The World Competes

The 2000 Olympic track.

The Americans who raced in the women’s 4×400m relay at the 2000 Sydney Olympics have a reason to smile today: they will not have their medals taken away from them, even though their teammate Marion Jones did lose her medals for doping.

It wasn’t until 2003 that the IOC decided to take the medals away from all runners if one of the racers was disqualified. This case also follows precedent: on the gold-medal winning men’s relay team, US runner Jerome Young was retroactively banned from competing in the Olympics after it was discovered that he had been using steroids in 1999.

No word yet as to whether Crystal Cox’s relay teammates from 2004 will lose their medals: it was after the IOC decided to disqualify all of the medalists for the doping violations of one person, but she was an alternate on the team.

So the Youth Olympic Games (YOG) in Singapore are only 30 days away. Although I like the idea, I still have no clue of what to expect.

The Youth Olympics are billed as a less-stressful version of the Olympics for younger players. The Summer Youth Olympics this August will be the first ones. I do know that they will be broadcast on 2010 Singapore Youth Olympics on Squidoo. There’s not too much to talk about yet, but we’ll see what happens in 30 days.

Shannon Bahrke, who you might remember won a silver medal at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics and a bronze medal at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, is retiring from mogul skiing. Although she will be leaving athletic competition, she has plenty of things that will keep her busy. Her brother, Scotty Bahrke, is still competing.

She is currently engaged to Matt Happe, and plans to marry him in Hawaii on September 10, 2010. The two run Silver Bean Coffee together.

She would like to have kids in the future, and is interested in being an Olympic commentator.

Cute Fruity Singapore by representmycountry

The very first Youth Olympics in Singapore is just around the corner. I know that the Olympic news has been sparse recently; I’m sure that it will pick up soon. In the meantime, if you are creative, and are good at coming up with slogans, you can win your very own Youth Olympic Games T-Shirt!

The Youth Olympic Games on Facebook is holding a slogan contest. They will be choosing one winner weekly. If you win, you will get a t-shirt with the YOG logo on the front, and your slogan on the back!

If you’re not good at slogans, you can still get a Singapore t-shirt on Zazzle, like the one on this post. It’s not the Olympics logo (that would be a violation of copyright; they take those off Zazzle), but you can customize it the way you like before you print it.

It’s time to dust off any Olympic history books that you might have, because history has changed. The U.S. team of Elise Ray, Amy Chow, Kristin Maloney, Dominique Dawes, Tasha Schwikert-Warren, and Jamie Dantzscher, who originally placed fourth at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, are now bronze medalists. Congratulations!

In 2000, China won the bronze medal. While some of the gymnasts looked young, they were able to prove that they were at least 16 and could participate. If you watched the 2008 Beijing Olympics, does this sound familiar?

In 2008, Dong Fangxiao applied to be an official at the Beijing Olympics. She turned in her paperwork to apply for the job, and guess what… she was not yet 24. Why would that be a problem? While people don’t have to be 24 to be an official at the Olympics, they do have to be 16 to participate in the gymnastic events at the Olympics. Dong was one of the bronze-medal winning gymnasts in 2000. If she wasn’t yet 24 in 2008, that means that she wasn’t yet 16 in 2000, and she wasn’t eligible to participate in those Olympics.

The International Olympic Committee can work very slowly. While they discovered this two years ago, they finally removed the bronze medal from the 2000 Chinese team today and awarded it to the United States, who placed fourth.

Dong Fangxiao did not win any other medals in the 2000 Olympics. She did place below the medal level in some of the other events; I’m assuming that in the official records, she will be disqualified in those events and other Olympians will be upgraded.

As far as the 2008 Olympics go, the IOC still accepts the passports of the gymnasts from that Olympics; however, a blogger did discover documents that showed that a couple of the gymnasts were underage. I personally believe that a couple of the passports were falsified. Should information come out that Chinese gymnasts were underage, those gymnasts would likely lose their medals as well.

Juan Antonio Samaranch, who was head of the IOC from 1980 to 2001, died in Barcelona on Tuesday at age 89. His condition started to go downhill on Sunday, when he was admitted to the hospital.

Samaranch oversaw the Olympics during a time of upheaval; many changes were made during his time as IOC chair. In 1980 and 1984, boycotts kept several countries away. During his watch, professionals started to be allowed to compete. The Olympic schedule changed as well; rather than having a winter and summer Olympics every four years during the same year, the Olympics are now staggered. Several events were also added to the Olympics.

I personally started watching the Olympics during his term… although I was in preschool before that time, so I wouldn’t have remembered much anyway. My earliest Olympic memories were from the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics; I carried the American flag for the torch relay kickoff in Los Angeles for the 1996 Atlanta games, and I was able to visit the 2000 Sydney Olympic site while it was being built.

Olympic fans owe a debt of gratitude to this man, who brought the Olympics closer to where they are today.

The 2014 Sochi Olympic organizers were initially planning on building the world’s fastest, most difficult track for the next Olympics, but after the death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili, they are changing their plans. They still intend on building a course that is “technically very demanding”, but they are being careful to build a course that is safe.

The Olympic organizers plan on building the course as soon as possible. In fact, they hope to open the track and hold competitions on it by 2011.

In my view, building a safe track is a good idea. No matter what kind of track you have, the top Olympians will still be able to go down the track faster than your average bear. While the Whistler track is not extremely dangerous for the medal contenders, it is dangerous for people from the smaller countries (like Georgia) and from countries that don’t have well-developed luge programs. We can’t expect Felix Loch performance (he won the gold) from a Jamaican luger. The track needs to be safe for the Jamaican, as well as those that have a chance at the medal.

If you’re planning on attending the 2012 London Olympics, you might want to sign up for ticketing information. They will be going on sale in 2011, so you still have some time, but you might want to sign up now, so you won’t forget.

If ticket sales for London are anything like they were for Vancouver, people in the UK will be eligible to buy the tickets first. There will be plenty of tickets for people in other countries; not all tickets will be released at once. To get the best tickets, you might need to buy a package that includes airfare and hotel. How ticket sales are actually handled will depend on the country that you live in.

The only credit card accepted at the Olympic games is Visa. If you don’t have a Visa card, you will have to get one to pay for the games online. If you don’t like credit card debt, Visa debit and prepaid cards will work just as well as a regular credit card… so, if you don’t have a Visa credit card and your debit card is a Mastercard, you can always go to the grocery store and buy one of those prepaid cards… but you have a year to get one. At the games, the Official Olympic stores… same thing; they only take Visa cards or cash.

There will be free events, like cycling and the marathon.

To express your interest in 2012 London Olympic games tickets, visit tickets.london2012.com.

If you missed the Paralympics and live in the USA, NBC is going to air a 90-minute highlight show tomorrow, April 10th, from 3:30-5 PM EST. Central and Mountain times usually are a little different, so you might want to check out your schedule to find out the details.

If you live in the USA, then you probably missed the Paralympics completely… unless you watched it online. As far as I know, NBC showed no Paralympic events on television, and if you were interested, you’d have to watch it online. It’s a shame, because many of the Paralympic athletes have quite inspiring stories. Hopefully they will be able to capture that with their highlight show.

At least they’re showing this. I’ll be over at Glenn Beck’s American Revival tour for the day, so I’ll have to catch it on Tivo.

I found this photo series about the Evolution of Bobsled over at teamusa.org. It has 30 years that range from 1928 to the present day.

It’s amazing how a sport evolves over time. I was very surprised with the first photo from 1928. The sledders are practically laying on top of each other. Even by 1932, bobsleds were designed so that the athletes were at least sitting up. They weren’t the most aerodynamic of designs, but at least they had a place to sit.

I hope that you enjoy the link.