even a little bit, you know by now that a couple of days ago a Montreal man got through security with a tutu and polka-dot tights at the diving event and actually dove into the pool before being arrested by security. Today we find that he has been sentenced to five months in jail for his plunge, though he has been released pending an appeal. What has been played down is that he was advertising for the Golden Palace online casino, based in Kahnawake, and that the stunt was one in a long line of stunts designed to drum up attention for the operation.
Brainstorms and Raves
: Accessibility Lockout for Olympics 2002 Site — Again?!. A good quick rundown of some problems with the official site for the Games this winter. Add to it that the site’s URLs are virtually useless. Accessibility in the case of this site is a problem even for fully able people with regular browsers using all the tools built in. It’s too bad, it’s a huge missed opportunity. Doing a site like that should be an opportunity for some really innovative work – but it was clearly squandered. I’d love to get my hands on a project like that and hire a dream team to develop the thing.
I’ve been watching
the Olympics just about every night, at least for a while. I love the whole thing, though I do pay special attention to Canadians (though luckily the CBC puts on lots of non-Canadian-participation events so people get a full picture of what’s going on). Even more, I pay special attention to people from Montreal (I think of myself mostly as a Montrealer lately). Anyhow we had a scare tonight when it looked like fellow Montrealer Bruny Surin didn’t advance past the first round of the 100m race. But it turns out he did make it. Let’s just hope he can go faster next round – he’s supposed to be among the 3 or 4 who have a legitimate shot to win the Gold.
Of course
. Feed unearths the secret history of the Olympic Games. There are a couple of gaps in the otherwise excellent essay though. First, “Olympiad” refers to the time period between games – the four years between each time the Summer Games are held. At the end of an Olympiad is the Olympic Games event itself. Second, he misses a huge aspect of it – the whole idea of amateurism.
Keeping the Olympic games for amateurs rather than professionals wasn’t some noble line in the sand between “pure” and “impure” sports. It was to make sure that the Olympics were only for the upper classes to compete in. It was pure classism – a way to make sure that sweaty labourers and factory workers weren’t competing with the gentry and the like. Good riddance, I say.
Official Site of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games
Official Site of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games! It hardly suits a cynical bastard like me to love the Olympics, but I do. Winter, Summer, whenever. The more obscure the sport the better! Luckily in Canada the CBC has tons of live coverage, not just a bunch of overproduced vignettes. And we cover all the sports, not just ones that Canadians are in – which is a whole lot of fun to watch – cause some of the other sports are unknown here (mostly).
