Olympic sports

A graphic from the BBC shows which sports and disciplines have taken place at each of the 26 Olympic games. I'll bet not many people would be able to name the four that have been in all 26 games.

Cleverly skirting trademark restrictions

In late 2009, lululemon released a line of clothing named the "Cool Sporting Event That Takes Place in British Columbia Between 2009 & 2011 Edition", an apparent reference to the 2010 Winter Olympics. The name does not infringe Canada's Olympic and Paralympic Marks Act in that it does not use the terms "Olympic(s)", "Vancouver", "2010", or any other term protected under that law. Representatives from the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee, while acknowledging that no explicit infringement had taken place, nevertheless expressed disappointment at lululemon's tactic.

The antikythera mechanism and the Olympics

The Antikythera mechanism (top photo) was recovered in 1900 from a Greek shipwreck dating to about 100 BC. Made of bronze and of amazing complexity, it consists of at least 30 gears which allowed it to function as an astronomical computer (like an orrery), specifically for calculating solar and lunar calendars. More details are available at the Wiki page. The lower image is a modern reconstructed replica.

The device was reportedly remarkably accurate in predicting eclipses, which was "the apparent task of a second, four-twist spiral dial on the instrument's back. Its 223 divisions correspond to months in the Saros cycle, another ancient calendar system—this one an 18-year cycle—for tracking eclipses... The pattern of glyphs was highly accurate: it matched the start dates of 100 eclipses that occurred during the final four centuries BC, as determined by NASA."

I remember some of the early articles about the discovery of this device speculated that this degree of technical sophistication proved that our planet had been visited by extraterrestrials in the past.  What it proves instead is how little we appreciate the intellectual abilities of our remote ancestors.

I was reminded of the Antikythera mechanism by article in Scientific American indicating that one its principal uses was for ascertaining the dates for the Olympic games: "the researchers discovered that the markings on a smaller dial inside the Metonic one spelled out the locations of the names of Panhellenic games, the highly popular sporting events of which the most famous is the Olympics. The games were on a four-year cycle, and each quarter turn of the dial indicated which games took place that year in the cycle."

Questions about Canada and the Olympics

Q: I have never seen it warm on Canadian TV, so how do the plants grow?(UK)
A: We import all plants fully grown and then just sit around and watch them die.

Q: Will I be able to see Polar Bears in the street? (USA)
A: Depends on how much you've been drinking.

Q: I want to walk from Vancouver to Toronto. Can I follow the Railroad tracks? (Sweden)
A: Sure, it's only Four thousand miles, take lots of water.

Q: Can I bring cutlery into Canada? (UK)
A: Why? Just use your fingers like we do.

Q: Can you tell me the regions in British Columbia where the female population is smaller than the male population? (Italy)
A: Yes, gay nightclubs.

Q: Are there supermarkets in Toronto and is milk available all year round? (Germany)
A: No, we are a peaceful civilization of Vegan hunter/gatherers. Milk is illegal.

Q: I have a question about a famous animal in Canada, but I forget its name. Its a kind of big horse with horns. (USA)
A: Its called a Moose. They are tall and very violent, eating the brains of anyone walking close to them. You can scare them off by spraying yourself with human urine before you go out walking.

As explained at Snopes, these are all "fake" questions.  More at the link.

TAB

Some activists for disabled people use an acronym - "TAB" - to refer to normal people.  The letters stand for "Temporarily Able-Bodied," as a reminder that any normal healthy person is only an illness or accident away from disability.  The term has been around for years, but the current Olympics has offered some striking reminders of the validity of the acronym.

Photo: Britain's Chemmy Alcott crashes after crossing the finish line in the women's Alpine Skiing Downhill race on February 17, 2010. (REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach) #

The cost of "throwing stones at houses"

The Wisconsin State Journal has an article today about the Olympics-related boom in business for a curling supplies store in Madison:

Brown, who runs Steve's Curling Supplies out of his Far East Side home, gets calls from guys in bars who see the sport of curling on TV. They think it doesn't look too tough, that maybe they and their buddies could be like the Jamaican bobsled team and head from oblivion into the Olympics.

"So they'll get on a cell phone and say, ‘How much are those puck things? We want to go to the next Olympics,'" Brown said. "You tell them they cost about $500 and — boom — they hang up the phone."

Those delivering the stone need special Teflon-soled shoes to slide on the ice, and a pair of those range from $75 to the $236 shoes most Olympians are wearing. Grippers, for $16 a pair, go over the shoes to help competitors maneuver on the ice.

The top-selling brush is a $67 fiberglass model; carbon fiber ones used by Olympians cost $159...

Chariots of money

The commercialization and "professionalization" of the Olympics is a phenomenon that is widely recognized and apparently grudgingly accepted by the public.  The extent to which the athletes are subsidized by their corporate sponsors is best exemplified by snowboarder Shaun White, who has a private halfpipe built exclusively for him by his [name redacted] sponsor, located in a remote mountain site accessible only by helicopter.

When 60 Minutes reported on White's multimillion-dollar enterprise, the reporter/interviewer apparently found it convenient (or was required?) to address the camera while leaning on the corporate sponsor's logo.  They're all in this bed together...

For a modicum of relief, I turn to the curling teams, whose lifestyles are a bit closer to the old ideal of the amateur athlete.  The Star Tribune reported on their accommodations in Vancouver:

A brand-new penthouse suite, with a spectacular view, valued somewhere in the neighborhood of $6 million.  For an athlete used to living in anonymity, though, a three-week stay in these digs offers a rare taste of the high life. The living room is bigger than the two-bedroom apartment that curlers John Shuster, Jason Smith and Jeff Isaacson share with three other guys in Duluth. Their lavish temporary home is all part of the fun of the Winter Games...

Many of the curlers are Minnesotans

...from places such as Bemidji and Chisholm and St. Michael, people with regular jobs and average physiques who earned the right to walk alongside global superstars at the Olympics.

U.S. men's coach Phill Drobnick of Duluth is a probation officer for St. Louis County. Shuster tends bar at the Duluth Curling Club and is a groundskeeper at a golf course in the summer. Nicholson works a 2-10 p.m. shift as an emergency-room nurse at a Bemidji hospital, and Isaacson is a substitute teacher...

They also have sponsors, whose backing allows them to "break even" re their Olympic expenses, and they gladly accept some perks, including custom-tailored clothing by Ralph Lauren and "duffel bags stuffed with gear."

That's probably as close to "amateur" athletes as one can find at the Olympics.

Kerri Strug's vault in the 1996 Olympics

A post at Uncouth Heathen yesterday reminded me about Kerri Strug's famous vault, which I remember watching on television.  On her first attempt she injured her ankle, and then was told (incorrectly, as it was later determined) that for the team points she had to go again.  It was an unforgettable moment.

Athlete expelled from Olympics

A member of the U.S. Olympic diving team was disqualified from competition today when it was learned that he did not have a sufficiently compelling human storyline to exploit on the NBC telecast of the worldwide sporting event.

Tracy Klujian, the expelled diver, was not raised by a single mother, never had a career-threatening injury, and did not overcome a personal tragedy of any kind before making the Olympic diving team, U.S. Olympic officials revealed today.

"Had Tracy been involved in an organ donation, as either a donor or a recipient, that would have been acceptable to us," a diving team spokesman told reporters. "However, he was not."

According to sources close to the diving team, Mr. Klujian had concealed the fact that he comes from an intact middle-class family that never lost its home to a flood, tornado or typhoon. But what may have sealed Mr. Klujian's doom, sources said, was his utter lack of a gravely ill family member to win a medal for.

Olympic trivia

• 1900 Paris - Some unusual events were contested for the first and only time in the history of the Games. The equestrian high and long jumps, swimming obstacle race, two-day cricket and live pigeon shooting being foremost among them.
• 1904 St. Louis - One of the most remarkable athletes was the American gymnast George Eyser, who won six medals even though his left leg was made of wood.
• 1908 London - Despite international customs that encourage dipping the flag in respect to heads of state, since 1908 US flag bearers have not done so.
• 1912 Stockholm - It was the last time that solid gold medals were awarded; modern medals are usually gold plated silver... A Greco-Roman Wrestling bout... lasted 11 hours and forty minutes—the world’s longest wrestling match.
• 1932 Los Angeles - U.S. President Herbert Hoover did not attend the Games, becoming the first sitting head of government to not appear at an Olympics hosted in that country... Mahatma Gandhi took part in the games as a press reporter.
• 1936 Berlin - [Jesse] Owens was able to freely use public transportation and enter bars and other public facilities without the difficulty he would face as a black man in the United States.
• 1976 Montreal - [Japanese gymnast] Fujimoto broke his leg on the floor exercise, and due to the closeness in the overall standings with the USSR, he hid the extent of the injury. With a broken knee, Fujimoto was able to complete his event on the rings, performing a perfect triple somersault dismount, maintaining perfect posture. He scored a 9.7 thus securing gold for Japan.

Credit here, although I think much of the text was transcribed from Wikipedia.

Olympic logo designs, 1896 - 2012

An interesting presentation at Colourlovers, a website that focuses on design and color. Presented today to contrast the classic style London used in 1948 with the grotesque design and garish colors selected for 2012. I'm not the first to comment on the 2012 logo. This from Wiki:

Early public reaction to the logo, as measured by a poll on the BBC website, was largely negative: more than 80% of votes gave the logo the lowest possible rating... It was noted that the logo resembles an image of the cartoon character Lisa Simpson performing fellatio and others have complained that it looks like a distorted Swastika.

A segment of animated footage released at the same time as the logo was reported to trigger seizures in a small number of people with photosensitive epilepsy. The charity Epilepsy Action received telephone calls from people who had had seizures after watching the sequence on TV…

Apart from the design itself, the most notable fact is that this is the first time ever in the history of the Olympics that the logo will be produced in a variety of colors.

Why? Oh... maybe it has something to do with this: "Sponsors have also incorporated their company colours in the logo, notable examples include Lloyds TSB and Adidas."

What's going on with Spanish Olympians?

Am I just out of touch with current humor trends or perhaps have I become (shudder) "politically correct?"

Five days ago I panned the Spanish basketball team for apparently mocking stereotypical Oriental physiognomy. Now I read that "Spanish nationalist outrage has risen up at the foreign misinterpretations of this widely practiced gesture of eye-based friendship among Spanish athletic teams" and see the photo above of the Spanish Olympic tennis team posted at the Spanish Tennis Federation website.

Olympic gymnast Shawn Johnson cast in butter

I think perhaps one has to be from the Midwest to truly appreciate the honor being accorded when one is cast or carved in butter for the state fair. This year the honoree at the Iowa State Fair is Olympic gymnast Shawn Johnson. Her statue will share the spotlilght with the century-old tradition of a Butter Cow:

The Butter Cow starts with a wood, metal, wire and steel mesh frame and about 600 lbs. of low moisture, pure cream Iowa butter. Once inside the 40-degree cooler, layers of butter are applied until a life-size butter cow emerges - measuring about 5-1/2-ft high and 8-ft long. Each year features one of the six major dairy breeds – Jersey, Ayrshire, Brown Swiss, Holstein, Guernsey and Milking Shorthorn.

While a real dairy cow weighs more than 1,000 pounds, a 600-lb. butter cow would butter 19,200 slices of toast and take an average person two lifetimes to consume, according to sponsor Midwest Dairy Association. Much of the butter is recycled and reused for up to 10 years.

There is a nice, brief video along with more news details at this DesMoines Register link. The exhibit ends today; if you hurry over to the state fair, you can still see it... (Thanks to Neatorama for the headsup on this item)

Triumphant postures by athletes

The images of the 140 blind and sighted athletes from 37 countries revealed that Paralympic athletes blind from birth struck the same triumphant stance as sighted Olympic athletes. Since the blind athletes could not have learned the victory dance by watching others, the scientists concluded that the behavior was innate…

This display of human pride and exuberance -- witnessed by millions when swimmer Phelps and teammates won the men's 400-meter freestyle relay for the U.S. on Sunday -- closely resembles the dominance displays of chimps and monkeys, which also feature outstretched arms and exaggerated postures, researchers said.

Credit to the LATimes, via Neatorama. Note also -

Blind athletes across all cultures slumped their shoulders and narrowed their chests, a posture that signals shame in humans and submission in other primates. Sighted athletes from most parts of the world did the same.

That’s what the athletes in the post below this one should be doing…

Beneath contempt

The Spanish men's and women's basketball teams posed in full Olympic gear on a basketball court decorated with a picture of a Chinese dragon. Every single player appears pulling back the skin on either side of their eyes. The ad is for the official sponsor of the Spanish Basketball Federation, a courier company. The full-page ad ran in the sports sections of the daily Marca, which is the country's largest newspaper.

Olympic opening ceremonies

Preliminary reports are that they were awe-inspiring. One would probably expect that from the country that invented fireworks -- and silk, and the fork and the toothbrush, and paper (and toilet paper).

Image credit to Boston.com's Big Picture, which has a stunning set of big pictures, including the one above depicting people walking upside down on a globe. Television coverage this evening in the U.S.

Rule change for Olympic baseball

"Each team’s at-bat in the 11th inning and beyond will begin with runners on first and second bases. Teams may start the 11th at any point in their batting order under format changes announced Friday by the International Baseball Federation and adopted in time for next month’s Beijing Games..."

Interesting, and in the context of limited time availability, probably reasonable.

Olympic condom ads

I'm speechless. Not shocked - just speechless. Several others ads are posted at the Sidney Morning Herald - swimming, archery, and cycling. They appear to be necessary, as noted by the Telegraph:

In the Sydney 2000 Games, each competing athlete was given 51 condoms on arrival at the Olympic Village, but another 20,000 had to be shipped in when supplies began to run low.

Relevance of Olympic start gun technology

"Current start-gun technology gives athletes on the inside lanes an unfair advantage right off the blocks.

Sound from the starter's gun is known to take longer to reach athletes who start from the outside lanes than their competitors on the inside. Now a new study suggests that competitors nearest the gun have another advantage – the loudness of the bang shocks them into starting more quickly.

Together, these extra boosts may amount to more than a tenth of a second in some races, which is easily enough to make the difference between gold and silver.

It can take 150 milliseconds longer for sound to travel from the starter's gun to runners in the outside lanes in races such as the 4 x 100 metre relay, where the runners' starting positions are staggered.

At both the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and the 2004 Athens games, runners in the outside lanes of relay races were slower out of the blocks than runners on inner lanes..."

It's incredible that the competition has reached levels where the speed of sound may influence the outcome.