Them people at the Associated Press have much bigger balls than economist Daniel Johnson and his team. Why? Because they not only predicted the number of medals that a national team will harvest in Vancouver, they are also predicting the individual medalists (see below). If that is not chutzpah, we don’t know what is.
But just because we are saying these AP guys and gals have big balls does not mean that we will not be mocking them if any of their predictions do not come true. After all, these kinds of very precise predictions are invitations for mockery, eh?
Canada’s hometown advantage will help it win the most medals in the upcoming Vancouver 2010 Winter Games. Well, that’s not surprising really, all Olympic host nations benefit from a home-field advantage.
Here’s the theme song of the Beijing Paralympic Games. It is guaranteed to make you cry but it should also inspire you to overcome whatever adversities you are facing. The video features popular Chinese singer Andy Lau who also composed and recorded the song. Everyone is number one indeed.
Well, they receive more “reward” money than their American counterparts who get US$25,000 for a gold medal. But they don’t do as well as Thai gold medalists who are given US$314,000.
In ten days, the Beijing Paralympic Games will begin. I hope to blog about it of course and I hope that no unscheduled projects will come my way so that — unlike the Olympics that just passed — I can do the blogging regularly.
Who’s the athlete to watch in the Paralympic Games? I’m not sure if my kailiyan from the boondocks, Adeline Dumapong is going to the Games but she’s a force to reckon with in powerlifting.
Here’s another one I should have blogged about last week but didn’t because of a tight schedule: Panama’s Irving Saladino who lived up to the hype by outjumping the competition in the men’s long jump. Congratulations, Irving.
I got busy doing some other stuff so I wasn’t able to update this blog during the Olympics but this doesn’t mean that I will stop blogging about our Olympic champions
Our fist post-Olympic post would be about Oussama Mellouli, winner of the 1,500 meter race in swimming, who went home to Tunisia and was deservedly welcomed as a hero. Good for him!
Norwegian Andreas Thorkildsen who won the gold medal in the javelin throw is probably the best medal biter I’ve seen in the Beijing Games. Seriously, have you seen a better practitioner of the art of Olympic medal biting than Andreas? Congratulations to you Andreas. May you have another gold medal to bite in London 2012.
