-testing lab and impersonated lab engineers, and a Russian drug test lab destroyed 1,400 samples, all to cover up positive drug tests by the country’s athletes. Russia’s athletes paid to make doping violations disappear, bribed anti-doping authorities to ensure favorable results, and Russian sports officials submitted bogus urine samples for doping team athletes. This was documented at the London Olympics, at Sochi, and during other athletic competitions. Given this long-term, state-sponsored, systemic culture of corruption, WADA called for banning Russian athletes from international competition, including the 2016 Rio Olympics.

The evidence is so strong that the council of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) suspended Russia from all international track and field competition by a vote of 22 to 1. Even Russian President Vladimir Putin has called for an internal investigation of his nation’s sports teams to identify individual culprits and pledged cooperation with international anti-doping sports bodies.

Surfing at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics?

The organizing committee for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo has recommended adding five additional sports to the international athletic competition:  Baseball/softball, karate, sports climbing, skateboarding, roller derby and surfing.

More:

“One Step Closer: Surfing In The 2020 Olympics,” Jake Tellkamp, Surfing Magazine

“Surfing included in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games,” Surfer Today

“Surfing In Line To Ride The Waves To Olympic Gold In 2020,” Jill Scanlon, HuffPost Australia

“World Surf League relishes chance to showcase surfing to Olympic audience at Tokyo 2020 Games,” Anthony Pancia, ABC News (Australia)

“Surfing as an Olympic Sport for the Tokyo Games?” Bill Dorman,  Hawaii Public Radio

“Surfing and skateboarding among proposed additions for 2020 Olympics,” David Wharton, Los Angeles Times

“Surfing makes cut for Tokyo Games but not squash,” Jacquelin Magnay, The Australian

_______________

Short Link: http://wp.me/p6sb6-mdP

Image (“The Great Wipeout Off Kanagawa, after Hokusai”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

Add to: Facebook | Digg | Del.icio.us | Stumbleupon | Reddit | Blinklist | Twitter | Technorati | Yahoo Buzz | Newsvine

Olympic Skateboarding?

The organizing committee for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo has recommended adding five additional sports to the international athletic competition:  Baseball/softball, karate, sports climbing  fantasy football, surfing and skateboarding.

More:

“Olympics: Skateboarding & surfing among possible Tokyo 2020 sports,” BBC News

________________

Short Link: http://wp.me/p6sb6-mdE

Image (“Woman with a Skateboard, after Fernand Léger”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

Add to: Facebook | Digg | Del.icio.us | Stumbleupon | Reddit | Blinklist | Twitter | Technorati | Yahoo Buzz | Newsvine

Olympic Rockers

On Friday all eyes will be on Sochi’s Ice Cube Curling Center as Canada takes on Great Britain in the Men’s Olympic Curling Finals.

That’s how hip Curling is now. The sport’s venue is named after a famous Rap star.

Related:

“Curling: Right on the Button,” Kristi Finefield, Library of Congress blog

Sir David Attenborough describes Olympic curling [video]

“Curlers more likely to hurt themselves than lugers, speed skaters,” Christopher Ingraham, Washington Post blog

“Getting to the Core of Olympic Curling Stones,” Julie Leibach, Science Friday

“Why Curling Ice is Different Than Other Ice,”  Smithsonian Magazine, Erica R. Hendry

World Curling Federation website

____________

Shortlink: http://wp.me/p6sb6-iSu

Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

Snow Shortage in Sochi

Today in Sochi, the Pearl of the Russian Riviera on the Black Sea, the temperature hit 63 degrees Fahrenheit. Nice for folks who came to enjoy the subtropical climate, palm trees, historic hotels and spas, and wide beaches; not so good for the Winter Olympic Games.

The snow cover is so slushy that Olympic officials have tapped into Sochi’s Strategic Snow Reserve. Many Americans would gladly donate the deep snow that currently covers their cars, sidewalks, and roadways, but that’s impractical due to Sochi’s strict “Buy Russian” policy. Shipping snow to Sochi from Russia’s subarctic climate zone via Trans-Siberian Express would take too long; maybe they can use some of those Soviet-era cargo blimps.

More:

“Sunkissed beachgoers strip off in Sochi as hot weather turns ski and snowboard runs into slush,’ Dan Bloom, Daily Mail

__________________

Short link:  http://wp.me/p6sb6-iP5

Image: Sochi Intourist Travel Brochure, 1937.

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

Add to: Facebook | Digg | Del.icio.us | Stumbleupon | Reddit | Blinklist | Twitter | Technorati | Yahoo Buzz | Newsvine

Sochi

Sochi, on the Black Sea, is the Pearl of the Russian Riviera, with a subtropical climate, palm trees, historic hotels and spas, and wide beaches. Just the place to hold the Winter Olympics!

Now Sochi has a trio of ugly mascots, couples toilets, rampant corruption, 70,000 gallons of borcht,and a torch that’s been to outer space, but but no garlic picking, booze, dogs, yoghurt or gay people. In Sochi, Olympic Corruption seems to be this year’s demonstration sport.

 Other Sochi developments:

“Freezing Sochi: how Russia turned a subtropical beach into a Winter Olympics wonderland,” Duncan Geere, The Verge

“Meet the man who plans to ski down Sochi’s slopes in a mariachi-style suit,” Allison Jackson, GlobalPost

“Will Sochi Have Enough Snow?” Tim McDonnell, Rolling Stone

“Welcome to Sochi, would you like a ceiling in your room?” Alphonso Van Marsh, CBS News

The Good, The Bad, & The Badminton

The modern Olympic Games have seen some scandals and controversies in the past, but as Laura McLay observes, “I never thought I’d hear the words ‘badminton’ and ‘scandal’ in the same sentence.”  In the Olympic Badminton preliminaries several national teams decided to throw matches in order to draw weaker opponents in subsequent rounds. The big-time birdie-chasers weren’t world-class cheaters, though, and the whole mess became a big shuttlecock-up. The woman athletes were so obviously unsporting that the IOC Racquet Squad threw them out of the Games. Two were from China, four from South Korea and two from Indonesia. The pair from China have been identified as Yu Yang and Wang Xiaoli, the world doubles champions.

Olympic Ceremony Symbolism

“The opening ceremony for the London 2012 Olympics was by turns spectacular and surreal,” observes Barry Neild. “It did a good job of stirring British hearts, but did the rest of the world have a clue what was going on?”

More:

“Did Olympics opener have hidden meaning?” Barry Neild, GlobalPost

Romney Charm, Offensive

Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney sought to demonstrate his statesmanship with a trip to the Old World, but he seems to have an odd sense of diplomacy. As a guest in the United Kingdom he opined that London’s arrangements for the 2012 Olympics were “disconcerting” and “obviously is not something which is encouraging,” and “it’s hard to know just how well” the Games will succeed.

Having arranged snowball fights at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City (population 190,000), Mr. Romney is well qualified to assess the 2012 Olympics in London (population 8,000,000). Certainly the organizer of London’s Games should have solved his logistical problems the way Mitt Romney did, by becoming a registered lobbyist and getting $1.3 Billion in earmarks from the national government. Ladies and gentlemen, that is superior business management.