Beijing closes spectacularly, Wo ai Beijing.

Beijing, China, August 24th, 2008, (Reuters).- Faster, Usain Bolt, Higher,

It's hard to come up with a joke with such a flawless ceremony.

Yelena Isinbayeva, Stronger, Matthias Steiner, and now, more medals, Michael Phelps.

In an spectacular closing ceremony, Beijing 2008 ended in “The Bird’s Nest” two weeks of amazing games with drums, music, art and thousands and thousands of obedient Chinese.

The ceremony started with a countdown in which the numbers were being shown with fireworks in Beijing’s sky, as well as the five olimpic rings. Hundreds of drums started to play in the center of the stadium while two giant drums were also being played while suspended on air. Hundreds of Chinese dancers joined with choreography and vehicles with lights in a show that amazed everyone except the Americans who again had to skip the live transmission and had to wait for NBC’s delayed one.

The nations parade was much more casual and shorter as only one athlete from each country paraded, accompanied by a Chinese guy. Later on, the rest of the athletes that are still in Beijing joined their partners in the spaces that the Chinese left for them.

The medal ceremony for the marathon took place then, with the medals being given by Jacques Rogge, the president of the International Olympics Committee. Samuel Wanjiru from Kenya took gold, Jaouad Gharib from Morrocco took silver and Tsegay Kebede from Ethiopia took bronze. They all seemed Africans to the US audience.

Jacques Rogge said a speech.  “The world has learned about China, and China has learned about the world, and I believe this has been a lot of learning.”

The English were present, in anticipation for the London 2012 games. A double decker bus appeared on stage from which a rather hindi girl came out, who received a soccer ball from a Chinese girl. This ball was later given to Spice Boy Beckham, who shot a penalty with it. One from the many Chinese volunteers caught it though. Led Zepellin’s guitarrist Jimmy Paige was brought all the way from the eldery home so he could pretend he played a Guitar Hero solo. Leona Lewis joined him with the Rock Band vocals. 

A touching moment was when 3 athletes were shown in a plane staircase, giving the impression that they were about to board it. The American Olympic committee filed a protest that their baggages hadn’t been checked for potential terrorist bombs or threaths.

The Chinese gave a show of discipline and coordination by mounting up a tower and giving it life as an olympic torch, using only dancers who were dressed red and silver. 

Afterwards, several modern Chinese singers, along with more dancers and representatives of China’s ethnies, sang to the public. The song “Wo ai Beijing”, which means “we’re not underage at Beijing”, was specially catchy. Jackie Chan also showed up and showed that he can fake singing as well as fighting. Placido Domingo also sang along with Chinese star, Chun Li.

Finally, the sky was again filled with fireworks, which lasted several minutes and brought back the smog that had been absent from Beijing’s sky during the last 2 weeks.

This time, The United States changed the way the medal rankings are calculated, trying new ways, all of which, by mere coincidence, give the US the first place. Instead of letting the number of gold medals decide who the first place is, as has always been done in the olympics and which gives host China first place, the US used total medals, medals per capita and medals in non-judged events systems, which all give the US first place. 

Meanwhile, countries who won their first ever olympic medals, Afghanistan, Bahrain, Mauritius, Sudan, Tajikistan and Togo also claimed their athletes were the best of the world. So did Panama and Mongolia who won their first ever gold medals. They hope to soon begin appearing on maps as well.

Michael Phelps breaks record by 3 hours and 45 minutes

Michael Phelps claims he is an average boy. "I like pizza, movies, parties and racing against dolphins."

Beijing, China, August 12th, 2008, (Reuters).- Michael Phelps obtained his umpteenth medal today as he broke the record for the 200 meter butterfly by 3 hours, 45 minutes, 12 seconds and 48 hundredths, effectively going into negative numbers.

Phelps, who went to the movies while he waited for the rest of the competitors to finish, apologized to the audience after the ceremony, “I’m terribly sorry, my googles kept filling with water during the race and I couldn’t do my best. I know I could have gotten 30 minutes less, but in the circumstances, not too bad, I guess. Please understand, I’m just human.”

Later that day, he broke up another record, won another gold, by beating the rest of the world combined in the 800 meters relay. The US coach decided to have American teammates Ryan Lochte, Ricky Berens, and Peter Vanderkaay sit this one out and have Phelps race against all the other nations’ swimmers combined, AND giving them an advantage of 100 meters, “just to make it interesting.” Phelps had a hard time, winning the race by mere 16 minutes. After the race he tried to hire some weightlifting medal winner to carry his gold medal suitcase for him.

Phelps has won so many medals and broke so many records and became so popular that the American Olympic Commettee is considering to leave the rest of the American delegation at home and just take Phelps alone for the London Olympics in 2012. “Maybe those guys who play basketball, too,” commented the president of the commettee, “it’d be cheaper and plus we wouldn’t have any flops like the gymnastic’s team.”

He was referring to the loss of the US gymnastic team, who, with a fall from a beam, a splat on the floor and two steps out of bounds, lost the gold to the China team, settling for silver, with bronze for the Romanians. “It wasn’t fair, the  rulebook that was handed to us was in Chinese,” complained U.S. captain Alicia Sacramone.

On another Olympic news, it was revealed that the Olympic child singing star Lin Miaoke was a fake, as she was only miming and put in stage because the real singer was considered unattractive, revealed the music designer of the ceremony, Hu You Hai Ding.

Movie director Steven Spielberg, who first helped Chinese director Zhang Fei with the preparation of the opening, but later withdrew because he was not given the rights for the athletes action figures, declared “I do not think the Chinese state realizes how unethical this is. It’s completly unnecessary as we can’t tell Chinese people apart nor pronounce their names. We would never do this in the U.S. where we have actresses that portrait what the real average American woman looks like, such as Jessica Alba, Scarlett Johanson and Angelina Jolie.”

Beijing 2008 Olympics Opening Ceremony a success

Amazing, isn't it?

Beijing, China, August 8th, 2008, (Reuters).- The 2008 Olympic games at Beijing opened with a Lavish and stunning ceremony, giving China its much waited opportunity to show its splendor to the world.

Thousands of Chinese and foreigners shouted the countdown at the National Stadium, better known as the “bird’s nest.” Several heads of state were also present, with president George W. Bush dominating the scene. Bush will also participate in the shooting event, in the rifle, pistol and shotgun with moving target categories, being the first American president to participate in Olympic games.

The show was dominated by stunning acrobatics, beautiful dances, extraordinary fireworks, and a sea of drums, all used to show the history of China and what can be done with thousands and thousands of people.

The Parade of Nations started with Greece, and finished with China, as is customary. However, the delegation’s usual alphabetic order was changed to Chinese character’s order. Since none of the other delegations knew how to speak, much less write Chinese, they all had to take their word for it.

The Iraqi delegation was finally allowed to participate in the games, after a reversal of a ban from the International Olympics Committee. However, his 4 athlete delegation was composed of 2 Americans, 1 British and 1 Iraqi. The Americans and British were there to ensure the Iraqi athlete’s freedom, although negotiations are in progres for them to leave sometime before the London Olympics.

The Chinese flag bearer, Mao Ying, was accompanied by a child who survived the Nike sweatshops. The child also helped manufacture the sneakers that Ying was using.

The event was closed with Li Ding running around the top of the stadium, suspended by cables. It was just awesome.

Not everything was good news, though.

A terrorist threat was issued by Islamic radical group, Apul Dah Thrigah, composed of about 150 members. The Chinese authorities responded with the arrest of alleged 50,000 members, thwarting the terrorist plot. Chinese Defense Secretary Gun Pao Der, commented, “we can outdo Americans in everything, even war on terror.”

 

Also, Americans had to miss the live opening ceremony. Olympic games rights owner NBC, decided to forego the live transmission and broadcasted it instead on Friday’s prime time. It is rumored that it was all a prank from Bill Gates and internet providers so people had to switch to watch the games on internet.

On another note, Beijing Residents were told to stay home by the local goverment. In some places, the security went as far as locking parks and blocking streets. Local drunken bum, Lao Zi, commented “I have lived in this park since communism improved my life standards, how can they lock me out?”. Beijing mayor, Wai Yu Shao Ting, explained that the measurement was taken to protect the citizens from themselves, “imagine 10,000 millions of Chinese drivers out at the same time, driving home or to a bar or to the stadium. There would be more dead people than the Tiananmen square massacre, which never happened.

China olympics give new breath to ancient culture

China's athletics team finishing their Nike quota so that they can participate in the games.

Beijing, China, July 29th, 2008 (Reuters).- Olympics are bringing not only athletes, events, tourists and foreign currencies to the old Chinese capital, but also a reinassence of the  culture and arquitecture that is such a distigished icon of the sino heritage.Following a beautification program approved by the only party in power, called “ho yoo hai ding” which in English means “the new wall of China, in Beijing”, the Chinese local officials have taken the task of keeping the city as clean as possible before the Olympics by covering less than desirable or even eyesore parts of the city behind walls, in such a way that they don’t interfiere with the atlethes’ or tourists’ line of view.

Thus many small one bedroom houses and stores owners would be safely protected from curious tourists that might speak with them, buy their products or even know they exist.

“We not only care about imperialist tourist, we care about local Chinese people too. We give them culture, we give them new wall of China for protection and their own Forbidden City in their own room. We specially care about Chinese children. We belive they are future of China. We give them economic future in constructing industry with bricks. Of course, we give them sweatshop quota and circus acrobatics too so they have integral development. If they fast enough, we give them chance in olympic event too after they finish homework and rice field work.” said a Chinese official who did not request to remain anonymus. However, this wasn’t  necessary as his name was too difficult to pronounce and impossible to remember and they all look the same anyway.