See you in Vancouver

While China was hugely impressive in gathering 100 medals, it's not the first time a country has cracked the century mark at the Olympics. In fact, it’s been done 16 times previous to this, which seems remarkable.

The most recent country to get 100 or more medals was the U.S. in 1996 , although they had to endure two weeks in Atlanta to do it. It’s probably going to be a while before anyone beats the record. The U.S. won 233 medals at the 1904 Games in St. Louis, which were really part of a World's Fair and only spottily attended by foreign athletes. Canadians may recall that one guy from out of town managed a medal, that being Toronto’s George Lyon in golf. The story goes that Lyon was pleased with himself that he walked through the clubhouse on his hands. Let’s see Phil Mickelson try that.

If you’re trying to guess the second highest mark ever for a single nation at the Olympics, you’d be smart to think about the boycotted games of 1980 and 1984. The Soviet Union won 195 medals in Moscow in 1980 when the Americans stayed home in a huff, while the U.S. returned the favour a bit in 1984 by picking up 174 medals in Los Angeles.

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FROM MOSCOW WITH LOVE

Maybe it’s just me. I don’t usually draw stares when I walk down the street. At least not that I never noticed. But I swapped a few Canada t-shirts on Sunday for a bright-red Russia Olympic shirt that is now my favourite article of clothing. Ever. It’s just brilliant.

I swear, however, that people look differently at me with this shirt. It’s bright, and pretty smart. But I kinda feel like anyone who looks American or Canadian is giving me the “what for” when they look me up and down. Could be rampant paranoia, which has been known to happen.

But a nice bloke sitting next to me at the closing ceremony on Sunday didn’t recognize me, even though we’d sat quite near each other in the Main Press Centre many times. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “Toronto Star. I don’t know, maybe when I saw you sitting here tonight I just saw the shirt.”

See???

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BLOWIN IN THE WIND

Because you don’t get much of a breeze inside the Bird’s Nest stadium, and trust me and my soaked shirts on that one, the Chinese apparently inserted fans inside the flagpoles so that the flags in the stadium would fly and not simply droop. A nice touch.

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HALF A LOAF

It’s kinda like seeing McCartney without Lennon, but it was cool to see Jimmy Page blister his way through “Whole Lotta Love” on his guitar during the closing ceremony for the Beijing Games. He had Leona Lewis singing along with his strumming instead of his Led Zeppelin sidekick, Robert Plant. But half a Zep is better than none. Lewis, by the way, was told to change the lyrics of “Whole Lotta Love” so she wouldn’t mouth the words “gonna give you every inch of my love.” Notwithstanding that it doesn’t quite work when a woman sings it, the censorship seemed a little harsh. Then again, consider that in the 1960’s the Rolling Stones went on The Ed Sullivan Show and had to change their lyrics from “Let’s Spend the Night Together” to “Let’s Spend Some Time Together.”

Closing Time

Okay, Canada, who carries the flag in the closing ceremony?

Adam Van Koeverden, he of the single silver medal but who had hoped for double gold, carried it into the giant Bird’s Nest Stadium way back when. He’s likely out.

Canadian wrestler Carol Huynh might have been the most inspirational athlete we had, and she’s one of only three gold medals Canada picked up. But she apparently went home a few days ago, which would rule her out.

The men’s eights won a gold, but eight guys carrying a flag might be a little weird. Eric Lamaze? Probably not. Simon Whitfield? Certainly a great race for silver. But he’s a guy the last time we heard, and the Canadian Olympic Committee likes to move things around, sex-wise.

My choice?

Easy.

Emilie Heymans. Huynh was superb but we didn’t know much about her coming into the Games. Heymans we knew as the slightly fragile diver who never quite got where she wanted to go in individual events. She had a couple of synchronized diving medals to her credit, which is more than 38 million other Canadians can say. But she somehow seemed a bit of an underachiever, often coming up with less than her best when her best was required. Not this time. She was in second place in the late-going and tip-toed to the end of the 10 meter platform for her final dive. She collected her thoughts, gave a deep breath and then nailed one of the best Olympic dives any Canadian has ever tried.

The Quebec resident (yet another feather in her cap for PC Olympic types) was magic. For a moment, she was gold. But then a Chinese diver a decade younger and far tinier grabbed the moment for herself and drilled diving perfection, tumbling and rolling and swirling and somersaulting through the air and landing with a splash so small it was almost unnoticeable. You could’ve dropped a quarter from the platform and it would’ve made a bigger wave than the one Ruolin Chen created. She earned marks of 100 plus and grabbed top spot on the podium. Give credit to her. But give huge marks to Heymans, who came up with perhaps the best dive of her life exactly when she needed it and won as shiny a silver medal as the Olympics has ever seen.

Her final event was Thursday, and if she’s still in Beijing she deserves it.

Give her the flag, Canada.

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Before yours truly visited Beijing, Vancouver 2010 chief John Furlong was relating a story about one of his arrivals prior to the start of the Summer Olympics.

“I’m really ashamed of it,” he said. “I came with Cathy Priestner-Allinger from our office and there was nobody to greet us the way they usually do. We wandered all around the airport, and it’s like Heathrow 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 plus 30 per cent. We were exhausted and we were lost. We kept looking for the Olympics desk but nobody was speaking English. So this young guy, maybe 25, he’s kind of looking at us. And suddenly he’s talking to Cathy in excellent English.”

The chap offered the Canadians a ride. Priestner-Allinger was eager. Furlong was leery.

“He said he’d give us a ride. I said, ‘Cathy, we don’t know this guy.’ But she’s tired and I say ‘okay.’ It turns our he’s got a car and it’s parked outside. I’ve given in. So he says, ‘Oh, my car is down here,’ and we go down around some corner. I’m quite nervous but we get to the car and we start talking about the torch relay and the Olympics. This guy’s very humble, a very nice guy, and we tell him we’re involved in the 2010 Olympics and he turns around to us in the back seat and says, ‘It’s a very great privilege for me to take you in the city. When you come to the Olympic Games, if I can do anything for you or if my company can do anything, you must tell me. Anything at all.’

“We finally get to our hotel and I’m feeling ashamed and embarrassed. He hands me his card and says he’d consider it a great honour to help us the next time we come. So I check in and the next day I’m at a meeting and I come back and there’s a small gift in my room and a letter from this guy reconfirming our conversation.

“I said to myself, ‘John, how could you not have seen this.’ And then I said to myself, ‘Boy, we need two million of these guys.’ I mean, this guy saw this moment when we were lost and he made us feel like a million bucks. And I’m going to tell this story a million times. My God, I felt terrible. But it was a really good example of what we want people to do in Vancouver.

I was in Beijing for four days that trip, and it was my most profound memory of those four days. There was no close second.”

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They’ve got a small library in the Main Press Centre that’ available for journalists who need to do research. Some of the items make sense; Newsweek, the China Daily, the Book of the Olympics.

But how do they end up with “The Social History of Indian Football,” and “Complete Cheerleading,” “China’s Tibet,” and, most curiously, “The Philadelphia Phillies Encylopedia.”

Cuz you never know when an Olympics reporter is gonna have to look up Mitch Williams’ bio.

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Adam van Koeverden doesn’t owe Canada a thing. On the other hand, he owes The Star five yuan.

The Mississauga kayaker, who won a silver medal in the K1 Saturday, stood around talking to several members of the Canadian media about an hour after his race. When an official directed him toward doping control for the standard medalist test, van Koeverden said, “I need something other than water to drink’’ and headed through the closest door, which happened to lead into the media lounge, and to a cooler full of bottled pop.

He grabbed a drink, whereupon he was halted by Chinese officials who pointed to a sign that showed bottles cost five yuan (about 80 cents Cdn). Athletes seldom go into races carrying change and as they tried to make him put it back, a Star reporter handed over the coins.

They released their grip on him and off he went to testing.

Turvy Topsy

John Lennon almost certainly wasn’t thinking of Canada’s performance at the 2008 Summer Olympics when he sang that “nothing is real” in Strawberry Fields Forever. But you’d be hard-pressed to find many folks who would’ve mapped out what’s been a zany week for Canada at the Summer Olympic Games.

The first seven days result in precisely zero medals for Canada. Not one. The headlines screamed, “We Suck,” as potential medalists fell by the wayside. Most notable may have been swimmer Brent Hayden’s failure in the pool.

Then came a magical weekend, when virtual unknown Carol Huynh, whose parents were Vietnamese refugees and who hails from a small mill town in northern British Columbia, grabbed Canada’s first gold with a stunning wrestling win. By the time Sunday turned to Monday, a Canadian team that was shut out for seven days suddenly had seven baubles in two days.

Included was, admittedly, one strongly predicted win by the Canadian men’s eight rowing team. Emilie Heymans, who has often come up short in individual events and who has a reputation for emotional fragility, stood up to the mighty Chinese in the women’s 10 meter platform event and won a silver, getting nudged off the top of the podium only after a young Chinese diver nailed one of the best dives seen in a stunning competition.

Then comes a real switcheroo; potential gold medalist Adam Van Koeverden, the Canadian flag bearer and the representative of the new, “we got attitude” Canadian Olympian the COC keeps talking about, tanks in the men’s K1-1000 race. He was expected to battle for gold but came next to last. And it wasn’t close, as he ran out of steam by the 700 meter mark and fell back at an astonishing rate. A few minutes later, Thomas Hall of Montreal, who was expected to battle for a medal but hardly was a favourite, was behind with a couple hundred meters to go but put on a big push and won bronze in a race that was the exact opposite of Van Koeverden’s.

It’s weird, but a day like Friday is precisely why sports is so enjoyable. Anything can happen. You might even say Tomorrow Never Knows.

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BOLD TALK

It was pretty unusual. The folks who are organizing the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics and Paralympics normally talk in code, as do a lot of folks in the hyper-political Olympic movement. But when they held a press conference here Friday, there was organizing chief John Furlong talking about how the Chinese left the door open for improvements. He went on to cite the empty seats, unused tickets, lack of atmosphere for athletes at some venues and too-big stadiums. In IOC speak, he was a 6.3 on the Richter scale. Not enough to kill, but enough to seriously shake up some folks.

Reporter Jeff Lee, who covers the Vancouver committee for the Vancouver Sun, noted this had to make an impact on the Chinese, who place such importance on saving face. Interesting.

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BOOB TUBE

The subway system here has large TV’s that show live action. A crowd the other day was standing in a packed subway car watching a Chinese team battle for a beach volleyball medal. Why can’t the TTC do this?

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WIN/LOSE

As painful as it was for the Americans to drop their softball gold medal game to Japan, it can do nothing but improve the sports’ image as a competitive one that deserves to be brought back to the Olympics in 2016. The IOC voted it out, as well as baseball, back in 2005 and neither sport will be on the agenda for London in 2012. But there’s a vote slated for October of 2009 and softball has been lobbying hard to get back onto the program. The Japanese win can only help that.

And, yes, that was International Softball chief Don Porter sporting a grin as big as all outdoors as he strolled through the Main Press Centre earlier today.

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SAY AGAIN?

Vancouver organizing chief John Furlong, who’s of Irish descent and occasionally slips into a very Irish lilt, was chatting with the Star on Friday about his ability to communicate in French. It’s rather limited, and he freely admits it.

Furlong tells the story of the time he appeared at a function in Halifax to talk about Vancouver’s 2010 Olympics. “I thought, ‘I know, I’ll do the first part of the speech in Gaelic.’ So I sweated over it and did the first three paragraphs of my speech in Gaelic, and then the last three.

"When I finished, a guy in the audience came up and said, ‘Nice speech. But your French is terrible.’”

Flower Power

It’s quite stunning to walk through the main Olympic grounds here, and to take in the surrounding streets that flank the Olympic Green. The roads and interchanges are simply overflowing with flowers of every colour and variety; bright yellow marigolds, small lantana trees, bright bougainvillea and deep-orange roses.

You simply don’t see litter on the roads. If anyone was to drop anything someone would leap to pick it up. And they even polish the garbage cans around here, just to make sure everything is up to standards. Yeah, they’ve got the manpower, but it’s pretty amazing.

The media village most of us live in looks like Edwards Gardens, with potted palms and enormous coleus blossoms spilling out of containers. The grass is impeccably green, and they water down the pavement every morning to make it look shiny and clean. But who’s going to do this when the world media leaves and regular Chinese folks move into our towering, white apartments? Will anyone spray the pavement for them in the morning and carefully nourish all those plants? Will they simply truck the plants away and plant them in President Hu Jintao’s summer garden somewhere?

And what about the billions of blossoms in parks and along the roadways? You can’t leave a bougainvillea out in a Beijing winter, and the marigolds all are going to fade come October.

It would be interesting to come back in a year – or three – and see what the place looks like. You also have to wonder what will happen to the Bird’s Nest stadium. There’s talk of various sporting events and concerts and such, but even the sports-crazy folks in Australia don’t fill the main stadium they built more than a few times a year. And we suspect a table tennis tournament or a badminton match wouldn’t work so well in a cavernous stadium like the Bird’s Nest, so what giant sporting event will fill the seats two years from now?

The Olympic people always talk about leaving a legacy. The folks in Barcelona transformed their city into a hugely popular tourist destination by rebuilding neighborhood parks and even getting chic designers to build new bridges and light standards with Catalan flare. But Atlanta left hardly any sign that the Olympics were there. The subway and rapid transit improvements in Athens and Beijing no doubt will be of big benefit, but the stadiums often sit silently and empty once the Games are over.

The Olympic legacy, it seems, is a rather mixed bag.

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MENU DU JOUR

Canadians love water sports and we excel at things like rowing and kayaking. We’re getting better in swimming. So Canadian media tends to look for those events on the screen at the Main Press Centre. In Germany, they go ga-ga over discus and hammer throws, which might have something to do with building up strength from carrying trays of beer during Octoberfest. Kazakhs love wrestling, boxing, weightlifting and shooting. China, of course, is big on badminton and diving and ping pong, among other sports.

It makes for entertaining days in the press room. A Canadian reporter will be sitting at his laptop, quietly minding his own business and working on schedules for reporters when a sudden roar will erupt from someone watching a nearby TV screen. “What on earth are those people all excited about,” you wonder, and sometimes you find yourself shaking your head.

But they’ve got to feel the same way when we all dash over to get one of the young girls to change the channel on the big screen set next to the Star’s desk and ask them to put on, gulp, trampoline. As colleague Dave Perkins likes to say, “That’s why they have menus in restaurants.”

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YEAH, BUT WHICH PARTS?

A store in downtown Beijing sports this sign: “Digital Cameras. Video Cameras. Parts of Cameras.”

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BRING YOUR OWN

It’s one thing when the people who stock the toilets with paper forget to re-load, as has happened at the media centre several times lately. But a quick trip downtown for some t-shirts (REALLY EXPENSIVE ONES, if anyone back home who gets one wants to know) and a Chairman Mao shoulder bag and waving Chairman Mao watch revealed a toilet stall in a high-end shopping centre without even a holder to place a roll of paper in.

What’s up with that?

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HOW MUCH FOR THE SOCKS?

Chinese badminton star Lin Dan tossed his shoes and a racket into a crowd of fans after his match the other day. The on-line bidding for the golden shoes is said to be starting at around $75,000 Canadian. Of course, 100 people claim they’ve got the real shoes, just as there probably 100,000 people who claim they were at the last Stanley Cup game the Leafs won. And how anyone other than Lin will be able to tell which are the real golden slippers, Lord only knows.

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EVEN BEATS K.D.

If you’re ever looking for a nice treat, a trip to the Olympic Hospitality Centre here reveals that Pommery champagne and Peking duck make an outstanding combination. Try it instead of nachos and wings at the next Super Bowl party you go to. Or not.

Urine Town

Canadian triathlete Simon Whitfield took doping tests just before he left for China, again a couple days before his race this week, and, because he won a medal, right after taking his silver.

STEVE RUSSELL/TORONTO STAR

Simon Whitfield: No dope.

Some athletes have complained about being regularly drained of blood and having to pee in cups. Not Whitfield. “I wanna get drug tested over and over again,” he said. “I want them to put a little GPS thing on my wrist and then say track me down. It’s inconvenient but I tell you what, it’s inconvenient if people affect you by cheating.”

Speaking of triathlon, former IOC member Paul Henderson of Toronto was giving huge kudos to International Triathlon Union President Les McDonald, the Vancouverite who practically forced the sport into the Olympics (and for that, Simon Whitfield and a grateful nation should give thanks).

Henderson said the Chinese wanted to have triathlon finish at Tiananmen Square but that McDonald wanted no part of what would’ve been a political statement. He demanded the best, said Henderson, and the venue the Chinese ultimately delivered was “the best I have ever seen in any sport,” Henderson wrote in one of his regular, highly-entertaining emails that pillory politicians who don’t provide needed cash for sport but gladly show up to hobnob with athletes.

After the race, while he said Canadian Olympic Committee types were patting themselves and Whitfield on the back, Henderson said he saw McDonald standing alone. “I went down to Les and put my arms around him congratulated him on his years of dedication as the rest of the shallow COC and Canadians took credit,” Henderson wrote in his Tuesday email.

“There were tears in his eyes, as kindred spirits, as he knew at age 78 his days at the top of International Sport were over and that Canada would not recognize what he had accomplished.

“Les should get the Order of Canada,” Henderson said. “He is a great Canadian.”

BOTTOMS UP

The China Daily every day has Language tips so Chinese can learn English, or maybe so English speakers can get around in Beijing. It’s kinda hard to tell. But a recent one was quite fun.

Labelled as “Cheers”, it contained translations for “Have a mouthful,” “Drink a round” and “Let’s raise the glasses.” There also was a question you could pose to a friend: “Are you good at drinking?”

LIMEYS RULE

It’s one thing to finish behind the Americans and the Chinese. But it’s got to grate on the nerves of the Aussies to see the Brits gathering gold medals by the bucketful. The Aussies are steaming mad that the Brits have taken from a long sporting tradition by borrowing Australian coaches and bringing them to Britain as they aim for great success in London for the 2012 Games.

But wasn’t it the Aussies who lured some of Canada’s best to the land Down Under in advance of the Sydney Games? It’s the way it is, mates. You guys did it. The Brits are doing it. Canada will do it if we ever get the Summer Olympics, and you can bet some of the folks behind the 2015 Pan American Games bid are still hoping to some day grab the big show for Toronto.

The Brits, naturally, have no intention of rubbing the Australian’s noses in it. Far from it. Especially not the tabloids. After the Brits surpassed Sydney in the medal standings the other day, the Sun newspaper in London carried the following headline, “G’day, Sport.”

SOFTIES

Softball came into these Games trying to prove it had grown more competitive. And there was the U.S., once again marching through the competition like Sherman through Georgia (too bad Atlanta recovered to beat Toronto for the 1996 Olympics, but there you go).

The Americans did require extra innings to beat Japan yesterday, which at least someone could – and probably will – point to as a potential changing of the guard. Ideally, as far as international softball is concerned, someone other than the U.S. will win gold. But the Americans in the tourney outscored the opposition 57-2, according to Associated Press, so best not to put any money on it.

Canada was a huge disappointment. But they may have done their sport a favour - and possibly helped Canadian girls get to the Games in 2016 - by losing to Australia and giving a country outside North America something to cheer about. Softball isn’t on the Olympic program for 2012, but it could be voted back at an IOC meeting in the fall of 2009. A more competitive, interesting medal round would go a long way to making that happen.

GOLDEN ARCHES

McDonald’s likes to give out notebooks to reporters at the Olympics, and they always come in handy. Often there are coupons for free Big Macs and all that. This time, it came complete with useful translations for words like hello and goodbye and congratulations (pretty handy if you’re attending any event where Chinese athletes are competing).

There also were phrases in Chinese, such as “Where is the nearest subway station,” and “Do you speak English.” The best, however, was the following: “I would like to order a ….”, followed by Chinese translations for Big Mac, French Fries and Corn Cup. Oh, and at the end, there was a translation for “I’m lovin’ it.” Sigh.

COME SAIL AWAY

While Henderson raved about the triathlon venue, and others, COC president Mike Chambers was telling the Star about how fabulous things were down in Qingdao, site of the Olympic sailing venue. “Our sailors told they’ve never seen anything better. There was a huge, huge, brand new loading facility for the boats. They built the race course close to shore and put up stands so people could watch. And the village was a luxury hotel.” The ocean was already there to begin with, we’re told. But I bet if they’d had to, the industrious Chinese would’ve built one of those, too.

SAY WHAT?

Asked to describe the Chinese men’s sabre team, their coach, Christian Bauer, replied, “They are mentally weak.”

After she lost the gold medal in the women’s 50 metre freestyle by 0.01 of a second the other day, American swimmer Dara Torres replied, “Maybe I shouldn’t have filed my fingernails last night.”

In the too much information department, comes the following comment from Ukrainian jumper Jean-Claude Van Geenberghe. Asked about his horse, Quintus, Van Geenberghe replied, “At first he was not quite a good horse. He was not very careful. Now he is my second wife.”

After winning a gold medal, Australian sailor Malcolm Page was queried about future plans. “I am going to get fat,” he said.

Usain, Michael and me

Everybody has their job. Usually at the Olympics, mine is a coordinating role for the paper and a reporting role for the web site. The hours are insane, and it’s a lot to juggle (especially with a time difference some of us are still trying to get our heads around), but it’s also a real adrenaline rush.

The Olympics are like nothing else, and just to be reporting on them off a television set in the press room is not a bad thing when that’s all you can do. But, sometimes, the schedule works so that a desk-bound journalist can escape for a few minutes and watch an event live and in person. And, boy, did I pick a couple of good ones on the weekend.

On Saturday night, I packed up my trusty Dell laptop (the one with the Canada flag over the word “Dell,” because, after all, they’re not an Olympics sponsor and I don’t want to offend the Lenovo people) and wandered over to the Bird’s Nest to see some track and field. Hadn’t seen the stadium since the Opening Ceremony, and I’m glad to say it has aged well in the last week.

The bright orange-red lights they use under the criss-cross steel beams look uber-cool at night, and the light standards along the main spine of the Olympic Green all flash in bright colours as you walk along and check out folks from all over the world; Mexican fans in giant sombreros, Aussies of both the male and female variety with bright green wigs and Russian women in red dresses with stiletto heels (odd choice for this kind of sport).

The walk over was terrific, but the best part of the night was the track, where I got to watch Jessica Zelinka of London, Ont. run a terrific 800-metre race. She didn’t win a medal in the heptathlon, but she competed strongly despite a severe foot injury last year.

A few minutes later came the piece de resistance; the 100-metre dash. The press tribune was jam-packed with far more people than it should’ve been, and there were no empty seats. But I managed to squeeze in between some folks and watch Usain Bolt make history with his “Is it really this easy” gold medal sprint and his 9.69-second world record.

It’s pretty neat to say you’ve seen the fastest runner in history strut his stuff, especially when you know he could’ve gone as low as 9.59 if he hadn’t slowed down from warp factor six as he came near the finish line.

A few hours later, I got up and wandered to the Water Cube to help colleague Rosie DiManno cover the Sunday morning swimming. Rosie was charged with looking after Michael Phelps, so I said I’d keep an eye on Canada’s Ryan Cochrane. Sure enough, the kid comes through with a bronze medal. That was fun.

But here’s where I really owe Mr. Cochrane a debt of gratitude. If he was a real quote machine, I would’ve had to spend a lot of time going over notes and such and putting my story together for our 12:15 a.m. drop-dead deadline. But he’s a swimmer, not a public speaker, and it didn’t take all that long to put a story together that bore a passing resemblance to journalism. I looked up at the clock on the press room wall in the basement of the Water Cube where most of the reporters were working and realized that Phelps was going for his record eighth medal of the Olympics. I was able to dash (well, it felt like it) to the stairs and up four short flights to the main deck and then ran to the stands to see him jump into the water for his amazing butterfly lap.

He turned a deficit into a lead that the Americans would not give up, and I could see the expression of joy on Phelps’ face when teammate Jason Lezak – the guy who had saved his bacon in an earlier relay – touched the wall in front of his rivals to give Phelps medal number ocho. I had to run back downstairs immediately to finish up the Cochrane story, but I got to see Phelps in the biggest swimming race in history. Just as I had managed to see Bolt set his world record the night before.

Remind me again some time that I might be one of the luckiest people I know.

SEPARATED AT BIRTH? Those of us who work at the Toronto Star, and there are a few, probably know one Gabe Gonda, currently the Saturday Ideas editor. We noticed he bears a strong resemblance (do a photo shop and take off Gonda’s dark locks) to American swimmer Michael Phelps. Don’t let it go to your head, Gabe.

(Photo credits: TORONTO STAR FILE PHOTO; REUTERS)

Numbers game

The Chinese were pretty smart about this one. For a couple years, lots of folks were writing lots of stories about how China was going to eclipse the U.S. in the Olympic medals department come this year’s Summer Olympics. As the Games crept closer, The Chinese went into denial (okay, they’ve had lots of practice at it, but still). Oh, no, they said, it’s going to be very tough. We might do as well as the Americans.

Well, who’s laughing now. The pressure, we think, was somewhat reduced and now the Chinese are going gangbusters, leaving us to ponder what medals might be left for Canadians to win in 2012 or 2016 if the Chinese keep coming on. And at least we know that, barring a really big shift in the San Andres fault, they won’t be at the Toronto Pan American Games in 2015 should that come to pass, right?

The Canadian Olympic Committee, on the other hand, came out with a pretty aggressive stance; standing up at the Royal York Hotel and here in Beijing prior to the Games and suggesting that 13 to 19 medals might be in order for 2008. This despite the fact that Canada usually brings home 12 or 13 medals at Summer Games if you take Atlanta out of the equation as the “blip” it appears to have been.

A conversation with an Australian colleague the other night revealed that the Aussies also are coming up a little short. “The Australian Olympic Committee projected 45 or 48 but I think 38 medals is more realistic,” she told me.

Before you get sick to your stomach at the idea of so many baubles for a country about the size of ours, consider that the Aussies poured a ton of cash into sport prior to the 2000 Summer Olympics; something Canada has done to top the podium in Vancouver but not so much to do anything in China.

What might be more interesting is the politics behind the decision. My colleague suggested that the money going to sports in Australia hasn’t been increased to take care of inflation, which means the actual dollars have dropped since we saw those closing ceremony fireworks lighting up the Harbour Bridge. It’s possible that the Australian Olympic Committee knew that 48 medals was unrealistic, and that by suggesting that number they were setting themselves up to take a run at the government in Canberra to hike funding back to 2000 levels. Who knows if it’s true, but it would be an interesting strategy.

We wonder if maybe the Canadian Olympic Committee wasn’t doing the same thing. Somehow, though, we doubt it. And given the way the Canadian public back home  reacted to the lack of baubles hanging around Canadian necks over here for the first seven days of the Games, it would appear that setting high expectations didn’t exactly sparked a run on angry emails to all those hard-working MP’s – not to mention the over-burdened senators – in Ottawa.

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PIPE DOWN

There’s an old axiom in sports journalism: no cheering in the press box.

Folks from the outside at first don’t get it. But covering sports isn’t like watching sports. If you watch sports, have a beer and paint your face and yell and scream all you like. Maybe even throw some batteries if you’re from New York. But don’t do that when people are working and trying to write objectively about a sports team.

As a sports reporter, you naturally feel something when your team wins. It was a thrill to sit in the press box at the SkyDome and see Joe Carter’s home run against Philadelphia. It was heartbreaking to see Mike Weir lose to Vijay Singh at the Canadian Open. But there wee no outward signs of emotion.

The Olympics tend to be a little different. I remember calling home to talk with my family on the phone when Canada won gold in hockey at the Salt Lake Games. And I dashed down to the Canadian Olympic Committee office to shake hands with folks when it was over; mostly because I was surrounded by Americans in the main press centre.

But I’ve never seen Canadians jumping up and down when a Canadian wins an Olympic medal. It may happen, but I’ve never seen it.

A chap from the Globe and Mail and I were watching Carol Huyhn win her gold medal in wrestling on Saturday. Partly it was because we had to dash off words for our web sites, but when she won neither of us seemingly felt the urge to leap into the air and yell, “Go, Canada, go.” Instead, we smiled, looked up at Huyhn sobbing into her hands and said, “Awww, that’s nice.”

On the other hand, the Brits who sit near me in the press centre, most of them great guys from what I can tell, were going nuts watching their men’s four rowing team win a gold medal Saturday. True, it’s a great sport for Britain and we don’t know a lot about Huyhn. But I think some of the way we approached the Huyhn story has to do with being Canadian.

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WALL SIGHTING

There really is a great wall in China. The air was so clear today that when we left the Water Cube after filing reports on Michael Phelps’ seventh gold of the games, we looked up at the mountains (who knew they had mountains?) to the west of town and could see the wall snaking high up one of the peaks.

Truth be known, it gave me goosebumps.

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ANIMAL HOUSE

Colleague Dave Perkins mentioned something the other night that still resonates.

We don’t see any animals around here.

I’m staying in a media village, not a residential area with lots of locals. And the Olympic sports centre where most of the activities take place is closed off to people without tickets. But we haven’t even seen a bird floating in the sky since we got here, at least not that we can remember.

I did hear a dog barking in an apartment when I walked by one day a while back. But we haven’t seen any dogs or cats about, and nary a bird.

Kinda weird.

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2010 ticket warning

Besides warning folks about potential scams lurking on web sites across Canada, Vancouver 2010 organizers have been dealing with a raft of related issues.

One balancing act they’ve had to manage is that of trying to satisfy sports and community groups. When it comes to curling, for example, Canadians (we don’t know why, but that’s another story) seem eager to line up and spend perfectly good money to sit through hours of curling matches at the new arena being built near Nat Bailey Stadium, south of downtown.

VANOC probably could sell out a 10,000 seat stadium or even BC Place, where the BC Lions of the CFL play. But they promised the community around Nat Bailey that they wouldn’t be saddled with a white elephant and that the building left behind after the Games will be suitably-sized.

In other words, it’s supposed to be a community centre, not the Rogers Centre.

“There’s no question the curling people would like more seats, but we’ll have 5,000-6,000 and we have three sessions a day,” said VANOC executive vice president Dave Cobb. “We’re very fortunate because the big venues we have are for our most popular sports, like hockey and figure skating,” he said. “One of the issues in Turin at the 2006 Games was they had a big hockey arena, but hockey isn’t that popular there.”

On a related matter, organizers say they’re not worried about Canadians turning up their noses at sports like biathlon or Nordic combined when tickets go on sale Oct. 3 on the Internet.

“For Canadians, the experience is the most important thing,” said vice president of ticketing and consumer marketing Caley Denton, who just might be getting a lot more “How are ya, Caley” phone calls on Oct. 2 of this year than he has in previous years.

“Part of the fun is getting on a bus with 30 Finnish people to go to the ski jumping.”

The ski jump venue, for the record, will hold 10,000-12,000 people. Vancouver officials say they might sell out every ticket for the 2010 Games.

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NOT ALBERTA BOUND

Vancouver organizers say the biggest demand for 2010 tickets will come, naturally, from British Columbians. They expected the next biggest province for ticket demand would be Alberta, being next door and all. Instead, they say, Ontario residents have indicated the most interest in buying tickets.

However many are bought by Newfoundlanders or Saskatchewanians (Saskatchewanites? Saskatchewantonians?), you can bet that the Oct. 3 day for ticket sales will result in a crushing demand on Vancouver’s web servers.

How’d you like to be the tech support guy on call at VANOC’s office that day?

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CABBY BLUES

The cabbies here are as friendly as all get out. They all wear official uniforms with ties and yellow shirts. But how is it they don’t know their way around town?

I understand my Mandarin is worse than their English, but “Grand Hyatt Hotel” doesn’t sound like a landmark that’s easy to miss, especially when you’re pointing at it on a map that has Chinese lettering on it. Nonetheless, my morning cab to the Hyatt on Friday dropped me off four blocks away. No damage, and only a few dollars for a 20-minute cab ride.

On the way back, another cabby was shown another map with Chinese writing for the media village I was going to. The name of the village was there, and the name of the street. It’s clearly on Beichen Road East, not Beichen Road West.

But, sure enough, the cab pulled over to drop me off on Beichen Road West, right in front of the Main Press Centre and not at the media village where we lay down our heads at night. He kept trying to turn right into the Olympic Green, which was clearly closed by barricades and patrolling policemen. Finally, I convinced him with hand gestures to admit defeat and retreat all the way south to the Fourth Ring Road, then zip along below the Olympic Green to Beichen Road East, or a road near to it.

The traffic was so bad I had to get out and walk four blocks, but that’s not his fault. Still gave him a good tip, not a common thing in China. But, boy, can’t someone get these guys a traffic report or a good map and a listing of road closures or something?

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SLAMMIN’ SAMMY

Hard to believe, but a friend from Vancouver tells me he went to an International Olympic Committee function on Friday and part of the deal was an art auction. He claims someone was trying to start the price of an oil painting of former IOC chief Juan Antonio Samaranch at $388,000.

That’s even more than a Ted Rogers ducat for a Bills exhibition game, we think, and it seems a little high even for a man of Samaranch’s reputation.

Apparently, the auction was cancelled after nobody opened with a high enough bid.

Badminton magic on the streets of Beijing

Was walking home from a so-so dinner the other night and heard the sounds of someone playing an instrument off in the distance. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from, but it sounded a little haunting and full of chords that sounded quite Asian.

A Chinese soldier who stood stiffly at attention under a balcony at the Hui Yuan media village wasn’t impressed, but I was curious. As I got closer, I could see a man sitting on a bench playing the accordion, which was emitting all sorts of beautiful but slightly mournful sounds.

It was a hot, humid night, probably 30 degrees at 9 p.m. and there was a huge crowd in a plaza outside a restaurant. As I looked closer, I could see a group of figures bathed in orange and green neon lights cast by signs on some of the surrounding buildings.

It looked like they were playing with one of those hacky sacks, if that’s the right name, that kids in Canada and the U.S. sometimes kick around. But they were much too large. On closer inspection, they looked more like oversized badminton birdies.

The Chinese love badminton, and only a few minutes before dinner I had seen restaurant workers taking a break by playing a pickup game on the street, with the giant Birds Nest stadium looming in the distance behind them. But this looked like a combination of soccer and badminton and I was intrigued.

The next day, I asked one of the 14 billion wonderful volunteers at the Games what was going on and what the object was the youths were kicking. I suggested a badminton birdie, and he said it was something else. He said the bottom was made of cork. I said the top looked like a badminton birdie and I tried to draw a shuttlecock. He laughed and drew a picture of a chicken, a pretty good one, and pointed to the feathers.

“Tail feathers and cork,” he said. “We call it jianxi.”

So, now we know.

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Swimming Canada currently operates on a $3-million budget. Pierre Lafontaine, chief executive of Swimming Canada, would like to see his budget increased to hire more coaches and increase athlete support.

“People think support to athletes is dollars in your pocket,” he said. “It’s not. It’s more biomechanists, it’s the ability to go race against the best in the world.”

Lafontaine is currently trying to set up a swim meet with Russia.

He’d also like more video equipment and to add more therapists, strength and conditioning coaches and nutritionists to the staff.

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AT LEAST HE’S HONEST

Boxer Nordine Oubaali of France was asked about a win the other day. “I have one thing to say about strategy,” Oubaali replied. “I didn’t have any.”

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WAVE THE FLAG

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, in town to promote southern Ontario’s Pan American Games bid for 2015, wasn’t about to get drawn into controversies about whether athletes should be allowed to wave the Quebec flag as well as Canada’s flag at Olympic ceremonies. International Olympic Committee rules prohibit state or provincial flags from being flown. Instead, only national flags can be waved at official Olympic events.

“As a Canadian I’m immensely proud of my country and immensely proud of my flag,” McGuinty said. “I’m more than satisfied with that flag (Canada’s) being up there on its own.”

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WHEN THE RAIN COMES

Still can’t get enough of the Chinese volunteers. A couple of ink-stained (literally; the lanyard that hangs around a colleague’s neck got soaked in Thursday’s rain in Beijing and the red and orange colours ran into his shirt, so it’s a good thing the sports editor is paying our dry-cleaning bills) wretches got caught in a downpour after a press conference with Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty on Thursday.

We were standing in the security tent they use to keep us from bringing flagpoles and sharp knives and golf clubs (a guy who bought some knock-off Taylor Mades the other day couldn’t get them past the gate) into the media village when an eager young man came up behind us and put down a couple of chairs so we could wait out the storm. After we navigated the indoor passageway to the main lobby of the village, another worker held up umbrellas for us to get to the next security gate and then onto the bus to the Main Press Centre.

They also have volunteers, or workers, standing immediately outside the washrooms all over the press building. I swear, I think they’d come running if I told one of them I was having trouble with my zipper.

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WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?

In case you missed it, a lot has been made in these parts about the Spanish basketball team posing for an official portrait that showed them all with their fingers pulling their eyes back. You know, the way four-year-olds in North America do if they want to pretend to be Chinese.

It’s quite the embarrassment, and the Spanish have apologized profusely for their embarrassing, amateurish, boorish behaviour.

Raptors’ point guard Jose Calderon even wrote about on his web site.

“We felt it was something appropriate, and that it would be interpreted as an affectionate gesture,” Calderon wrote on his ElMundo.es blog. “Without a doubt, some ... press didn't see it that way.”

Unfortunately, Calderon also added the following:

“Some of my best friends are Chinese,” he wrote.

We’re not kidding.

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IN THE PINK

The Canadian Olympic Committee hosted a lunch for members of the Pan American Sports Organization at Canada Olympic House on Thursday as part of the Toronto/Southern Ontario bid for the 2015 Pan Am Games. On the way out, a reporter noticed a big table covered with boxes of Immodium (for diarrhea relief) and Purell anti-bacterial liquid. Maybe not the message they wanted to send about the menu.

Vancouver's next

It might not have been the response he wanted to give.

Three or maybe even four times on Wednesday, Canadian reporters gave Vancouver 2010 chief organizer John Furlong a chance to say he wouldn’t duplicate the duplicity revealed in recent days by the folks behind the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony.

He never quite delivered the message he probably wanted to say. Or maybe he did.

Asked initially whether he would promise not to use lip-synching or other tricks when Vancouver unveils the 2010 Olympics to the world in 18 months (yes, it’s that close, folks), Furlong hemmed and hawed and talked about he hasn’t thought that far ahead. Later, he said much the same thing.

After a press conference that was held for the Olympic newsletter Around the Rings at a local McDonald’s (world’s largest free-standing Mickey Dee’s we were told), Furlong talked about how the ceremony has to be just right.

Finally, asked if he would at least tell people that they had to use canned elements, should that become necessary for technical or other reasons, Furlong said his intention was to be as open and transparent as possible.

We’re sure they won’t kick sand in China’s face, but wouldn’t it be great if they had a song delivered by the girl the Chinese rejected?

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THINKING BIG

As stated above, the McDonald’s on the Olympic Green (is that an oxymoron give the number of fast food wrappers that float all over the place?) in Beijing is said to be the world’s largest free-standing McDonald’s in the world. Next door is the official Olympic merchandise store, which probably also is the world’s largest Olympic store. You can buy Beijing themed Swatch watches and Lenovo computer gear, not to mention t-shirts, posters, ball caps, binoculars, fake tattoos, scarves, tea sets, coffee cups, pens and, of course, pins.

Olympic pin-trading isn’t what it used to be, but the cute girls who work at the McDonald’s in the basement of the Main Press Centre still like to hit up foreign strangers for the dollar-store Maple Leaf pins a bunch of brought over just for such occasions. And lots of folks still like to buy them, as evidenced by the thousands of them on sale at the Olympic Green shop. Some showed individual sports with the Beijing logo. Others were countdowns to the start of the Games: “30 days to Opening Ceremonies,” “10 days to Opening Ceremonies,” etc… We looked, but we couldn’t find any pins saying “10 days to lip-synch of the century.”

Sorry, folks. Promise that’s the last word on that subject. At least for today.

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LORDS OF THE RINGS

I lost track, but I think the media village I’m staying in is near the fifth ring road of Beijing. I honestly can’t tell. But if you look at a map, you see a whole bunch of giant rings encircling the entire city, providing people easy ways to bypass the downtown frenzy. They’re all crowded, so the Chinese keep building more ring roads. I swear, if you come here in 2012 there will probably be a ring road 23 or something. If you come in 2014, the ring roads for Shanghai and Beijing probably will intersect.

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EAU DE VIE

A nice young chap who gave some journalists a ride this morning introduced himself as “Water.” This took the visiting Canadians some getting used to. “You mean ‘Walter,’” they asked. “No, Water.” “Walter,” the visitors insisted. “No. Water.” Okay, that’s cool.

A  lot of Chinese people adopt North American names for the sake of us not-so-smart folks who can’t pronounce Chou En Lai or Li Ning. So “Water” it is, mate. On a golf visit to Shenzen, China last year (we know, tough assignment), there were caddies with names like “Daisy” and “Sunshine.” One even took the name of “Chocolate.” -

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WANTED: CUTE FILLY

There’s an incredible information system at the main press centre at all Olympic Games called INFO. You can get instant quotes, medal standings, results and press conference highlights at the click of a button. You also can get biographies of athletes and read about how they like kite-boarding or biking or what have you.

But I hadn’t noticed that if you click on biographies and look in one corner of the screen you can find the following entry “horse profiles.” You (well, maybe not you, but some of us) half expect one of them to say. “Born: 2005. Accomplishments: Second at Commonwealth Games. Hobbies: stud-farming and long walks on the beach.”

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BAD GUYS

Can't help wondering if the Canadians might have started better if fiery kayaker Adam Van Koeverden had gone out in one of the first events of the Beijing Games instead of bringing up the rear. A solid performance from Oakville's finest might have inspired his fellow Canadians the way the gold medal by cyclist Nicole Cooke seemingly fired up the Brits who are gathered here in China.

A buddy in the press room here, Andrew Longmore of The Sunday Times, was explaining how the British athletes in Atlanta felt pressure to win because they kept driving past a scoreboard that said "Britain - zero" in the gold medal tally column. Longmore said rowers Matthew Pinsent and Steve Redgrave felt pressured to win, and they did, because they kept seeing the stupid sign, and they said it definitely affected the other British athletes. The rowing gold from Pinsent and Redgrave was the only gold Britain got in 1996, Longmore said.

By contrast, he said, Britain got an unexpected gold from cyclist Jason Queally early on in the Sydney Games and won 11 golds in all. Four years, and a difference of 10 medals. Coincidence? You be the judge. All we know is momentum is a funny thing. And right now, the elevator's going down for the Canadians assembled here.