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One of the most emotional moments from the London Olympics: Chinese hurdler Liu Xiang finishes the 110-meter hurdles on one leg after crashing into his first obstacle and injuring his achilles on Tuesday. At the 2008 Olympics, he’d failed to clear a single hurdle, even though just four years prior, at the 2004 Games, Liu became the first Chinese man to claim a gold medal in track and field. This time around, he hobbled to the finish and was met by Balazs Baji of Hungary, who raised Liu’s hand in the air to declare him an honorary winner.
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Forget the face paint. These spectators take national pride to new heights with gaudy, sometimes inexplicable, full-body attire.
12 ridiculously costumed Olympic fans: A slideshow(Source: theweek.com)
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Whether it’s a minor stumble or a major face-plant, falling during the Olympic games usually means only one thing — goodbye gold.
Here, 10 epic falls from the London Olympics
(Source: theweek.com)
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“On Sunday, Usain Bolt upheld his record as the world’s fastest man in front of a worldwide television audience of 2 billion people. Alas, none of them were watching it in America.” —Tim Stanley at Britain’s The Telegraph.
NBC’s hoary tape-delayed coverage of the Olympics has provoked an assault of complaints, particularly in the Twitterverse, where the network has become synonymous with the hashtag #NBCfail. And compared to the BBC, Britain’s state-funded broadcaster, which offers its audience as many as 24 separate live feeds on a variety of media platforms, NBC looks especially old-fashioned. The BBC’s goal is to air every second of every event as it happens, giving its audience “a more contemporary — even futuristic — TV Games,” says Eric Pfanner at The New York Times.
How the BBC crushed NBC and brought Olympics coverage into the future
(Source: theweek.com)
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Cartoon of the day — Squeezing into the Olympic spirit
CAMERON CARDOW © 2012 Cagle Cartoons(Source: theweek.com)
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Twitter has become the go-to place for people to gripe about, well, anything: Bad movies, political hypocrites, vegan restaurants, NBC’s coverage of the London Olympics, and much more. But recently, a top target of Twitter kvetching has been Twitter itself.
The story begins on Friday, when Los Angeles–based British journalist Guy Adams tweeted a series of bitter complaints about NBC’s decision to delay airing the Olympics until primetime; on Sunday, Twitter suspended Adams’ account, citing a complaint from NBC; by Tuesday, after tweeps had excoriated Twitter, both NBC and the social network had relented and Adams returned triumphantly to the Twittersphere.
What the Guy Adams controversy means for Twitter and the future of free-tweeting
(Source: theweek.com)
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Usain Bolt of Jamaica sprints to the finish line to win the men’s 4x100 meter relay at the World Championships in September 2011, where his team set a new world record of 37.04 seconds. REUTERS/Phil Noble
Scientists say we may soon reach a point when setting an athletic benchmark will be a rarity. “At a certain point, we’ll have rolled the dice so many times that the chance of our beating our best score drops close to zero.”
The science behind breaking records
(Source: theweek.com)
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NBC’s coverage of the London Olympics is infuriating tech-savvy sports fans, who have branded the network’s coverage of the games with the embarrassing Twitter hashtag: #NBCFail.
Because London is several hours ahead of the United States, most big events happen during America’s morning or early afternoon. And while NBC is showing these events live via (sometimes glitchy) online streams, the network isn’t broadcasting them on TV until primetime — when many fans already know the results. Among the other gripes: NBC’s questionable decision to edit out an opening ceremony tribute to victims of a London terrorist attack, and Brian Williams’ on-air spoiling of a swimming event’s results before the tape-delayed broadcast. Is NBC blowing the $1.18 billion it invested to air the games stateside?
Is NBC botching its coverage of the Olympics, or does the network know exactly what it’s doing?
(Source: theweek.com)
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A diver trains at the Aquatics Center before the start of the London Olympic Games…
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GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney hoped to kick off his trip overseas on a high note with a friendly visit to America’s British allies. Instead, a series of missteps have earned him derision in the British press. First, an anonymous Romney aide told the Telegraph that President Obama doesn’t appreciate the shared “Anglo-Saxon heritage” of the U.S. and the U.K., a charge Romney quickly disavowed. Next, Romney questioned whether London was up to hosting the Olympics, triggering prickly pushback from Prime Minister David Cameron.
Among other stumbles: Romney called Ed Miliband, head of the opposition Labor party, “Mr. Leader,” suggesting that he had forgotten Miliband’s name; he publicly acknowledged meeting with the head of Britain’s super-secret MI6 intelligence service — a real no-no; and, for good measure, he talked of “looking out of the backside of 10 Downing Street” — prompting reporters to inform him that, “in Britain, ‘backside’ means ‘ass.’”
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In celebration of the beginning of the London Olympics, famed Czech artist David Cerny fashioned an athletic tribute to the city out of a London double-decker bus. For the sculpture, titled “London Boosted,” Cerny attached two huge robotic arms, an engine, and numerous wiring and suspension tools to the 1957 double-decker bus, which he bought from a previous owner in the Netherlands. The sculpture’s bulging, engine-controlled arms allow it to do push-ups at a 45-degree angle while emitting recorded groans for passersby.
“There is one common exercise for every sportsman in the world, and that is push-ups,” Cerny tells Reuters.
The installation will be featured outside the Czech Olympic headquarters in north London, exercising for the Olympic city until it runs out of steam. Watch!
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With the 2012 Summer Olympic Games now just days away, many Londoners are feeling anxiety and regret. A recent poll found that half the city’s residents are not interested in the Olympics at all, and 42 percent think the city should never have bid for them.
“It’s a major disaster,” said documentary filmmaker Iain Sinclair. “You don’t need this vast, top-down structure spending billions of pounds to obliterate a landscape.”
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After two intense days of competition, 16-year-old Gabby Douglas — the “flying squirrel” — took the top spot on the U.S. women’s gymnastics team, narrowly besting national champion Jordyn Wieber. Douglas’ fierce talent, winning smile, and endearing “happy dance” made her a crowd favorite. Douglas and Wieber join McKayla Maroney, Kyla Ross, and Aly Raisman on the teenaged “fabulous five” gymnastics team.
6 heartbreaking and inspiring moments from the Olympic trials
