Conspiracy Theories

[emmelinemay]

I've not been able to watch much of the Olympics, although I'm pretty pleased to not that we're doing pretty well this time around. Brits, it seems, are good at rowing and cycling.

There have been a few rather ugly marks on this Olympics though, which are fascinating me rather more than the medals table...

This one is probably my favourite:

0.001 of a second

A site documenting Omega sponsored Phelp's victory in an Omega sponsored lane, to the naked eye coming second but the Omega timing device recording a 0.001 victory. Not at all suspicious.

Age contraversy

One of many articles about Chinese gynmast He Kexin who was 13 last year, but now appears to have a passport that proves she's 16. The minimum age for gymnasts in the Olympics has been 16 since 1990 to try to protect the welfare of child gymnasts. A British gymnast came 4th in this competition, so most of the UK articles are about how she 'should have won'.

Rehearsal injury

Liu Yan, a dancer who was rehearsing for the opening ceremony, fell over 3 meters and landed on her head. Officials said she had a 'broken leg' and nothing more for a few weeks. How the hell you can fall on your head and break your leg, I don't know. They've since admitted she's probably paralysed, and so covered up the severity of her injuries for some reason.

CGI fireworks

Some of the effects in the opening ceremony were faked becaue officials were worried the live ones wouldn't work.

Nice voice, shame about the face"

7 year old Yang Peiyi, who won a competition to sing at the opening ceremony, was deemed not pretty enough, and so a 9 year old mimed instead. kafunked and I commented as we watched the ceremony that she was miming, it was pretty obvious, but we assumed she was miming an older girl's voice! Sad thing is, Yang Peiyi is a perfectly beautiful little girl, she just has wonky teeth, just like a million other little 7 year olds in the world.

And finally, because there has to be an 'and finally',

British cheat caught out by green water...

Comments

[mark13.livejournal.com]

I find most interesting the comments Zhang Yimou and the paralysed dancer have been quoted as saying to each other - both positive, hopeful, and no one's talking about litigation.

Of course whether anyone would be *allowed* to say anything bad may be another matter...

[s0b.livejournal.com]

Have you noticed how the number of articles about Tibet and China's human rights record have tailed off since Team GB started to get gold medals?

[hsb.livejournal.com]

The cartoon in the Metro was about that...

H

[deviblue.livejournal.com]

Thing I'm currently seeing as a bit suspect is the fact china is way out in the lead with 16 more gold medals than the nearest rival.
Its normally the US thats in the lead with those

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

The host country always does well at the Olympics, as I think being host entitles you to enter people in every event without them having to qualify. So China have far more people entered than they usually do.

[deviblue.livejournal.com]

Fair point...probably explains it

[gaius-octavian.livejournal.com]

There's a 3-4x better chance that China will have the most naturally talented athlete in any given sport than the US - they only need to find 'em and train 'em.

[yaruar.livejournal.com]

The US has had loads of it's top athletes either fail drugs tests or 'retire' when the stricter testing came in, especially following Marion Jones, et al. Hence their loss of dominance in track and field where they usually dominate.

China is doing well because they've been planning this for years, every sport they were poor at they have developed athletes for with the intention of being the dominant force in the games. It's not suprising at all when you consider it's an autocratic state with almost unlimited money and human resources.

The only truely suspect result i've seen was one of the Chinese male gymnasts in the rings where he failed to pull off most of the power stability moves fully and yet got one of the highest scores in the team heats.

[sera-squeak.livejournal.com]

I don't know if it's the same in China as Korea but dates of birth are a funny thing out there. My friend-who-lives-out-there forgets how old he is as his "Korean age" can make him a year or two older than his "British age". That said, it wouldn't be difficult to work out what was intended by the Olympic committee's rules as I think they'd likely be using the same calendar as us!

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

The evidence for her being currently 14 is that she has been talked about in the Chinese press, and her age last year was given as 13. Officials refuse to comment any further, as they say there's the passport, there's the proof...

[sera-squeak.livejournal.com]

To be honest, this Olympics was going to be rife with claims like this, so I'm not terribly surprised...

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

There's always contraversy, but this one is so much more interesting, for some reason. Perhaps because China is barely even pretending it isn't cheating, it's just kind of going 'Yeah, we're cheating. But none of our people know, and we're going to say we're not, and everyone will be too polite and political to do anything about it'.

I am more interested in the Phelps one really, the pictures are pretty interesting, and the background. I liked the part where they say that the Serbians have seen the slowed down footage and are happy with it, but they aren't going to show anyone else. I have two mental images in my head, one where the Serbians are 'shown the footage' in the form of leather suitcases full of unmarked notes, and one where they are 'shown the footage' in the form of blunt instruments.

[sera-squeak.livejournal.com]

Heh, it's funny because I was thinking the same thing about being "shown the footage"!

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

Nice one :)

[yaruar.livejournal.com]

i remember wathing the phelps replays and being clear in my mind that he touched first, especially given the dynamics of butterfly, it's a lot quicker to bring the arms over than glide, it happens a lot in backstroke too when they mistime the final stroke.

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

My former work colleague Doug agrees with you - he wants this to go on here as he hasn't got an LJ:

His fingertips were definitely closer to the wall at that point than Phelp’s. But the Serbian dude had made his final stroke and had his arms out for the wall, so was basically gliding for the final few inches on previously built-up momentum.

Phelps was still executing his final stroke, and was in the process of bringing his arms forward when that photo was taken – i.e. he was still going at full pelt. Don’t forget the Phelps is very tall, with abnormally long arms. So considering he was (a) going faster at the end (b) had his head and shoulders closer to the end (look at the conspiracy photo) (c) has a longer arm-reach I don’t find it odd to believe that he won in what was an incredibly close finish.

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

hmm, interestingly there was controversy over this before the olympics even started...

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/2008-07-27-3655845897_x.htm

[sera-squeak.livejournal.com]

Interesting but unsurprising really. My housemate described the Olympics as a "glorified sports day". Which would certainly be more interesting, especially if there was a sack race, obstacle course and egg-and-spoon.

[deviblue.livejournal.com]

Olympic sack race and the 800m egg and spoon...that would be awesome

[sera-squeak.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't it just? Especially if all the pomp and ceremony remained the same! They should bring back the tug of war too.

[deviblue.livejournal.com]

Only if theres a pit of custard in the middle for people to be tugged into!

[sera-squeak.livejournal.com]

Hahaha, of course!!!

[medusa-nw.livejournal.com]

I seem to remember that tug of war used to be part of it? Or maybe that was just a particularly amusing dream... ;-)

[sera-squeak.livejournal.com]

It did indeed. Not anymore though, sadly.

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

http://www.olympic.org/uk/sports/past/index_uk.asp

Long ago though, so you're unlikely to have seen it happen, unless you look REALLY REALLY good for your age...

[medusa-nw.livejournal.com]

I must have read about it! But what a shame it isn't part of it anymore, Japan could send all their Sumo wrestlers, it would be hilarious! :-D

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

Lets start a campaign to bring it back for 2021!

(unless roller derby is in the running, of course...)

[yaruar.livejournal.com]

yes and we once won all three medals in it because the UK was the only country to field teams! The good old days

[deviblue.livejournal.com]

hang on...isn't there that one kid on the british diving team whose only 14? or does that have different rules?

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

DIving has different rules - it was only in gymnastics that they had a problem with really young entrants.

[bluekieran.livejournal.com]

The interesting bit is the protests, IMO. Altering the Chinese world-view is the only valid reason for us to be there, and I want to see what progress we make there.

[gaius-octavian.livejournal.com]

Not the Volvo Ocean Race!

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

Not just sporting events. Look at the Eurovision Song Contest!!

[angel-emma.livejournal.com]

We got 2 gold medals in the swimming too! I have it on all day as I am here looking after baby Z. We are so good at rowing, sailing & cycling though!!

[miss-soap.livejournal.com]

All sports you can happily train for in the rain... :)

[girfan.livejournal.com]

I've been following the cycling (no big surprise there) and am very proud of the great showing of the British cyclists. It's a shame that Mark Cavendish was the only member of the team to not get a medal, since he was doing so amazing in the Tour de France and quit it half way through to make sure he could compete in the Olympics. Sadly, Bradley Wiggins let him down today in the Madison.

Interesting to see Tony Blair and Princess Anne in the stands, watching the cycling. I guess it was the cool place to be!

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

I think my favourite part of the whole opening ceremony was when Iraq's athletes came out with their flag and the camera went straight to George W Bush to see his reaction. He very carefully didn't react.

[unclesatan.livejournal.com]

not sure about the .001 being a reason to doubt a time in sport, F1 lap times quite often come down to thousandths of a second, and the difference between 1st and 2nd in qualifying can usually only be measured in 100ths.

Having said that the photo's do look like phelps came second, although looking more closely it looks like the other guy's hands are above the plate you have to touch to register your finish time, while phelps is hitting it straight on.