After waiting for four long years, the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games are just a four days away. I’m not what you’d call the sporty type, but I do look forward to the Olympics. It’s nice to see people from all over the world in one place and not trying to kill each other :D.
To ensure that things go off smoothly, China has been making preparation since over 4 years. The mainstay of these preparations is the two new Olympic stadiums. They have some very cool architecture for these.
The main stadium is known as the Birds Nest, coz it actually looks like a bird’s nest, with twigs running crisscross all over it. It will hold all the main track and field events. Actually construction started back in December 2003 to a cost of USD 500 million. Total capacity is 91,000. 
The Bird's Nest
The other one is the national aquatic centre, also known as the water cube coz it looks like a big ice cube stuck in middle of a city. 
The Water Cube
These two are probably the weirdest looking stadiums built for the Olympics ever. The Chinese really want to show the rest of the world who’s the boss.
However there’s also a lot of controversy about the games being hosted in China too. Things like Human rights violations, pollutions etc.
One report says that officials are pushing their athletes over the limit to get more medals than ever so that China is at the lead of the medal tally. Saw a report on CNN this morning where kids as young as 6 are put through tough training regimes, I doubt even US Marines go through, and for what, a Gold in 2018? The look on that kid’s face was not a very happy one. The parents encourage this, even though they admit that the kid doesn’t want to do it, coz they believe that this is the way to prosperity for the kid.
Sadly Olympics have also become another “who’s got the biggest dick” competition for the powers that are. Hopefully the competitors will be the winners in the end.
Anywhoo, all the best for the Sri Lankan contingent, make Sri Lanka proud and bring back few Gold medals :D. Even if you don’t win, show good sportsmanship, coz that’ll go a long way.
ඔලිම්පික් තරගය සදහ යන අපෙ කට්ටියට ජයෙන් ජයම වේවා
Links
Bird's Nest
Water Cube
Beijing 2008 Official Site
Monday, August 04, 2008
Of Bird’s Nests and Water Bubbles
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3 comments:
the bubble is very cool. it looks like a funny blob of bubble-y water :)
gosh yeah those Chinese kids are put through such strenuous training regimes. I watched a segment on CNN and those kids are bloody ambitious to boot. about them looking unhappy, don't want to generalize but are the Chinese ever happy? :)
pp - heard the idea behind is soap bubbles, and everything has a meaning from traditional Chinese architecture and beliefs, to maximize the "luck" factor.
sach - ha ha :D. I guess the kids are molded from birth to succeed and bring honor and glory to the motherland. After all each family has only one kid and all the parents aspirations are put on that kid.
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