The Beijing Olympics was more than sports
September 1st, 2008 Posted in random
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I don’t know about you, but I was sucked to the screen while the Olympics was on (…not really, but I did see the obligatory Mens 100m dash).
One of the things I do remember is all the commotion before the Olympics, such as the lack of belief in China being able to clear the smog over Beijing, which they did (or partly at least), which is quite remarkable. Check out below a before/after picture of Beijing. (I manipulated the picture from the originals found here that is why they look a little “off”)
However what I remember (seeing as I am not a sports buff, this is probably not too surprising) most clearly about this year’s Olympics, was all the talk about boycotting the Olympics from various Head of States - Clinton and Obama even urged Bush to boycott the opening ceremony, but we all knew it was just show for the gallery, because no country can currently afford to make that stance against China! However, the US public was very vocal up to the Olympics started (and the was funny to see how US Media manipulated the medal rankings (by totals) from how it is normally done (by number of Gold medals) so to make it look like US was ahead), but I think the reason it the boycott ended up being warm smoke (or hot air if you will) is summarized in the a-pictures-says-a-thousand-words picture below
If you want to read/see more about the Olympics (the non-sports kind), I can recommend you check out the very different fast food you could get at the Olympics vs. your typical Olympic concession stands, or how about some of the very creative ads devised by entrepreneurial companies.
Now the only thing left to do is look forward to the next Olympic Games in 2012 in London.
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