ESPNX - Olympic Edition

It’s a very special time—it’s time for the Summer Olympics! This year the Olympic Games will be held in Beijing, China from Aug 8th to Aug 24th 2008.
The very best athletes from around the world will meet to compete for gold, silver, and bronze medals in a wide variety of sports ranging from track and field to gymnastics to swimming and diving. The Olympics are also time for people from many different cultures and backgrounds to make friends and learn acceptance. Bring the Olympics into your home by planning some Olympic crafts and activities to inspire your children to be active and experience the Olympic spirit.
The Olympic Flag
Explain to your child that the Olympic Flag is a very special flag. It has five interlocking colored rings on a white background. The rings represent the five major land areas, or continents, of the world. Show children these land areas on a map or globe. Explain that the rings are interlocked to show friendship among the different nations. Then, have your child paint or color interlocking rings on a sheet of white printing paper to resemble the Olympic Flag. Attach to a drinking straw for the handle.
The Olympic Torch
During opening ceremonies of the Olympics, a specially chosen person lights the Olympic cauldron to signal the official start of the games. The flame is kept burning during the entire length of the games. Have your child make his/her own Olympic torch and let the games begin! To make a simple torch, have your child cover the outside of a paper roll with aluminum foil. Then, have him/her glue red, yellow, and orange tissue paper inside the paper roll. Let your run around the cauldron pretending to light the big torch with his/her torch.)
Olympic Mascots
The Olympic Games Mascot for 2008 is the Fuwa. The Fuwa consist of five doll-like creations named Beibei, Jingjing, Huanhuan, Yingying, and Nini. Each of the Fuwa represents a different animal (fish, giant panda, fire, Tibetan antelope, and swallow) and Chinese element of philosophy (water, metal, fire, wood, and earth), and each has as its primary color one of the colors of the five Olympic Rings (red, blue, green, yellow, and black). Encourage your child to create a mascot similar to the Fuwa that represents your city or state. Visit our site for free Olympic coloring pagesfor each mascot.
Olympic Medals
Create some easy to make medals for your children. Draw a circle on a piece of cardboard and have children color it with yellow crayons. Spread a thin layer of glue over painted circles and while glue is still wet, lightly sprinkle on glitter. Shake off excess glitter and let dry. To add the neck ribbon, cut a length of ribbon approximately 32 inches.
Olympic Sports Day
Children of all ages will enjoy these fun Olympic activities. For the opening celebration, play some marching music and have children follow a torch-bearer with their own creation of flags to start your games.
Water Sports
Have your children jump over a sprinkler, move water balloons from one clothes basket to another, throw water balloons or resealable plastic baggies filled with water from one bucket to another,, and toss sponges from a bucket filled with, water trying to hit a target.
Gymnastics Event
Put on music and spread out a large sheet to use as a gymnastic floor. Let children make their own gymnastic floor exercise. Let children dance with crepe paper streamers to music or hop in and out of hula hoops.
At the end of the event make a podium out of cardboard boxes, etc. and hand out the medals to all participants of the Olympic Games.
Olympian Snacks
The Olympics is a multicultural event—a perfect time to introduce foods from other countries to your child, such as tortillas, pizza, egg rolls, pita bread and hummus, etc.

Delita asked:


I’ve heard that cities that host olympics fall into debt and it takes years for them to finish paying back everything. How is this so and can anyone give me an example?

With the increasing commercialism of the Olympics, sporting scandals, and political overtones, it is often hard to remember what the Olympic Games stand for. In reality, this iconic sporting event has a rich history of symbolisms to represent its ideals.

One of the most famous symbols in the world is the Olympic emblem: five interlocking rings in the colors of blue, yellow, black, green, red with a white background. As described by the founder of the modern Olympics, Pierre de Coubertin, the rings represent the five inhabited continents of the world, united by Olympism.

The emblem of the Games is also seen on its flag. This flag holds special significance as it is raised at the beginning of the opening ceremony and lowered when the Games close. As well, the flag is used by one athlete and one judge from the host nation to take the Olympic Oath. To remain true to the Games, the Oath is taken on behalf of others. It is an act to remind all athletes and judges to honor the spirit of the Games, without drugs and doping, and to abide by impartiality when judging.

Another iconic symbol of the Olympics is the Flame. The Olympic torch is ignited months in advance in Greece, the birthplace of the Olympics. The torch is then relayed throughout the world in celebration for the upcoming Olympiad. Finally, the torch reaches the main stadium of the host city in order to ignite the cauldron centerpiece at the opening ceremony. This act officially starts the Olympic Games and is usually done with much fanfare and mystery as how the cauldron will ignite and who will be the last torch bearer. The flame burns bright for the remainder of the Games until it is extinguished at the closing ceremonies.

Finally, perhaps what distinguishes each Olympic Games from others is their chosen mascot. For most host countries, they pick a native animal to represent their country with a story or background describing the animal. And for some countries, they have even more than one mascot to support the theme of their particular Olympiad. A great example of weaving culture into the Games are the mascots for the Beijing Olympics.

Collectively, the Beijing mascots are known as FUWA or “friendlies”. In keeping with tradition, these mascots represent animals important in the Chinese culture such as the fish, the giant panda, the Tibetan antelope, the swallow, and last but not least, to honor the Olympics, the flame. What makes the mascots memorable is that they each have a specific color as per the Olympic rings - truly tying the culture of the Chinese into the symbolism of the Olympics.

So next time you come across an Olympic symbol, remember that there’s a meaning behind it all.

The Olympic Games were first celebrated in 776 BC in Olympia (hence the name) in Greece. According to legend, Hercules is the originator of The Olympic Games. Legend says they were created to honor Hercules father, Zeus.

They were celebrated until 393 A.D. Pierre Fridy, Baron de Coubertin, revived the Olympics in their modern form in 1896. The Olympics are a contest of multiple sports and are divided into the Summer and Winter Olympics. The Winter Olympics are a much smaller event than the Summer Games.

In 1896 there were 241 participants from 14 nations. This number grew until there were 11,100 competitors from 202 countries in The 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. The Olympics are a huge media event. Well over half the world watched the Olympics in Sydney in 2000 (3.8 billion to be exact).

The growth of the Olympics is one of the major problems of the Olympics today. Sponsorships solved financial problems in the 1980’s. Today the large number of athletes, media and spectators make it difficult and expensive to host the Olympics. A great amount of infrastructure is needed.

London is to host the 2012 Olympic Games. The games are to be held from 27th July to 12th August 2012, to be followed by the Paralympic Games. An Olympic Village has been proposed to be built with 17,320 beds providing a comfortable and spacious environment for athletes.

There is to be a massive redevelopment of public transport. This includes the expansion of the London Underground’s East London Line, upgrades to the Docklands Light Railway and the North London Line, and the new “Javelin” service. The organizers aim to make 90% of venues accessible by at least three forms of public transport and 93% of training facilities to be within 30 minutes of travel of the athletes housing. Park and ride schemes are included among the many plans to decongest traffic. Some concern has been expressed on the logistics of travel outside London.

The 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games will use a mixture of newly built venues, existing and historic facilities, and temporary facilities. Some locations are well known such as Hyde Park and Horse Guards Parade. The land in the east end of London chosen for the site needs decontamination and major remedial work before it can be fit for the games.

What is going to be involved in the development proposal are compulsory purchases of some businesses. This has caused some amount of angst with businesses not being happy with the compensation offered. With all these logistical issues, it seems the cost for the 2012 London Olympics could rise to nearly four times the figure set out during the bid.

From an initial figure of 2.35 billion pounds, what is being discussed now is a staggering cost of 9 billion pounds. Construction alone could now cost 3.3 billion pounds. 2 billion pounds have been allocated as a contingency fund. Regeneration costs of 1.8 billion and a 1 billion pound VAT bill have also been added to the costs. Security costs have grown to 900 million pounds. The causes for a rise in costs include rise in commodity prices, adjustments to transport figures to reflect 2012 prices and a revised estimate for inflation on construction costs.

Will the 2012 Olympics fulfill their aim, which is to stage inspirational Games that capture the imagination of young people around the world and leave a lasting legacy? Only time will tell. However, with the effort being put in, we can hope that London 2012 will fly faster, higher, stronger and leave us happy memories of an Olympics well done.

Be they supporting the Olympics or endorsing a boycott or protest of the Olympics. Sites related to Darfur, Sudan or Tibet welcome. Also, are there any athlete sites out there that are discussing these issues?

Basically, where do you go for news on these issues? I’m trying to educate myself and I have not found any really good sites with information yet.

The sports obsessors say there should be no politics in the Olympics.

So do you suggest we just cheer on the athletes ans ignore the cries of torture?

Hopefully this Olympcs will be successfull, regardless of what happened in China at the moment.

The debate on whether bodybuilding should be an Olympic sport has been raging for years amongst the bodybuilding community and those interested in the Olympics. Ardent fans argue that weightlifting has been an Olympic sport for years, so why not bodybuilding? To diehard fans, bodybuilding and the Olympics seems to be a perfect fit, and questions like “Why is bodybuilding not already an Olympic sport?” are routinely aired.

Perhaps the more telling questions to ask are “Should bodybuilding be an Olympic sport?”, and “Would making bodybuilding an Olympic sport help the Olympics?”

Bodybuilding And The Olympics: Why It Is Not Already An Olympic Sport

The current Olympic program consists of 35 sports, 53 disciplines and more than 400 events, ranging from archery through to weightlifting and wrestling. The bodybuilding fan base, competitors, and sponsors are all ready and willing to take the step to Olympic level. The stumbling block is the International Olympic Committee and the OPC, who state simply that according to their criteria, bodybuilding is not a sport and there has no place in the Olympics.

This stand begs the question, “what determines a sport in the first place?”. A simple definition by the Australian Sports Foundation says that sport is “a human activity capable of achieving a result requiring physical exertion and/or physical skill, which, by its nature and organization, is competitive and is generally accepted as being a sport.”

Arguably, bodybuilding fits within this definition, and one would think this should be enough for the IOC. However, the primary problem the IOC has with allowing bodybuilding into the Olympics concerns drug abuse. They claim that the widespread use of performance enhancing drugs by bodybuilders would prevent bodybuilding from complying with Olympic drug policies. There are harsh and vigilant doping rules for Olympic competitors, which would certainly exclude many professional bodybuilders.

However, the natural bodybuilding fraternity does not use performance enhancing drugs. The Olympics could uphold their drug policies, allowing only natural bodybuilders to compete at the Olympics. This also aligns with the tradition of the Olympics being a competition for sporting amateurs, not professionals.

Another reason stated by the IOC for excluding bodybuilding from the Olympics was that the judging in competitive bodybuilding was far too subjective for an Olympic judge to critique. Given the controversy surrounding the subjective judging of sports such as ice skating, diving, and gymnastics this argument hardly seems to hold water. In fact, bodybuilding would seem to be a perfect fit!

How Bodybuilding Could Help The Olympics

As competitive bodybuilding has never been a mainstream sport, including it as an Olympic Sport would allow the sport to be better known and recognized. It would also make the sport more accessible, allowing people to learn more about bodybuilding, and possibly participate themselves.

Bodybuilding would also help the Olympics by widening the scope of sports on display. By showcasing bodybuilding, the Olympics would be encouraging people of all ages to eat good food, work out, become fit, and look after their health. These are important messages in a world where so many people are overweight.
A look back into history reveals that the Olympics were first introduced by the Greeks, who idolized and revered well toned, aesthetic bodies with healthy strong physiques.

Bodybuilding And The Olympics: The Main Argument Against

Besides the drug doping issue, perhaps the most prominent argument against including bodybuilding in the Olympics is the subjectivity of judges and the fact that there is often no clear winner. Even though other Olympic sports like ice skating are also in this category, the majority of Olympic sporting events feature clear winners, either by time, distance, height or lifting weight. No one can argue that judging mistakes have been made when a competitor clearly wins an event.

Although the jury is still out on bodybuilding and Olympics, it seems for the time being at least, that the Olympic Committee has no intention of including bodybuilding as an Olympic sport. Despite the fact that the bodybuilding fraternity is ready and willing to take the step to Olympic level, it looks like they will be waiting for some time yet.

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Why are the olympics named after the season of the north hemisphere?
It’s summer in the south hemisphere, but the olympics are still called “Winter Olympics”

Some of you guys don’t understand what i mean. I am asking why the winter olympics occur when it is winter in the north hemisphere, and not south. But several good answers though.