Stany the stingray

Following in the churned-up wake of Eric Moussambani, the loveable loser who grabbed the attention of the world in the 100m swim at Sydney in 2000, Democratic Republic of Congo swimmer Stany Kempompo Ngangola will competed as a wildcard entrant in the 50m freestyle heats.

According to the official start list, his ranking time for his heat was an astonishingly slow 1min 15 secs.

In that time world record holder Eamon Sullivan could have finished his lap, climbed out of the pool, dried himself off and called Stephanie Rice to catch up on old times. American superstar Michael Phelps could have covered almost 150m of a 200m freestyle race and even the next lowest ranked swimmer in competition, Kareem Valentine of Antigua-Barbuda, could have completed a second lap.

SMH.

Who cares who wins? Losing is much more interesting

Zzzz… zzzz… zzzz… Why can’t I stay awake? I’m an anorak, a sports junkie. Wherever sport is played, I take a ringside seat on my sofa, flicking between channels, screaming at referees, gobbling up statistics.

It should stir me to my soul that, in Beijing, an Olympic swimmer is rewriting the record books. I should be sitting up all night, cheering on the great Michael Phelps as he scythes through the water. But I just don’t care.

To find out why not, read here.

Beijing’s economy: Going for gold

The Olympics have not brought Beijing’s businesses the boom they hoped for

YABAO ROAD in Beijing’s embassy district is normally bustling. Russian traders scour its wholesale shops for furs and boots. Hawkers throng the pavements. The street is jammed with taxis and pedicabs. But the Olympic games have begun. Yabao Road is now strangely quiet.

Only a few months ago many shopkeepers, restaurants and hotels were expecting these to be boom times as big-spending foreigners flocked in for the games. Today many businessmen in and around the capital are disgruntled. So too are other citizens who find that even some outdoor food markets have been closed as part of an Olympic spruce-up…

Officials say one-fifth of rooms at the city’s 120-odd designated Olympic hotels were unoccupied after the games started on August 8th (they finish on the 24th). But no figures have been published for the 700 others. Price-cutting at many hotels suggests there may be a glut of rooms. Some bars and restaurants say business is lacklustre too. The owner of one upmarket nightclub says he had been expecting a packed house “all night, every night up until dawn” during the games. But in fact business is much as usual.

Read more in the Economist.

For Faster, For Slower

Married Athletes

BEIJING — Distance runner Adam Goucher always imagined cheering on his wife, Kara, here at these Olympics. But in his dreams she always returned the favor.

In a reversal of fortune, however, former Olympian Adam is relegated to the stands while Kara — who has competed in his shadow for years — chases Olympic glory.

Athletes marry each other for the same reason other professionals often do: They spend a lot of time together. Even on the U.S. track and field team, there are at least two other married couples besides the Gouchers.

On occasion, both spouses excel. In 1952, Czechoslovakian runner Emil Zápotek and his wife both earned gold medals. He placed first in the men’s 5,000-meters, the 10,000 meters and the marathon; his wife won the women’s javelin.

Read full article in the WSJ.

Five Ways Beijing Is the Biggest, Baddest Olympics Ever

A Bigger Budget

The numbers: At least $40 billion total, including $35 billion for new roads and subway lines, $1.8 billion for venue construction and renovation, and a $2 billion operating budge.

A Longer Torch Route

The numbers: 137,000 km (85,100 miles), 130 days, 20,000 torchbearer.

More Media Coverage

The numbers: 4 billion TV viewers, 3,600 hours of coverage in the United State.

More Volunteers

The numbers: 1.5 million volunteers from a pool of more than 2 million applicants.

More Security

The numbers: $6.5 billion for Beijing, $300 million for Olympic venues, 1 million video cameras, 100,000 antiterrorism squad members.

More details in Foreign Policy.

Faster, Higher, Stronger and Cleaner

Jamaicans have faced a lot of testing. In an event that has been plagued by drugs, most famously with Ben Johnson in 1988 it is good to see this being taken seriously. Knowing that the world’s fastest man is so through natural ability will be something to behold…

A top Jamaican Olympic team official complained Wednesday that unusually frequent anti-doping tests are upsetting preparations by his nation’s sprinters ahead of Friday’s opening races.

“We have never seen this level of testing,” Don Anderson, Jamaica’s delegation head, said in a telephone interview one day after men’s 100-meter gold medal contender Asafa Powell complained he has been excessively tested. “It could affect the performance of our athletes.”

Over the past seven days, Anderson said, Jamaicans have been tested 32 times.

Repeated testing has distracted the runners, and gotten on their nerves, he said – even if it probably presents no immediate medical issue.

“They get taken away during training or they are taken from the restaurant,” he said.

Powell, who is part of a voluntary anti-doping program, said Tuesday that the number of tests upset him.

“They took blood – a lot of blood,” said Powell, adding he has been tested four times.

More in Sports Illustrated.

Sotherton reveals she ‘will win Gold’

British heptathlete Kelly Sotherton has an unswerving belief in herself and her ability to win gold in Beijing, so much so that she was prepared to prove it under the most testing conditions – a polygraph test – in a new viral advert that is part of Nike’s Just Do It campaign.

 

The new campaign is based on the insight that Kelly is an athlete with ultimate self-belief. To test this she is interviewed on camera by Dr Hilary Witchel, a leading Psycho-Physiologist from Bristol University, while wired to a polygraph machine. The aim is to test whether Kelly’s stated beliefs about her ability and prospects iof success in Beijing match her physiological responses. Dr Witchel runs Kelly through a series of leading and testing questions to detect how in sync her body and mind actually are. The questions surround her performance in Beijing and include ‘out of the seven events is javelin your weakest?’ and ‘do you ever hope one of your opponents chokes?’

 

Nikelab.

Bush and Volleyball Team

Presidential Business…

Olympics Security Is No Game

U.S. companies are supplying high-tech surveillance gear to the Beijing Olympics. The concern is how it might be used after the Games…

China is spending some $6.5 billion on security for the Games, and much of that has gone to foreigners. But given the sensitive nature of those contracts—and a skittishness over being perceived as supporting China’s authoritarian government—these companies are often reluctant to discuss what they’re doing or how much they’re making. “We want to avoid answering sensitive questions,” says a staffer in the Beijing office of Panasonic (MC), which has sold surveillance cameras for use at the Games.

That doesn’t mean these companies haven’t been aggressive in courting business. General Electric (GE), IBM (IBM), Honeywell (HON), Siemens (SI), Panasonic, and LG have all won major contracts providing security technology for the Olympics—one of the biggest security-business opportunities ever, and a shot at lots of ongoing business for those that get in early. The Chinese are laying out more than four times the $1.5 billion that Athens spent on security in 2004, says the Security Industry Assn., a Washington trade group.

Olympics Inc.

Billionaires Eye Beijing Gold

Shanghai, China –

China’s Communist Party hasn’t done much in the months ahead of the Olympics to quiet skeptics saying the country should have never been awarded this year’s summer games. Among other controversial moves, it has cracked down on Tibet following unrest and intimidated domestic critics from even showing up in Beijing. Pollution threatens to sully the event.

Yet interest and anticipation is running high among ordinary Chinese in the first-ever Olympics held on Chinese soil. That excitement, in turn, is encouraging many marketers to make a play for China’s 1.3 billion consumers. After all, the world’s most populous nation is home to the fastest-growing major economy, and businesses positioning themselves well during these next couple of weeks could reap benefits with Chinese consumers for years to come.

More in Forbes.