Wisely 's Bookmarks tagged Olympics → View Popular

You are here: Diigo Home > Wisely 's Bookmarks

Ads by Google

Expand All 1 - 17 of 17

4Expand

Ready, willing and disabled - Sport - smh.com.au

"This year, passions ran as high at the officials' cocktail parties as they did on the track as international delegates debated a controversial question: just how badly off does an athlete need to be to be eligible to compete at the Paralympics?

The debate arose from a push to cut the least disabled events from the Games program. Under the proposal, track and field athletes with lower arm amputation and mild cerebral palsy would have to take their chances in able-bodied competition."

Tags: paralympics, olympics, disabled on 2008-10-16 -All Annotations (4) -About

more fromwww.smh.com.au

In Athens, for example, there was a classification scandal surrounding two tall Tunisian midgets.
The Tunisians were included in throwing events for dwarfs, as there were not enough midgets to justify an event of their own. Classifiers decided that the requirement for competition would not be dwarfism, but height.
The midgets were slightly taller than the dwarfs. They could also fully extend their arms, as midgets' bodies are proportional and dwarfs' are not. The Tunisians broke world records, and the dwarfs were furious.
At the Sydney Games, a group of Spaniards pretended to be intellectually disabled to enter the basketball competition, hoping to claim a cash reward for gold medals that had been offered by the Spanish Government.
As a result, intellectually disabled events were dropped from Athens and Beijing. They will be revived in London, much to the disapproval of physically disabled athletes who believe the inclusion of the "IDs" will confuse the Games with the Special Olympics.
In Beijing, Australia's Heath Francis, who was seven when he caught his forearm in a meat mincer 20 years ago, won gold in the 100 metres, 200m and 400m. He is in the T46 class for athletes with a single above-elbow amputation and runs with an artificial arm to improve his balance. But under the new guidelines, that might not be enough of a disability.
"For sprinting, the upper body is as important as the lower body," Francis said. "When you look at Olympic runners, their arms are almost as big as their legs. The strength of your upper body determines the speed of your legs."
Able-bodied athletes do heavy weight training, but Francis cannot do most of it. "You try to modify them and make the best of it, and I'm lucky that [my coach] thinks laterally, but it's still not as good as the exercises I could do with two arms.
"That then translates onto the track, about how much power and force I can generate with my legs. I'm restricted with the strength in my arms."
Occasionally, athletes with disabilities may have an edge over their able-bodied counterparts. The South African sprinter Oscar Pistorius was initially banned from able-bodied competition because of the extra bounce from his carbon prosthetics. That decision was overturned by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, although Pistorius did not qualify for the Olympics.

Seen Not Heard: Girl Switched at Olympics

Little girl who actually sang song axed in the "national interest."

Tags: china, olympics on 2008-08-18 -All Annotations (0) -About

more fromfeeds.feedburner.com

ABC News : Faking Their Way to a Perfect Olympics

Fake fireworks, fake singer, all in the name of "national interest."

Tags: china, olympics on 2008-08-18 -All Annotations (0) -About

more fromfeeds.feedburner.com

Churches ordered closed during Olympics

Pastors forced to sign agreements not to meet for 90 days

Tags: china, olympics, abuse-of-authority on 2008-08-18 and saved by2 people -All Annotations (0) -About

more fromwww.worldnetdaily.com

Beijing and Berlin:Tale of 2 Olympics

Eric Birmingham compares China's nationalistic hosting of games to Hitler's

Tags: olympics on 2008-08-18 -All Annotations (0) -About

more fromwww.worldnetdaily.com

Is NBCs Tight Leash on Olympics Webcasts a Mistake? - Bits - Technology - New York Times Blog

Tags: olympics on 2008-08-14 -All Annotations (0) -About

more frombits.blogs.nytimes.com

Vital Signs: Congressman Mike Pence on the "Police State" of Communist China, Forced Abortion, the Olympics and More

Tags: china, olympics on 2008-08-02 -All Annotations (0) -About

more fromvitalsignsblog.blogspot.com

2,100-Year-Old Gadget Tracked Olympics

Ancient Greek calculator recorded Olympic dates while mapping the heavens

Tags: olympics, astronomy on 2008-08-01 -All Annotations (0) -About

more fromfeeds.feedburner.com

Dog meat off the menu during Olympics - Beijing Olympics News- msnbc.com

Tags: olympics, china on 2008-07-11 -All Annotations (0) -About

more fromwww.msnbc.msn.com

The Washington Times EXCLUSIVE: China gets U.S. Olympics help 6/5/2008

"Some U.S. officials, including those who question the legality and ethics of the support, said China plans to dispatch the 38th Group Army to Beijing for the games. The army group, with about 25,000 troops, took part in the 1989 crackdown in Tiananmen Square, when troops opened fired on unarmed pro-democracy protesters, killing hundreds or thousands."

Tags: China, olympics, Tiananmen on 2008-06-06 -All Annotations (0) -About

more fromwww.washingtontimes.com