Olympics in retrospect

Tags

#sports #olympics #rio #rioolympics

After getting back from Japan, I got into the Olympics. Actually, watching the Games is always a struggle, first of all because of the time difference but also  because what gets shown and how is up to the whims and fancies of that channel, which is influenced by the local audience. So typically stuff in which the Hong Kong team is participating or at which China excels gets shown a lot – the latter means swimming, gymnastics, and diving which are my favourites but the latter means cycling, sailing, and lots of badminton and table tennis. Of course, the big ticket items like the important athletics races get shown.

However, there are commercial breaks, abysmal commentary and the odd switching of or choice of sports – for example wrestling or beach volleyball or even basketball, even when Hong Kong and China are not playing. On the one hand, part of the fun of the Olympics is delving into sports you wouldn’t otherwise watch (e.g. Nene insisted he wanted to watch the wrestling and I had to let him) but I prefer to catch up on these in highlights, ahem. And definitely not when important gymnastics events are going on.

To counter these deficiencies, I turned to a streaming site, where I search through streams and often found what I needed in Russian. Again, maybe the post-communist background means that there is an interest in the same sports as China (e.g. gymnastics).

While the swimming races were in the morning and were shown live on our local channel, the gymnastics happens at night. I tried and tried to find a replay, but couldn’t, and so I resorted to waking up in the dead of night for the finals. Unfortunately, one night I woke up and TVB switched without warning to cycling, and I couldn’t find a stream showing the event live. So basically, I had woken up for nothing. Ultimately, a tip on a mom’s group online led me to the TVB app which was on free trial and wonder of wonders I was able to watch replays of all the finals I missed as well as live broadcasts with better commentary than on the TV channel. Just wish I had known about it earlier, but I must say, I binge watched gymnastics to V’s frustration.

Below are some of the highlights of the Rio Olympics for me:

Swimming

• Watching Michael Phelps in every event. Him going up to his mum, wife and baby. How emotional he was on the podium.
• Joseph Schooling of Singapore winning the 200m butterfly. Schooling had the fastest time in the semis, which I also watched, and he had said that if he won silver or bronze, he would consider it a loss, which I considered not in the spirit of the games, but when he won it was an amazing moment. He beat three veterans, including Phelps. This article on his nanny who’s been with him from the start touched my heart.
• Katie Ledecky winning the 800 m final in style, smashing her own record in the process.
• Anthony Erwin’s 50m butterfly win. Like Schooling’s win, it was a morning of amazing races. On the one hand, Schooling showed you’re never too young or inexperienced. On the other, Erwin showed you’re never too old or jaded.
• Dimitry Balandin winning Kazakhstan’s first Olympic gold in the 200 m breaststroke. He was in lane 8. Proving that being the outlier doesn’t mean you don’t have a chance. Never say never.
• Simone Manuel becoming the first African-American woman to win an Olympic gold in swimming, but also 16-year-old Penny Olenziak tying her for first place in that race. A nice article on Penny here. An important piece on the significance of Manuel’s win here.

Gymastics

• The women’s individual gymnastics championship. Simone Biles is amazing, perfection always, but I was so impressed by Aly Raisman’s floor routine. Aliyah Mustafina took her loss like a pro, but I felt sad for the little Chinese girl who was so close to a bronze. An article on Shang Chungsong’s long and hard struggle here.
• Biggest regret: Missing the women’s artistic gymnastics team final. I thought that surely I could find a replay the next day, but nada. I so regret not staying up at night to watch it, but the fact is I had just got back from Japan and couldn’t have.
• Biggest frustration: Deciding there was no other way than to stay up and watch the gymnastics live and then still missing out the women’s uneven bars because bloody TVB didn’t show it and the Russian streaming channel wouldn’t load. WTF Russian streaming channel – your gal won! I think I have a girl crush on Aliyah Mustafina.
• At least I got to watch the beam final, in particular, Dipa Kamarkar. She did well, and scored high because of the difficulty level of her vault. However, her ass touched the floor when we landed (the idiot TVB commentatory called it ‘posterior’) and so she got bumped into fourth. Wish she could have snuck in there for a bronze.
• Samme Wevers beating out Simone Biles to win the women’s beam final. Biles had seemed invincible before the competition and was touted to sweep gold in all the individual events, but she wobbled on the beam in the favourite apparatus, and Wevers sneaked in from the outside. Never say never.
• Thankfully, watched replays of the men’s gymnastics team event in Japan, because the Japan team won. I got quite invested in the Japanese team’s performance after that in all sports and V had to remind me I’m not Japanese now 😉
• The Brazilian team performed very well. It was nice to see the non-favourites do well.

Athletics

• Of course, Usain Bolt winning the 100m was a highlight but I would have been happy if Gaitlin won too (having won a 100m gold way back in 2004. That would have been one for the record books too – though Gaitlin has a doping record and he was actually booed when he came on.) In the end though, Bolt had to push himself and won. What surprised me was how nice he was after. He went around to all the Jamaican supporters and hugged them and took photos with them. He accepted a mascot that he clearly didn’t want and didn’t just dump it (my kids were more excited by the mascot than the great man himself).
• Just before the 100m was the absolutely stunning 400m final which Wayde van Niekerk won in style breaking a world record. It was one of those races that gives you goosebumps. As a very very amateur athlete way back in the day, I can tell you that lane 8 is noone’s favourite and yet Niekerk beat his very talented opponents (3 other guys ran under 44 seconds) from out there.
• The US women winning gold, silver and bronze in the 100m hurdles. I’m not a particular Team USA fan but it was nice to see the elation and camaraderie between the women.
• The women’s 100m and 200m finals. I love watching the women athletes, they are so flamboyant. They come to the track in full make-up, gold chains, headbands and hair in bizarre colours. They’re awesome.
• Braz da Silva winning the men’s pole vault. It was a bittersweet moment because the French vaulter who came second was very upset because he was booed by the crowd. While I’m sure it’s not nice to be booed, he made a rude comment about it in the press con later and got booed again on the podium, and then was crying during the flag hoisting. While I should probably feel sorry for him, I felt there was a certain sense of entitlement and ungraciousness in his behaviour – the booing of the crowd during the competition, while not exactly in the Olympic spirit, was not personal but because their own athlete had a chance for gold, and that countries like Brazil rarely get a medal chance, leave alone gold.
• I was happy to watch a couple of Indian athletes including Duttee Chand in action. Chand especially ran very well in her heat.
• Castor Semenya winning the women’s 800m gold. Again, there were frustrations raised about her hormone levels (hinting that she should not qualify for the women’s event because of high levels of testosterone, which I think is bullshit).
• Team Japan winning silver in the men’s 100m relay. Of course, Jamaica had an amazing run, but I love to see underdogs rise, and that it was Japan made it sweeter.

I trailed off watching the main big athletics events, much to the relief of everyone in our household I think. This was the kids’ first Olympics and here are some of my observations about watching the events with them:

• The kids learnt about different countries. I was surprised that Nene could identify the Jamaican flag. While the Olympics seem to be an occasion for a resurgence of nationalism, for us it became an exercise in diffusing loyalties. I tend to root for Indian or Hong Kong and to some extent Chinese athletes where present, but I also rooted for Japan, for example. The kids liked to pick winners before the race and they did so on their chance or winning – they quickly twigged that certain countries tended to win (like Jamaica in athletics or USA in swimming) or even certain races – and they would then ask me about the country their chosen athlete was from.
• My kids do not have a lot of exposure to Africans or African Americans in Hong Kong, and their reactions to seeing black people is not exactly what I’d prefer. One of the side-effects of the Olympics is that they could see black people as powerful, talented and worth rooting for (obviously black people should not have to be super athletes for this, but it was a positive entry point for my kids).
• The kids had a chance to watch women demonstrate strength, speed and athleticism.
• Similarly, they were exposed to the idea that different body types can be powerful. My kids have picked up some fat shaming behaviour. I pointed out during the shot put contest that while  people might look (and possibly be) fat, they could also be extremely strong and skilled.

So that was the Olympics for me. What were the highlights for you?

On running

As a child growing up in India, I must have done a fair bit of running as soon as I could run. Lock and Key, Poison and Medicine, Chor Police – these were the games of our early childhood. I was considered a fast runner in my building and enjoyed it.

When I was nine years old, my sister started athletics training. Because I was a sickly child, my parents decided I should go too. After a couple of months of self-consciously running with the big girls in the secondary school, my dad noticed an ad in the newspaper for a mini-marathon for kids. It was cutely packaged as Andelal Egathon, if I’m not mistaken, and there would be zonal qualifiers.

My dad took on the challenge of training me. This involved him riding his trusty Vespa along Bandstand while I trailed behind on foot. He kept track of qualifying times in other zones and encouraged me to match them. I was only half-interested in upping my speed.

The day of the race, I was woken up in what seemed like the dead of night (probably 5 am) and bundled off on dad’s scooter to Andheri (or Powai). I dozed off en route. I can only remember a couple of flashbacks of the actual race – turning one verdant corner, and later making a friend while running. And chatting with her during the race. Then we were on the home strait and I spotted my dad and said bye to her and began to pick up my pace.

I can still remember the look of surprise on my dad’s face when he spotted me having a nice chat during the race. As I remember it, my dad was standing right next to my new friend’s father who he happened to be having a chat with. Which is probably a later addition from my own head because it’s all too convenient that I ran (literally) into this girl and my dad serendipitously met and bonded with her father. But we were from similar backgrounds – all this gleaned while supposedly competing – so it’s possible. This incident should have made it apparent to all concerned that I was less competitive and more social than previously assumed but that epiphany seemed to have escaped all of us (well, I was 9 so I can be excused).

Anyway, I placed in the top 20 I think. Or maybe even 10. I had done better than expected and could have done even better if I had focussed instead of chatting.

Thereafter, athletics training continued with my sister’s group. I can’t say I particularly enjoyed it although I persisted with it, like piano (another thing I followed my sister into) till I left school.

Things I hated about running:

1. Waking up early in the morning
2. Getting tired
3. Feeling tired after (our training would start at 6 am get over at 8 am and I would come home and would try to get at least 15 minutes in bed after my bath in an attempt to catch up from lost sleep)
4. Competing

Did I like anything about running? Not sure, actually. My health improved according to my parents. I am inspired by sports in general and liked that aspect of it.

The thing is, I was clearly mediocre at it. The mediocre ones got pushed into long distance while the glamour was in sprinting (and our school didn’t have any long distance competitions on Sports Day). And history has proven that I’m not very interested in things I’m mediocre at. (Benji, it seems, is the same. If he he’s trying to do something and he can’t really do it at first or second go, he just looks around to see if there’s anyone else who can do it for him. Guilty as charged.)

The worst days were the days we did ‘slopes’, which essentially involved running up and down this nightmarish, almost vertical road called Caine Road, taking a moment to catch our breath, or in my case, retching and then jogging down and starting over. I had lots of times when I was so doubled over, heaving, after long runs, during which I thought I couldn’t go on. All this proved to be of excellent use during labour some 15 years later but at the time, it was not so pleasant. I never had runner’s high as far as I can recall.

I had only two shining moments (apart from the egathon) in my entire running career, if it can be called that. One was some 200 m heats race at school, which I won and everyone suddenly took me seriously after that. The other was an interclub competition at some location we had never been to before where I ran a great heat and my coach finally seemed to take me seriously. It gave me a glimmer of the possibility that maybe I could be a good middle distance runner. Unfortunately and typically both times, I bombed in the final.

I hated the pressure of competition, except for school sports day and even then I didn’t like the pressure but it was my comfort zone so I was okay. Normally, before a competition, I would pray for my period, fever, anything and the powers that be or my stressed out body quite often obliged.

I stopped running when I hit college. Clearly it was my time for stopping anything I didn’t completely enjoy. Except math. Oh the liberation of undergrad and no math.

And then, recently, I started again. And man, does it feel good. A legacy of my childhood running days is that I prefer running outdoors. The great thing about Hong Kong is that one can do this, even at night, wearing whatever little thing you want. You don’t have to be self-conscious in the least because there are other people similarly sweaty and oddly dressed.

Guilty secret: I have all sorts of sporty fantasies about myself and my children while I’m running.

Non-guilty secret: One day, I’ll run at least a half-marathon again and take it seriously.

Art vs Sport

There are many, often arty people, who don’t get sports. That’s okay. I don’t get videogames and barbeques. But don’t knock what you don’t get (by which I mean understand). It surprises me when arty people ask “what’s the big deal about sports” because they are so often at the receiving end of that very question except “sports” is replaced by “arts”. I am not surprised that they might find sports not their cup of tea but I am surprised that they don’t get what sports is about. Because sports and art are very similar. My simplest definition of what art is is the Russian formalist one. Art makes the stone stony. A more complicated one would be that art tells us something about the human condition in a way that is lasting and true and sometimes (but not always) beautiful.

Sports does the same. Sports is about pushing yourself to the limit of a skill (yes, even just throwing a ball) and the triumph and failure of that process. It has also the essential dramatic elements – pathos, comedy, love, pride, tragedy and a good dose of luck to keep things interested. That’s why the greatest sporting moments are not always about who wins. They are about a father racing onto the track to cradle his son who just snapped his achiles and to carrying him to the finishing line, about a rower stopping to let a brood of ducks go by and still winning. I didn’t actually remember if he won. I remembered that he stopped.

The difference between sport and most art is that in sport one uses one’s own body as the medium. Thus, one’s own physical prowess become the artistic endeavour and the conveyor of the message. The tensile strength of a gymnast’s body might be very different from the bulk of a weightlifter but at the very end, the message is the same – I can, I will and everything that goes in between.

100m mark

Since the men’s 100m final just got over – in 9.63 seconds – I think it’s polite to talk about the Olympics again. Like how, in public these days, mothers must count to 10 before launch into yet another anecdote about their children lest others be bored. Okay, this is my blog and I don’t really care about politeness but I just wanted to gather enough to say so that it doesn’t become like Twitter.  Because it is important to distinguish between different social networking platforms.

One commenter on the one of the Olympics live blogs that I read (yes, they are my current addiction, seeing as one cannot do live streaming at work and keep a straight face even if one – i.e. me – knew how to do live streaming) mentioned a few days ago that this is when the less than seasoned Olympics watchers tend to slack off. And this is true. After the heady first few days, the waking up at night, keeping track of timings etc. does wear you down (especially if you are a dormouse who gets seriously cross if she doesn’t get enough sleep, which I happen to be).

But I have persevered, partly because it appears I have been starved off the sporting beauty crack that is gymnastics for too long. The big reason we don’t have cable anymore is that cable channels, going against what one might argue is the whole point of them, never really show the stuff you really want to watch except in odd spurts and when it comes to sports, sports channels almost never show gymnastics.

I watched the US women’s team pick up their team gold and wow that was amazing. They really really pulled together one flawless, consistent performance. You can watch the highlights here. Just before this there had been heartbreak because Jordyn Wieber, the world champion who had been expected to basically nail the individual finals, was superseded unexpectedly by her teammate Alexandra Raisman. Wieber pulled it together though and delivered for her team in the group final which is really what the Olympics is about.

My highlight of that round was McKayla Maroney’s amazing Amanar vault. Her choice on the team was controversial because unlike the others who would perform on different apparatuses, Maroney would just do one – the vault. But she proved her worth and knew it after her jump, doing a little victorious strut coming off her landing. Her score – 16.233 – the highest of any of the other gymnasts in that contest on any apparatus.

The US team’s closest competitors were the Russians and they somehow lost it at the end. The US team’s last rotation was floor and as Gabrielle Douglas (who did an amazingly solid performance on the beam) said: “You can’t fall on floor.” Except two of the Russian women did! They were understandably shattered. The Russians tend to be impassive during the competition – lest they be accused of behaving like the frivolous Americans and actually chatting with each other during competition – but basically their eye is on the gold and gold only. Silver brings on the waterworks. It was also kind of disconcerting to see the Chinese not in contention for gold at all.

Why do I love gymnastics so? Because one has to be tough as shit to do it, but there is an aesthetic element so the highest points go to the gymnast who not only flawlessly executes the toughest routine but who does so while letting none of the effort show. The Guardian writer blogging about the contest mentioned more than once that to get a sense of the size of the beam, you only have to look at your iPhone, then imagine doing cartwheels on it. Ok, so I think it might be two fingers broader but that’s it.

So yeah, imagine leaping and landing on that and remember, points are deducted if you wobble when you land or touch the beam with your hand to steady yourself, leave alone the disaster (which could involve breaking something) if you fall. Thus, you have Victoria Komova in the individual finals, pushing herself for gold, jumping and arching back so that her head is actually touching her toes, then landing perfectly and well, continuing, to do other extraordinary feats. It’s breathtaking. I remember from the Beijing Olympics one Chinese athlete saying the beam is the hardest, most of them don’t really want to specialise in that apparatus.

I used to love floor and uneven bars best but now I favour the beam and the vault. Does that say something about me?

In the individual finals, Komova, had given it her all and frankly became my favourite gymnast just because of the typically Russian balletic grace of her incredibly difficult routines. The Russian champion Aliya Mustafina is apparently known for her game face, which is basically stony. I didn’t know this before but I noticed it right away. But after Komova’s gorgeous floor routine, Mustifina had her arms around her compatriot, who she just incidentally was also competing with, showing a very human side.

It takes dedication to watch the Olympics because even if you’re willing to put in the hours, the schedule is complicated. I had to literally ferret out the timings of the individual gymnastics events, because the official one seemed to say the gymnastics competition was done and dusted. And I’m so glad I did.

Last night’s vault final was a stunner. So many of them landed plop on their ass. Including McKayla Maroney the vault champion, pretty much expected to take gold. Her steel was evident after her first great Amanar vault after so many others had flopped. She wanted better and she went for it. Except she failed spectacularly. And then her steel was even more evident. It was a huge, completely unexpected blow, but she held it together, even as cameras honed in for a close-up of her despair. She held her face tight as there was a scoring glitch and everyone started congratulating the Romanian Sandra Izbasa and consoling her. When it was official that she had lost the gold, there were no public waterworks though one can only imagine what she felt. The next Olympics is four years away and for a gymnast with only one event, that’s a distant future.

The fact is that being at the top of this sport, like any other, comes at the cost of great personal sacrifice. And in gymnastics, where the competitors tend to be young (puberty brings on a lot of unwelcome changes though some rare sparks manage to stay in the game into their late 30s) and go away from home to train, there can be real dangers. Gabby Douglas, who won the gymnastics individual all-round gold, left home at 14 and her mother shared that it took a lot of convincing to let her daughter go. Gabby seems to have turned out okay but a gymnast who I had a soft corner for in the 90s, Dominique Moceaunu had a much sadder story. (Moceanu had the same coach as Nadia Comeici, Bela Karolyi, who still seems to held in high regard officially in gymnastics in the US.)

Anyway, it’s day 10 and I have to admit I’m tiring. Mainly of the completely annoying TVB-ATV coverage, which while I’m grateful that it exists, seems intent on covering anything and everything the Chinese athletes are involved in excruciating detail. Thus, while they couldn’t be bothered to show most of the medal ceremonies, they cut into the gymnastics competition time by following the admittedly awesome badminton champ around as he shook hands with various people and then stayed through the entire national anthem arrgh by which time most of the men’s gymnastics competition was over. Viewers in the US pissed at NBC and its US-focussed coverage take consolation that it seems to happen everywhere.

The badminton coverage, in general, is driving me batty. You would think this was a badminton competition, it’s on every time you switch on the TV (I saw Saina Nehwal’s final point, thankfully, as a result and I’m ashamed to say I shouted when the other girl went down: “Is she injured? Yay!”).Luckily, diving, my other favourite sport, is well covered in the highlights at least because the Chinese are sweeping the medals there.

Did I start this post with the 100m finals? I woke up for it, after very nearly messing up the timing due to my inept ability with anything involving numbers (which sadly time zones do). The latest thing seems to be for each competitor to have their own little drama routine when their name is announced, the most flamboyant of which is, of course, Usain Bolt’s. Anyway, when half the world is waking up at an inhuman hour to watch less than 10 seconds of a racing, a bit of theatrics beforehand is not unwelcome.

Bolt is always a pleasure to watch, unbridled arrogance notwithstanding. He makes the sprint which is technically over in two blinks of an eye seem like it has not just a beginning and an end but a middle too.

So yeah, 9.63 seconds and I was back in bed, awaiting Day 11.

Olympicking

I have surprised even myself by my dedication to the Olympic cause (ie watching the events on TV) this year. I’m always enthusiastic about big world sporting evenings, with the Olympics being the biggest of them all, but V pointed out that despite being gung ho during the Beijing Olympics, I didn’t actually watch that much and the events were in the same timezone (not sure if that is true actually). This time, though, two babies notwithstanding, I’m seriously into it, so much so that even V, ardent monopoliser of the TV remote control (s), has ceded to the war cry of “Olympics!” and desisted from his usual manic channel-hopping.

1. As usual, there was controversy over the TV rights which had been won by a private channel in Hong Kong. The IOC promises 200 hours of the Games must be shown on free TV channels but there were advertising concerns and it was only at the very last minute was an agreement reached, after the IOC and some bigwigs stepped in. The result –historic cooperation between the two rival free TV stations that is very much in the Olympic spirit. I was completely amazed by a question posed by an expat on an online forum asking whether the games were to be shown in Hong Kong. How is it possible to be so clueless about the big news in the place you live? And then the follow up was “oh I don’t have that channel”, when that is impossible unless you don’t have a TV. Everyone gets the free channels. It’s like expats in Hong Kong really live on a planet of their own.

2. I was bummed because the opening ceremony took place at 4 am HK time. But to my own surprise, I ended up waking up for the latter half at 5 am. Okay, V who is like the most annoying of early risers, took the opportunity to get me out of bed at the unreal hour citing the Olympics, but that I actually did so speaks for my general enthu. So for the first time since I stopped nursing Benji, I actually popped into his room when he woke up at 6ish. “Mummy!” he exclaimed in adorable surprise while my helper nearly fainted from shock. This is in contrast to what happens every day, which is Benji opening our bedroom door, climbing onto the bed and saying “mummy” loudly till I crack open an eye and give him a kiss (then he tries to find my mobile phone under my pillow which he calls “minibus” in honour of a clip he watches on YouTube).

3. Unfortunately, I missed all the fun stuff like Daniel Craig and the queen and Mr. Bean. Instead, I got a lot of the parade which, as with the Miss Universe pageant, is always a chance to update myself on countries and places I never knew existed. This is only a comment on my ignorance (and not said countries).

4. All athletes seem to have great skin. V said this should be obvious. Hmm maybe I should be hitting the gym more. But how to when there are sporting events to be watched on TV?

5. There had been a lot of hoopla about the costumes worn by each country. I quite liked the India costumes. Simple but effective.

6. Most giggle-inducing moment during the opening ceremony was when they focused on the stands where special guests from each country were sitting and the two Indians seemed to be discussing whether to stand or not, and finally grumpily got off their asses. Never a more sombre pair was there to be found in the entire arena.

7. Another grump was the Queen. Maybe walking out of the palace on Mr. Bond’s arm took too much out of her because she didn’t even crack a smile or a wave when the British contingent came out.

8. Why does Mohammed Ali have to be inserted into everything? Once in Atlanta was good and he was a boxing great but really, his attitude to fellow competitors was less than exemplary.

9. The torch-lighting was pretty cool, validated by Benji going off into a spontaneous clap when the flame caught. Credit must also go to excellent commentary from yours truly: “Look Benji candles! Whoooaaaaa! (said Chinese-style) Omg fire!”

10. Since then, I am been watching any sport that I can get my eyes on. Part of the appeal of the Olympics for me has always been watching sports that I love like swimming, diving, gymnastics and even athletics that don’t get shown often on sports channels. So I was thrilled to watch the women’s synchronized diving in which the Chinese once again demonstrated their awesome perfection. I was also rooting for the Canadian pair – one diver was 10 years older than her partner, competing in her fourth Olympics. What it must take to maintain that kind of form for nearly two decades.

11. Unfortunately, only get the watch the swimming highlights on a local Chinese channel. This morning, Benji pointed to the pool and said “Daddy!” (whenever he sees a pool he says “Daddy- Mummy” because we are the ones that take him swimming), which is totally ironic because V is a terrible swimmer. I’m sad that people are casting doping doubts on the Chinese female swimmer’s amazing 400m medley (she swam her 50m freestyle faster than the American male winner in the same category). I wish they would just test the winners routinely and be done with it if this is going to come up every time.

12. In addition, to these exciting sports, I have also watched (and cheered and got excited about) shooting (watching Kim Rhode miss just once in 100 shots, as well as Gagan Narang claim his bronze), judo (spent half the time trying to figure out if it was judo or taekwondo and then lamenting the fact that one of the competitor’s shirt had come lose from his belt and he wasn’t tucking it in, finally to be put out of my misery by the commentator pointing out that is against the rules to untie one’s belt without the referees permission and then marvelling at the body revealed by the open shirt), volleyball (close match between China and Turkey, with the added bonus of Turkish athletes being uniformly gazelle-like and beautiful), and table tennis (cheering for the Hong Kong player).

13. The cool thing is that I have lots of places to cheer for – India, Hong Kong, China (yes, I do feel a curious affinity for them seeing as I currently live in China, plus they are great and I am tired of them being maligned), and Philippines (because of my helpers, though I haven’t seen a Filipino in competition yet). And of course, I pick and choose underdogs to support at will.

14. I’m liking that this Games doesn’t seem to dominated by any one country. Like France and China are doing well in the pool and instead of China dominating the gymnastics, it’s the US.

15. I haven’t watched any gymnastics yet, boo! I only got a glimpse of HK gymnast Angel Wong’s amazing mount on the beam in a clipping.

And finally, a downer. A friend linked to this article, which shows how the Olympics have been used to displace hundreds of people. While I wouldn’t expect any better of China, Brazil or even India, I’m surprised that Britain would feel the need to resort to this sort of thing too. It makes one feel kind of hopeless. If even the countries with a better human rights records can’t stop themselves from being heavy-handed, should we just give up and resign ourselves to the world just general being terrible?

On the flip side

Since I’ve been going on in defense of the Chinese and the Olympics so much here are some criticisms:

1) The Chinese little girl who sang a song at the opening ceremony was only lip synching it turns out. Which frankly is ok, though even at the time I commented at how plastic she looked. But it has been revealed that there was another little girl who was actually singing and it was deemed that she was not ‘presentable’ enough. This decision went as high up as the politburo (can you believe it?) and was taken in ‘the national interest’. Honestly! It is the most ridiculous thing ever. I understand if the girl with the good voice was too shy to sing in public but that was not the case. It just appears that she was not cute enough (which – if you look at her photograph – she is, all Chinese kids are cute). But whether she is or isn’t cute enough is beside the point. The whole thing is just stupid… that the national cabinet should seek to control something as inane as this, how children should look. Ugh.

2) TVB Pearl, the Hong Kong channel that is airing the games, takes every opportunity to play the Chinese national anthem. First of all, their coverage is biased to events that Chinese participants will excell in – which is fine, I guess, but since it is the English channel and many of the viewers who watch will be from different nationalities they should maybe consider that too. But it’s more irritating to be subjected to the full Chinese national anthem every two minutes, in their edited coverage or even in their news reports. That telecast time could be used to show the actual sports, Chinese athletes or others. I really don’t understand this kind of weird sucking up and indoctrination. Also all the coverage of the games in Hong Kong is sooo pro-China, it’s dangerous. Whatever happened to balance – either you have the sniggering West, or the obsequious East.

3) I have been so pissed with my boss and my job that I lost interest somewhat in the Olympics. I know there is no connection between the two but just an indicator of how foul my mood is.

Olympic obsession

I don’t remember ever being so excited about the Olympics. I don’t know if it’s because there was so much said about China or because I’m so close to China or because really there was something fantastic about these Games but I was super-excited. *

And the opening ceremony did not disappoint. I have never seen an Olympics spectacle like this one. Every single performance was spellbinding and a showcase of Chinese culture down the ages. The perfect choreography might have seemed to a bit like Krakauer’s The Mass Ornament, but maybe we should find in this uniformity something to admire. Constant rebellion – although my mode of choice – is also uniformity you know.

But back to the opening ceremony. I even surprised myself by watching every single country come out and not getting bored. I liked the idea of the order of the countries being in Mandarin so that countries whose names start with letters at the tail end of the English alphabet have the novel experience of coming out first. I loved the mystery leadning up to who would light the torch and the simple choice of the first man to win China a gold in its very first Olympics in 1984 and the way the torch was lit. I loved the mad Chinese crowd demonstrating to the world that they are not all rigid formal communist boors.

I now find myself watching everything from shooting to cycling with avid interest. I am of course addicted to swimming and gymnastics and was thrilled that these telecast at convenient times on Sunday. V is getting a little bored but hey! it’s the Olympics. And those swimmer guys are cute!

I almost had a heart attack in excitement when South Korean Park Tae-hwan won the 400 m freestyle. The irony was I thought it was just a heat and belatedly realised it was the final. So cool for him.

Ok now back to the gymnastics.

*Probably a combination of all three. The never-ending Western-biased criticism of Beijing’s preparations for the Games irritated me no end. I don’t think I remember such controversy over the preparations in previous Games. It seems to me that it’s just becuase it’s China and at some level, the West is scared about the rising power of a country that does not follow a system they understand.

Having actually been to China I refuse to accept the views of those who have not, or who have simply interacted at the levels of hallowed diplomatic cirles. I have interacted with people in China from the poorest dumpling guy to the CEOs of Chinese banks with their inevitable bureaucracy and I think that only after this kind of people to people interaction can anyone deign to comment.

There are real people in China, with pride in their country and hurt at the way the world is reacting to their preparations. These are people who are unfailing curious and polite to foreigners and just generally fun. I compare people in the mainland to people in Hong Kong, and although the former may be loud and push more in the subway, they are more real than their Western-influenced plasticized versions out here.

Yes it is true that there are human rights violations in China but there are human rights violations in Iraq and noone called for the US being banned from the Games. There are human rights violations on a massive scale in India too.

Nevertheless, I think Tibetans and whoever else, has the right to protest and we should continue to give them our ear. But the real victories are won quietly, often diplomatically, and all this brouhaha is only going to set back things.

Instead of harping on China, people might do better to watch out for Russia who has seized the opportunity provided by the world’s leaders being at the Olympics to push its defence of South Ossetia to invasion of Georgia.