An article I really liked on the Olympics

Three encounters that showed what the Games meant to China

It's over - final impressions and lessons-learnt

Well, the Olympics are over. Just wanted to share some final impressions and lessons learnt.

Final impressions

A great spectacle and fantastic way for China to "open" to the world. Many of the events produced amazing results (world records, olympic records), new heroes(e.g. Phelps) and quite some drama (e.g. Taekwondo's last day).

Most of the new stadiums, gymnasiums and locations were amazing: from the National Stadium (I still look at it in awe every time I go through the 4th Ring Road) to the Tennis Centre Court and many others.

So, what wasn't so good? Well, unfortunately the atmosphere wasn't so great. I think there were two reasons for this:
1) The lack of events outside close the locations (even in the Olympic Green, there wasn't much going on) and throughout the city. The limitations on company's activities and outdoor activities overall took a lot of the vibe that you typically get during these types of gatherings.
2) The lower number of foreigners versus other Olympics. There were few events where Chinese were not in majority and while this is not necessarily bad, it does diminish the impact of a truly multi-cultural event such as the Olympics.

I could call these the "Historical Games where China showed it is a super-power and the world welcomed it with open arms". Yet, ultimately the Games ended up being too orderly, sometimes close to being boring.

Although I enjoyed most of the events I went to and shouted like a mad man at a several of them, I would say that the Games were a bit disappointing, in particular because of the "too orderly" point I mentioned above.

Lessons-learnt

1) Buy less tickets: I had tickets to 21 sessions and I can assure that's way too much. Next time I will focus on 5 or 6 key sessions and that's it. The rest of the time I will try to go out and enjoy the city.

2) Focus on the "spectator-friendly and more exciting" Olympic events:
- Men's Basketball (quarter-finals and after);
- Women's Artistic Gymnastics (all-round individual or less ideal team or apparatus finals);
- Beach Volleyball (pretty much everything, but preference for men and after quarter-finals);
- Volleyball (women or men and either on preliminaries or semis and after), Table tennis (women or men and ideally finals - team or individual).

3) Do not go to certain events unless some dramatic happens to competitive landscape:
- Women's Basketball;
- Tennis - unless the atmosphere in London is very special and ATP finally gives the tournament a more tier-1 rating;
- Athletics - unless I get tickets right next to the track.

4) Only go if I have category A-equivalent tickets: unless the tickets are given to me for free, I would sincerely only go if I have the best type of seats. Even then, there is a chance your seat is crap, so why even play "russian roulette" going to category B or C.

5) Lower my expectations before the next Olympics: I acknowledge that my frustrations this time around were also strongly tied to my expectations about the Games. Next time I hope to have learnt my lesson.

Controversy and disgrace in Taekwondo heavyweight bouts

Well, what a day it was. Great bouts and fantastic Men's over 80 Kg final between Greece (the Goliath) and Korea (the David). David won, but there were some/one unhappy greek(s) that threw some bottles in and I am sure should have been detained by security, if security wasn't too shocked just looking at him and not doing anything.

Yet, I honestly don't think there was controversy here. There was somewhere else. The Chinese favorite in the Women's over 67 Kg who had seemingly won against a British contender in a quarter-final, lost after appeal from the British. There was booing afterwards - and not during the announcement since it was made in English - and half of the Chinese left the event.

The Chinese appealed on a quarter-final loss in the Men's competition to Cuba, one Angel Valodia Matos of whom we will speak much more below. The appeal was not upheld and that would be it, if the Chinese translator at the Stadium had not just told the audience about the appeal not being approved, having forgotten to also say what appeal it was about. The audience thought it was the British appeal on the Chinese Women's win and was over-joyed. Not so much overjoy, after the translator was forced by the officials to repeat the WHOLE announcement and not just the end.

The disgrace came in one of the Men's bronze medal matches between the aforementioned Cuban and Arman Chilmanov from Kazakhstan. The latter gentleman can only be considered lucky since he lost his only match of the day... the only one that finished that is, since he then won the Repechage with an injury from his opponent and then the Bronze medal with ... well, here we go: the Cuban got slightly injured on his foot while he was ahead on points. Apparently, and according to Taekwondo rules, he has 1 minute to be assisted (in this case inside the "ring"). When the 1 minute finished, the referee believed that he was not ready and decided to end the bout, which would obviously give the victory to the lucky opponent. The issue is that the Cuban was literally just getting ready so if at all beyond the 1 minute, it would have been literally by 1 second or so.

The Cuban and his coach started protesting straight away, and even before the bout had been called. What happened next can only be described as a very sad moment in these Olympics: the referee declares the bout finished and points to Chilmanov as the winner; Angel almost immediately kicks the referee in the face and although his coach tried to take him away (and only at that point tried to keep him away), tried kicking everyone around him; the judges came in and with a mysterious lack of security (I really don't know why there was so much in all the events, since when they were finally needed, nothing happened), Angel and his coach were taken from the "ring" side by WTF's secretary general - a gentleman, I may add, that was heroic enough to alone and just pointing his finger drive these two people (plus the Cuban "doctor) far from that ring (see picture); a GENTLEMAN that I have had the privilege of meeting in a flight to Seoul and who is unlucky for such unfortunate event but had thus the opportunity to show his strength of character.

The coach and the Cuban athlete waited in the sidelines for some time and delayed the programme. They finally left. Later in the evening, it was announced that it had been decided by the appropriate authorities, to ban this Cuban athlete and his coach for life from any WTF tournament or link. Furthermore, the athlete's records in the Olympics will be delete.

Although I believe the referee's decision was not correct, I absolutely agree with WTF's decision. Nobody can have these attitudes in any sporting event, let alone in the Olympics. The Cubans could have protested and even if they had lost, could have further appealed to higher instances. What they did - both the athlete and the coach - is not acceptable and was punished as all these behaviors should be.

All in all, a lot of drama, but also some great Taekwondo. V and I will be back.

Of Basketball and other things

Well, after watching the Men's Quarter-finals and today the Semi-finals, I can say I am impressed.

Men's Basketball has evolved significantly since I started watching in 86/88 and today there are strong teams all round: Spain, Lithuania and Argentina at the fore-front, but solid teams such as Greece and Australia, and future hopes such as China. I am also sure that Croatia will re-emerge, as well as Serbia and Russia.

Did I forget a team? Oh yes, the USA... In my opinion - a biased one I might add - they are still at a different level and when they brought a tremendous team to this event, people thought it was a done deal. Others reminded us of past failures, namely in 2004 and 2006 when they had also brought "great teams". None was truly right. We haven't seen the "destruction" that we saw in Barcelona '92 with the first (and for me still the only true one) dream team, but they have been dominant nonetheless.

However, the interesting aspect of their dominance has, in my opinion, not been their individual superiority (which they definitely have) but their focus during the games. They have been very focused throughout the tournament and respectful of their adversaries. Today I saw one of the Americans almost get into a fight with one of the Argentineans and the amazing thing was to see the rest of the US team on the field (all 4 of them) taking him out of the mess straight away and telling him to calm down and keep his head. I had seen a similar scene against Australia. Today, Mike K kept is "A stars" much longer than usual, truly respecting their opponent. The Americans never looked too much at doing "show" for the audience, but always took Argentina seriously. They even came out with an uncharacteristic shooting games which added to an amazingly tight defense gave them a significant early lead.

What about Argentina? Great team who lost Ginobili very early in the encounter with the US, but to be honest, I don't think the US would have lost today as I don't think they will lose on Sunday. They are too strong and especially too focused.

Some doubts on what really happened to Argentina's number 5. He left on his own feet, but I did not see him back on the bench. V and I think he might have pulled a "Liu Xiang", but who knows. My hat off to Scola and to Delfino, who pushed the "Pumas" to within 8 points of the US at a certain point and to a closer and more exciting match than the final 20 point deficit really shows.

Finally, a special mention to the man, Mr. Bryant, and in particular, in spite of having scored only 12 points, having been such a fundamental piece in the US team tonight. He defended Ginobili in what promised to be a very tough night for Argentina's number 5, defended strongly against Delfino and pushed Nocioni around like "he didn't mean too much". His connection with James, the rest of the team and the fact that he has opted, not only tonight but throughout the tournament, for a more supporting role with strong defense, helping the team in offense when needed (what a show he put on against Australia) and even as a true leader, should potentially still allow him to be the tournament's MVP. On Wednesday, he stayed on with the coaching staff to watch Argentina versus Greece and one can only but wonder how important his leadership has been for the US team to glue so dramatically well.

Spain has a shot at the US, but although I don't feel it will be another 30+ point difference game, I do feel the US will win. The key to Spain's success will be in significantly slowing down the Americans and making them take their shots. The problem for Spain is that their own game style is very American with either "run and shoot" or "push to the inside man and dunk/make easy shot". We shall see what happens.

When the most exciting moment of the session is changing seats... something is wrong

What a boring session. The women's basketball quarter-finals 1st session with the matches between China and Byelorussia, and Australia and Czech Republic, were painfully boring. Granted that China is playing well and Australia has a great team - although today it really didn't impress me.

Please note that the comments that follow are in no way a criticism of a country, of its athletes in general or a person in particular for that matter. The criticism is on a specific women's basketball team, full stop.

The Czech Republic women's basketball team - and please note this is the second time I watch them - is the worst team I have seen live in any sports event: they lack skill, any stamina and, to top it all, will ... to do basically anything that involves them fighting for the ball, fighting for possession. I watched the match (did I say it was the second one I watched live?) in absolute disbelief. They even managed to - and accidently, I might add - injure one of Australia's top players. The Byelorussian team is just like the Czech Republic but with the positive difference that it fights and therefore provided more excitement.

Some will think I am too harsh and others will defend that the basis for the Olympic vision is precisely that Participation is what matters... BUT I would allege that participation can only materialize if accompanied by true will and if the Byelorussians had some, the Czechs didn't have much and were therefore an extremely poor representation for a truly great country. Some years ago, in my home country, a coach and the team captain in another sport apologized to fans and to their citizens for the lack of focus and will they had demonstrated in a match. I would respectfully propose that the Czech team should do the same.

If I look at Mali, this truly poor - and I mean materially poor - team from Africa that lacked any clear discipline or competitive edge, I saw the absolute manifestation of the Olympic ideal: the fighting even when there is not much more to fight for, the energy to keep going, the "living every moment". My hat off to them for they showed a thing or two to some teams who actually made it to the quarter-finals.

My new seat ...

after complaining. It's a security seat so fingers crossed on security letting me stay here.

The worst seat of my olympics

How can they call this a seat? It's in a passage way between sections and is not even a category c but is a b. Shame on whoever did this.

The two most interesting events I have attended so far

Going into the 2 week, it's important to recognize the two most interesting events I have been to. Specifically:
- Beach volley: the atmosphere, the fun you have as part of the audience is quite unique. Adding to that, the quality of the players and the quasi-individual battle of one against the other. I know it's teams but it's as close as it gets to 1+1 versus 1+1. V and I really enjoyed it.
- Women's Artistic Gymnastics: the overall competition, the drama of the American and Chinese performances, the beauty of the individual skills made it for me the most enjoyable sport thus far.

A special mention to football with the Men's quarter-final between Italy and Belgium. Not the best match of all time, but still very exciting from end-to-end. A good demonstration that having younger players at the Olympics might not necessarily be a bad thing.

10 predictions until end of the Games

- Nadal will not win Olympic gold.
- Phelps will get his 8 gold medals.
- US will win both Men's and Women's Basketball competitions.
- China will win all 4 gold medals in table tennis - the two in teams and the two in singles.
- China will be number 1 in gold medals and total medals.
- The Athletics 100 meters world record will be beaten.
- Liu Xiang will not win the 110 m hurdles.
- Rosenthal/Gibb will win a medal for the US in Men's beach volleyball.
- Brazil will not win gold in football - male or female.
- Shawn Johnson will win Women's individual all-round Artistic Gymnastics competition.

Federer is out

Federer was just beaten in 2 sets by Blake. Americans rejoice with their last shot at a medal in the Male competition and for the Swiss the remainder of the competition is in doubles.

What a bad year for this guy. Truly amazing how this amazing player went from clearly best to absolutely beatable. As Courier once said when asked "It's all in the mind".

End of Olympic blogging

Given a lower number of hits than I expect as well as no comments (yes, yes), I decided it would be more useful to spend the rest of the Olympics organizing photos and videos I take from the events than to spend much time on blogging.

I will be posting some stuff, but not as meticulously as before.

Some random updates

- In Beach Volleyball, men world champions Rogers/Dalhauser from the US made for a good come-back after losing their first match. They won the second comfortably agains Heyer/Heuscher from Switzerland. In women, the Chinese double Tian Jia/Wang are doing well, thank you very much, although they lost the first set agains the Belgium pair.

- In Tennis, Venus and Serena are through to the third round with comfortable wins. The Chinese lose one of their representatives in women as Peng Shuais is beaten by Alize Cornet. Daniela Hantuchova again makes a mess out of it and loses to the unseeded Caroline Wozniacki. Wunder-kind Agnieszka was shown the way out of the Olympics by unseeded Francesca Schiavone. Match of the day will oppose Lleyton Hewitt to Rafael Nadal.

-In Artistic Gymnastics, the Men's team final was very much dominated by China who took Gold, followed by Japan and a US team that hadn't had a promising start but delivered at the end for a Bronze medal and narrowly relegating the German team to the wooden spoon. Korea, Russia and Romania were very close in what could have been a very different bronze medal setting.

The US-China Basketball thing

Well, there was eager anticipation in knowing how China would fare against the US and at home in both the Women and Men's competitions. The answer was unequivocal: not well. In Men, the US won by 31 points (101-70). Amongst accusations of arrogance from the American team (arrogance ?!), Mike K - the American coach - replied that the Americans dunked so much because there was, amongst others, this 2.26 m guy called Yao Ming that is quite good at blocking.

In the Women's competition, the anticipation was even stronger since approximately a month ago, China beat the US in the final of a preparatory tournament in Beijing. The story now was different, with the US winning by 45 points (108-63). V said "I had to change channels. The women were playing even worst than the men". V always gets these right.

Tennis on August 11th

I watched three matches at the evening session - all of which at Centre Court.

Venus Williams looked confidant in beating Timea Bacsinszky 6-3, 6-2. There were some good exchanges but pretty much one-way traffic.

Robby Ginepri was not able to keep up with Novak Djokovic for long in a straight set loss 4-6, 4-6. Robby seemed at times to have enough game for Djokovic but then he somehow didn't seem to want it enough.

Finally, Chinese sweetheart Li Na unexpectedly won against Svetlana Kuznetsova 7-6(5), 6.4 in what was another highlight for the Chinese audience who saw three out of the four Chinese women progress throughout the day.

In other results, Federer won comfortably and Nadal had to go the distance (3 sets) with the Italian Potito Starace.

Final comments to the mess around security for the 5 pm session and the recurring I have that volunteers, in their effort to keep things under control, create even bigger issues. The one I have seen a couple of times is the "bottleneck" one both going in to venue spaces (not venues themselves) and out where there seems to be either only one way or one way out. Clearly they haven't seen what happens when a stampede takes place.

Another note - and also a negative one - for the Chinese crowds in tennis. This isn't news, but clearly they are yet to understand the principle of silence in a tennis match and yesterday repeatedly shouted "out", "uhhed" and "ahhed" during several of the points between Li Na and Kuznetsova. Really, really bad and I hope the crowds can learn how to behave in the next few days or at least get strong referees that push them to do so.

Live from tennis centre court

Getting into the Olympic event sites

Not too bad, although there are two clear security areas - one to do thorough checking and the other one just for tickets. Still some strange procedures that make them take away any liquids and in particular some pills (they took some medicinal pills that looked just the same as normal pills and let us kept some pain killers). The reason they gave us on the pill side was that you can only bring one dosage, but we were not convinced with that... neither with their understanding of one dosage is.

Overall, good spirit all-around with obviously a lot of Chinese supporters from very young and very old. Very beautiful to see.

Women's basketball: Latvia vs. Russia

This was supposed to be a tight affair and although the basketball quality varied quite dramatically throughout the game, it ended up leaving up to its expectations.

The game was actually the tale of two women - both Latvians - and a team - the Russian one.
- The Latvians have Anete Jekabsone-Zogota has their key star, who had just scored 34 points agains the Russians a couple of weeks back in a Latvian win. Anete had, what can only be considered, a non-game... she scored 7 points with her first field goal coming in the last minute of the game!!! She was 1 from 12 in field goals and even in free-throws with a poor 63%. She compensated with 6 assists, but was never there. Why did this happen? The Russians put tremendous pressure on her at the beginning of the game and then she just imploded by herself. I hope she will came back.

- Yet the game was close, so another Latvian took the baton. Her name is Liene Jansone who scored 24 points with 53% in field goals, 50% on 2 points and an amazing 57% on 3 points with 4 converted. The problem was Jansone missed the critical shots at the end, allowing the Russians to claw back from behind most of the late 2nd quarter, 3rd and even 4th quarter.

- The Russian team was truly amazing and fought throughout the game, and even more strongly in the last quarter, to show that Basketball is still a team sport (a bit like the Argentineans and the Spaniards have been showing the US dream team and others in male basketball). Ilona Korstin and Tatiana Shchegoleva both finished with 13 points, with the latter having gotten 12 rebounds. The "American" Becky Hammon did well with 11 points and some crucial 3 points (3 converted out of 5) throughout the game. That said, clearly not fully part of the team yet with some difficulties in connecting with her colleagues at times.

Well and the final result was 62-57.

Women's Basketball: USA vs. Czech Republic

I had warned V that the exciting match was coming later (Latvia vs. Russia) and unfortunately I was right.


The Czechs started well being in advance 10-2 and the 13-4, but then the Americans woke up. Initially led by a low scoring, yet strong presence Lisa Leslie (2 points, 10 rebounds in the match) and a "Jordan like" Diana Taurasi (17 points, 54% field goals and 100% free throws), the US came back and took over the game.

The Czechs imploded in what V could only characterize as "Very bad! Very bad" and allowed fora massive 27 turn-overs. Not all can be explained by the strong American defense who got 13 steals. The Czechs simply weren't trying as hard to go for the ball and were considerably outplayed in the 2nd quarter and then dully "buried" in the 3rd and 4th.

Another thing to highlight was the male dream team was in the house and created quite the chaos during the break and at the end since the eager Chinese fans wanted to take photos of them ... or just get up. Some obliged.

Further strong performance on the American side by Sylvia Fowles with 16 points and 14 rebounds and an overall great ensemble. Still need to see them under more pressure, since this ended up being quite easy. Only mention on the Czech side goes to Eva Viteckova with 12 points and was actually playing half-decently.

The final score was a whopping 97-57.

Beijing Olympic Basketball Gymnasium: first impressions

The newly built Basketball Gymnasium is beautiful from the outside although probably less eye-catching that its brothers the National Stadium ("Birds nest") and National Aquatics Center ("Water cube").

Inside there is a functional Basketball gym with displays at both ends - the classical ones with names of players, fouls, points, etc - and large screens in the middle of the Gym.

The court looks a bit worn out for the competition that is just beginning, but overall seems to be fine with the players.

Nice basketball gym. Look forward to be further down in category A tickets though.

It's funny...

That the Chinese Basketball team is sponsored by Nike while Spain is sponsored by ... Li-Ning.

Well, China just won the Female match by 67-64 and Torrens from Spain stood out with 20 points and an amazing performance. Shame for Spain that the rest of the team couldn't strongly follow suit.

Opening: the best ever?

In my humble opinion, the one to beat was Barcelona with the amazing artistically innovative acts, the unique lighting of the flame and great performances (the anticipation of the Caballe-Mercury duet did not realize itself given Mercury's death, but that song is still in our mind). Was this enough to beat it?

The acts were quite amazing and more accessible than in previous Olympics: the visuals were great, the messages clear and the pace quite good. The lighting of the Flame by Li Ning was also beautiful albeit a bit too long (and I still missed the unforgettable Deng Yaping in the last part of the torch bearing... how was she forgotten?). The performances were disappointing... no Mercury-Caballe here. I know it's not fair since we are comparing what happened with what was supposed to happen (a sort of virtual memory) but anyway...

All and all, not sure it beat Barcelona - or that it didn't for that matter - but Zhang Yimou prepared and amazing show that was quite enjoyable and did not seem too long at a bit more than 4 hours. My hat off.

The Opening... almost there

We are all waiting in deep anticipation for the Opening ceremony in just little more than 2 hours. Despite the rumors of security threats, the hassle of tremendous measures that literally will close out Beijing within the first 3 ring roads from the outside (in some parts even to the 4th ring road)... despite not being able to go to the places where we were going to meet friends to share this experience... despite all that, we wait for this ceremony. The one that will not only start the Games, but "re-open" China to the world and show that China has come of age.

Ironic, no?

Olympics start tomorrow... not really

Well, the opening ceremony is tomorrow, but the Olympics started yesterday with the Football competitions for Women (yesteday) and Men (today).

China has done ok with a good win over Sweden in Women's football and a last-minute draw with New Zealand in Men (thanks to CCTV I thought for a part of the match they were playing Australia). The big story is the American Women - one of the pre-tournament favorites - having been beaten 2-0 by Norway. Norway is obviously a strong team, but nonetheless a surprising result.

Le pre lenotre

Overall great experience albeit pricey. Service started bad but improved dramatically. Food is extremely good by beijing standards.

Finally got my fuwas

My firm was nice enough to give me these. It was worth the waiting.

Remember "Thoughts"?

This was my website that started it all for me... the "digital storytelling days". You can now see it at http://web.archive.org/web/20010509190654/mega.ist.utl.pt/~njsgp/

Ok, poor web-design, Flash object that would make you cry (or laugh or both)... "How much more 'Mickey mouse' can you get?" - you are probably thinking.

Now people... it was the 90s so give me (and Miguel) some slack here.

Because I told you so...

I just went through another one of those "why do I have to travel so much?" episodes. While going through security at the KL International Airport on my way back to Beijing, I was stopped by security who told me "Sir, you cannot bring these liquids on board since you are going to Beijing".

I looked at him straight-faced and with early signs of rage.
"- Sorry?! These flasks are 100 ml or less. This is fine.
- Sir, the rules have changed, you cannot bring them on board since you are going to Beijing.
- That doesn't make any sense, I just flew FROM Beijing on Sunday and it was fine. Have the rules changed today?
- They changed (mumbled comments, not sure it was today, not today, etc)... You see it's the Olympics"

This threw me on a fit "The Olympics" - I thought. I am passionate about these Olympics and will attend a lot of events, but this is getting ridiculous.

I obviously followed up with: "I want to see the paper that says that or talk to your boss".

After 10 minutes of discussion with security and then with Malaysia Airlines, I was able to convince one of the Malaysian Airlines ground staff to help me and he finally got the boss to come.

At this stage, I was hoping for the worst, but the boss - clearly the boss as he was older and looked much wiser - was quite calm and nice. He did insist he could do nothing about it. That it was not, in effect, a decision made by Beijing but a decision made by the KLIA. I was obviously shocked and asked the fundamental question: "Why?"

He answered in the same tone: "Not sure Sir. It was a decision made by the superior".

I got confused and, for a second, thought God was somewhat involved in this. Maybe it was an act of Divine Intervention that I was losing my shaving cream, Tooth paste and perfume?!

I soon became grounded again and assured myself it had just been another idiotic decision by someone who clearly doesn't travel nearly as much as they should... just so they could observe the impact they have on people's lives with ... (you guessed it) their stupid decisions.

Anyway, the good news is that I'm now at home in Beijing and for the next 2.5 weeks. A motive for celebration.

Beijing weather revisited

In the past three days or so, Beijing weather has been quite amazing with blue skies and overall very sunny.

A good omen for the weeks to come... or so we all hope.

Mali is not that bad after all, until...

I was just watching the China-Mali game for the Diamond Ball Female Basketball tournament and was pleasantly surprised with how close Mali was keeping to the Chinese team as illustrated below.

But then... but then, the Chinese started playing real Basketball and the game ended 91-67.

Why am I interested? Well, I will be watching USA vs. Mali during the Olympics so just wanted to make sure it would be a bit more interesting... the conclusion is: probably not.

After the mess... order

Molly... Artistically

Disclaimer on my "coverage" of the Olympics
First of all, I am not going to cover anything. I will most likely have fun and in the process "blog" about it. I am not a journalist and have no aspirations of being one. That said, I will bring to those that read nein (not that many, are you?), my views on the Olympics, the events, the people, the nightlife, etc.

A couple of disclaimers so we are all aligned before we go for it:
1) I will post on my blog as soon as I can... it may not always be immediately the day of the event, but I will try to be disciplined.
2) I have strong team preferences in some cases:
-- Portugal overall... or what would I be otherwise? If there is a Portuguese athlete or team involved, I will always be skewed towards him/her/them.
-- U.S. in many events, but in particular in Basketball - male and female - Beach Volleyball, Volleyball, etc.
-- China in some events, such as Table Tennis - male and female. A total fan of Zhang Yining, Wang Nan and Wang Liqin.
-- Federer in Tennis... I am definitely not a Nadal fan.
-- There might be others, but one thing is for sure, I do appreciate a good fight and if the better man/woman/team wins and it's not mine, not a problem... definitely not a sore loser... or at least, I think.
3) I will also try to post some pictures of the events.
4) I want your comments in. For those who do read the page... that's a MUST!!! I also accept requests that are legal and not impossible to achieve.

Really looking forward to this.

Less than 1 week to go... the soft preview

Less than 1 week to go to the Olympics and here goes the list of events I will be attending:
- 9th: Basketball Female evening session (yes, US is in it)
- 10th: Beach Volleyball Male and Female preliminary sessions
- 11th: Tennis evening sessions
- 12th: Artistic Gymnastics - Male team finals
- 12th: Beach Volleyball Male and Female preliminary sessions
- 13th: Artistic Gymnastics - Female team finals
- 13th: Basketball Female evening session
- 14th: I rest :-)
- 15th: Athletics evening session
- 16th: Football quarter-finals
- 17th: Table Tennis Female Team Bronze medal match
- 17th: Table Tennis Female Team Gold medal match (yes, the one that China will win)
- 18th: Beach Volleyball Male Quarter-finals (2 morning matches)
- 18th: Table Tennis Male Team Gold medal match (yes, the one that China will most probably win)
- 19th: Basketball Female Quarter-finals (2 afternoon games)
- 20th: Table Tennis Male and Female preliminary rounds
- 20th: Basketball Male Quarter-finals (all games)
- 21st: Handball Female Semi-finals (all games)
- 22nd: Basketball Male Semi-finals (all games)
- 23rd: Taekwondo (several finals)
- 24th: Handball Male Final and classification matches

All and all, I hope to bring you some of my thoughts, but not necessarily in a very journalistic view.