August 28, 2004
Athens Olympics Closing Ceremony
Its amazing that after all that expectation we are nearing the completion of the games and we have to talk about the closing ceremony.
Tomorrow is the end of the games and the organizing commitee has created a closing ceremony for the Athens Olympics that is meant to show to the rest of the world the way that Greeks enjoy themselves. It will be done in the spirit of a Greek 'γλεντι' and will involve folk Greek music but also modern singers and musicians in a feast of singing and dancing that I am sure many people who will be there will remember for a long time.
August 27, 2004
Athens Olympics Results: Water Polo
Women
ITA
GRE
USA
Athens Olympics Results: Taekwondo
Women Under 49 Kg
Shih Hsin Chen TPE
Yanelis Yuliet Labrada Diaz CUB
Yaowapa Boorapolchai THA
Athens Olympics Results: Field Hockey
Women
GER
NED
ARG
Athens Olympics Results: Diving
Women 3m Springboard
Jingjing Guo CHN
Minxia Wu CHN
Yulia Pakhalina RUS
Athens Olympics Results: Sailing
49er
Martinez / Fernandez ESP
Luka / Leonchuk UKR
Draper / Hiscocks GBR
Athens Olympics Results: Wrestling
Men Greco-Roman - 84-96kg
Karam Ibrahim EGY
Ramaz Nozadze GEO
Mehmet Ozal TUR
Athens Olympics Results: Wrestling
Men Greco-Roman - 66-74kg
Alexandr Dokturishivili UZB
Marko Yli-Hannuksela FIN
Varteres Samourgachev RUS
Athens Olympics Results: Wrestling
Men Greco-Roman - 55-60kg
Ji Hyun Jung KOR
Roberto Monzon CUB
Armen Nazarian BUL
Athens Olympics Results: Triathlon
Men Individual
Hamish Carter NZL
Bevan Docherty NZL
Sven Riederer SUI
Athens Olympics Results: Track & Field
Men Long Jump
Dwight Phillips USA
John Moffitt USA
Joan Lino Martinez ESP
Athens Olympics Results: Track & Field
Men 400m Hurdles
Felix Sanchez DOM
Danny McFarlane JAM
Naman Keita FRA
Athens Olympics Results: Taekwondo
Men Under 58 Kg
Mu Yen Chu TPE
Oscar Francisco Salazar Blanco MEX
Tamer Bayoumi EGY
August 26, 2004
Athens Olympics Results: Triathlon
Women
Kate Allen AUT
Loretta Harrop AUS
Susan Williams USA
Athens Olympics Results: Track & Field
Women 400m Hurdles
Fani Halkia GRE
Ionela Tirlea-Manolache ROM
Tetiana Tereshchuk-Antipova UKR
Athens Olympics Results: Track & Field
Women 200m
Veronica Campbell JAM
Allyson Felix USA
Debbie Ferguson BAH
Athens Olympics Results: Synchronized Swimming
Women Duet
Davydova / Ermakova RUS
Tachibana / Takeda JPN
Bartosik / Kozlova USA
Athens Olympics Results: Sailing
Women Mistral (board)
Faustine Merret FRA
Jian Yin CHN
Alessandra Sensini ITA
Athens Olympics Results: Cycling
Women Track - Points Race
Olga Slyusareva RUS
Belem Guerrero Mendez MEX
Maria Luisa Calle Williams COL
Athens Olympics Results: Equestrian
Dressage - Individual
Anky van Grunsven (Salinero) NED
Ulla Salzgeber (Rusty) GER
Beatriz Ferrer-Salat (Beauvalais) ESP
Athens Olympics Results: Wrestling
Men Greco-Roman - Under 55kg
Istvan Majoros HUN
Gueidar Mamedaliev RUS
Artiom Kiouregkian GRE
Athens Olympics Results: Wrestling
Men Greco-Roman - 96-120kg
Khasan Baroev RUS
Georgiy Tsurtsumia KAZ
Rulon Gardner USA
Athens Olympics Results: Wrestling
Men Greco-Roman - 74-84kg
Alexei Michine RUS
Ara Abrahamian SWE
Viachaslau Makaranka BLR
Athens Olympics Results: Wrestling
Men Greco-Roman - 74-84kg
Alexei Michine RUS
Ara Abrahamian SWE
Viachaslau Makaranka BLR
Athens Olympics Results: Wrestling
Men Greco-Roman - 60-66kg
Farid Mansurov AZE
Seref Eroglu TUR
Mkkhitar Manukyan KAZ
Athens Olympics Results: Weightlifting
Men Over 105kg
Hossein Reza Zadeh IRI
Viktors Scerbatihs LAT
Velichko Cholakov BUL
Athens Olympics Results: Sailing
Men Mistral (board)
Gal Fridman ISR
Nikolaos Kaklamanakis GRE
Nick Dempsey GBR
Athens Olympics Results: Cycling
Men Track - Madison
Brown / O'Grady AUS
Marvulli / Risi SUI
Hayles / Wiggins GBR
Athens Olympics Results: Beach Volleyball
Men
Rego / Santos
BRA
Bosma / Herrera
ESP
Heuscher / Kobel
SUI
August 25, 2004
The Economist on the Athens Olympics
Here is a very interesting article on the Athens Olympics in the Economist:
Greeks bearing games
Aug 18th 2004
From The Economist Global Agenda
The organisers of the Athens Olympics confounded the sceptics by completing their preparations on time. Now all they have to worry about is terrorists and drug-fuelled athletes
EPA
FIRST the good news. Despite all those gloomy predictions that Athens was not up to hosting the 28th summer Olympics—or perhaps because of them—the Greeks somehow managed to get everything ready on time. The stadiums, pool and scores of other facilities all look somewhere between presentable and stunning (if you can forget the odd missing roof). Ticket sales, worryingly slow last month, have picked up sharply, and organisers are confident of reaching their target of 5.2m. Not even the latest corruption scandal involving the International Olympic Committee (IOC), in which a Bulgarian member was suspended after being hit by bribery accusations, could darken the mood in the run-up to the opening ceremony on Friday August 13th.
So all is set fair for the Olympics’ return to the country that conceived the ancient games—and revived them 108 years ago. Or is it? Two issues remain a worry, each of them serious enough to wreck the event: security and performance-enhancing drugs.
The safety of those attending the games has long been cause for concern. In Munich in 1972, Palestinian militants killed 11 Israeli competitors; in 1996, a bomb planted in Atlanta’s Olympic park killed one bystander and injured more than 100. But since the September 11th 2001 attacks, global sporting events have become an even more inviting target for terrorists. The response of those organising the first summer games since those attacks has been to launch the biggest security operation in peacetime Europe. The arrangements in Athens include: a 70,000-strong security force; an airship packed with surveillance equipment; and gizmo-filled aircraft and ships, courtesy of NATO, which is also providing chemical, biological and nuclear response units. Oh, and Patriot missiles have been deployed around the Greek capital.
Just in case all that hardware is not enough reassurance, officials have been queuing up to offer comforting words. “Greece is the most secure country in the world,” said the deputy defence minister, Ioannis Lampropoulos, perhaps rashly. In a show of confidence, President George Bush is sending his parents and daughters to the games. International intelligence agencies say they have not picked up any terrorist “chatter” about an attack. Nevertheless, nerves have been jangled by some glaring security lapses: for instance, plans to check the backgrounds of contractors and volunteers were reportedly dropped because organisers ran out of time.
All the extra security comes at a high price. In 1997, when Athens won the bid for this summer’s games, the security costs were estimated to be just a thin slice of the overall budget. But the bill has risen to more than €1 billion ($1.2 billion), more than three times the amount spent in Sydney in 2000; and the total cost of staging the games could top €6 billion. This steep rise may discourage cities from bidding to host the games in future.
Though financial disasters like the 1976 Montreal games are now rare, few Olympics manage to turn a profit. The exceptions, like Los Angeles in 1984, do so by not building many new facilities. The Olympics’ supporters argue that, even if they make a loss, the wider boost the games bring is worth it. The evidence for this is shaky. Robert Baade, an economist at Chicago's Lake Forest College, looked at the perceived benefits of a successful Olympics like Sydney and found that they tend to be offset by the number of tourists who stay away. He also concluded that increased economic activity in the host city comes at the rest of the country’s expense. Add in fast-rising security costs and the economics look even wobblier.
Catching the cheats
Even if the huge cost of keeping Athens safe is deemed to be money well spent, the vexed issue of performance-boosting drugs might yet ensure that the games are remembered less for “the joy found in effort”, as Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympics, put it, than for “doping” scandals.
The past year or so has seen plenty of such scandals. In June 2003, a syringe containing a hitherto unknown and undetectable steroid, tetrahydrogestrinone (THG), was sent to America’s anti-doping agency, apparently by a disaffected coach. Speedily designed tests showed that use of THG had been widespread among top athletes. Drug scandals have also rocked tennis, football, cycling, ice hockey and cricket. These have fostered a climate of suspicion, in which almost every record-breaking achievement is questioned.
In the week leading up to the Athens games, several competitors were caught out by drug tests and sent home—and this week two of Greece's star sprinters pulled out after missing a scheduled drugs test. The IOC claims this shows that the cheats are being weeded out before the games begin. But others fear the embarrassing prospect of a substantial number of athletes being found out only after they have won medals, and thus being stripped of them—as happened to Ben Johnson after he won the 100m gold in Seoul in 1988.
Dick Pound, head of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), regards the Athens Olympics as a potential turning point in the war against doping, and he thinks he has the drug cheats on the run. Certainly, WADA today is no longer the weakling it seemed to be at the Sydney Olympics. It has since come up with many new tests. For instance, samples collected in Athens will be subject to new tests for human growth hormone, used by athletes to stimulate muscle growth. And testing of blood samples has been extended to all Olympic sports for the first time—previously, it had been limited to endurance sports.
More crucially, in order to take part in Athens, the world governing body of each sport in the games has had to sign up to the world anti-doping code, agreed in 2003 (though some are still trying to attach caveats). This created, among other things, a single list of banned substances, a standard set of sanctions for offenders and a dispute-resolution mechanism through the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Despite all these efforts, some, including The Economist (see article), argue that driving drugs out of sport may prove impossible, especially as undetectable gene therapies could soon be on the market. Some also question whether it is really so obvious that doping is wrong. Perhaps it would be better to let each sport set its own standards of behaviour rather than have a single global body try to stamp out performance drugs with blanket rules.
However this debate unfolds, the Athens Olympics will be a crucial battle in sport’s war on drugs. They will also be a milestone in the war on terror. And they might even, with luck, be a lot of fun.
Athens Olympics Results: Cycling
Men Greco-Roman - 74-84kg
Alexei Michine RUS
Ara Abrahamian SWE
Viachaslau Makaranka BLR
Athens Olympics Results: Weightlifting
Men 94-105kg
Dmitry Berestov RUS
Ferenc Gyurkovics HUN
Igor Razoronov UKR
Athens Olympics Results: Track & Field
Women 100m Hurdles
Joanna Hayes USA
Olena Krasovska UKR
Melissa Morrison USA
Athens Olympics Results: Track & Field
Women 400m
Tonique Williams-Darling BAH
Ana Guevara MEX
Natalya Antyukh RUS
Athens Olympics Results: Track & Field
Women Pole Vault
Yelena Isinbayeva RUS
Svetlana Feofanova RUS
Anna Rogowska POL
Athens Olympics Results: Track & Field
Track & Field - Men
3000m Steeplechase
Ezekiel Kemboi KEN
Brimin Kipruto KEN
Paul Kipsiele Koech KEN
Athens Olympics Results: Track & Field
Men 1500m
Hicham El Guerrouj MAR
Bernard Lagat KEN
Rui Silva POR
Athens Olympics Results: Diving
Men 3m Springboard
Bo Peng CHN
Alexandre Despatie CAN
Dmitri Sautin RUS
Athens Olympics Results: Cycling
Women Track - Sprint
Lori-Ann Muenzer CAN
Tamilla Abassova RUS
Anna Meares AUS
Athens Olympics Results: Cycling
Men Track - Sprint
Ryan Bayley AUS
Theo Bos NED
Rene Wolff GER
Athens Olympics Results: Cycling
Men Track - Points Race
Mikhail Ignatyev RUS
Joan Llaneras ESP
Guido Fulst GER