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?

[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

[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!

[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!!

[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!

[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.