China Praises Its Progress Toward Olympics. With one year to go before the 2008 Olympics, China still has many challenges ahead, like dealing with Beijing's terrible air pollution. There is still much criticism over China's record on human rights and freedom of the press, and some protests. But perhaps the most embarrassing public relations setback is that one of the official mascots, Yingsel (aka Yingying) the Tibetan Antelope, has defected from China's Olympic team and gone underground to campaign for a free Tibet. [Some links via BB and MoFi.]
posted by homunculus on Aug 9, 2007 - 43 comments

Vancouver police posed as journalists to lure out and arrest the activist who threatened to bring protest of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics to the doorsteps of Olympic officials - and it isn't the first time police in BC have impersonated the media to make an arrest. The Canadian Association of Journalists is not amused, but a constable speaking for the VPD "doubts the outrage from the person on the street over the issue would be the same as it has been from the journalistic community". (Previously)
posted by blackberet on May 22, 2007 - 46 comments

Sporting News Predicts the Future. It's 9:30 pm EST and the closing ceremonies have been on for 1 hour, but the Sporting News has provided us with a complete recap of the night, including Rogges final words to Salt Lake City. They must have hired Ms. Cleo recently.
posted by smcniven on Feb 24, 2002 - 6 comments

Spoilers! Spoilers! See, with the ceremony over, and 10 hours to go before the "official" coverage, NBC are still asking "Who will light the torch?" We know, idiots. Isn't this just a bit silly?
posted by holgate on Sep 15, 2000 - 13 comments

This is the first time I ever heard of people being threatened for blogging. Rule 59 of the IOC code states that an Olympic athlete is not permitted to record his thoughts of his Olympic experience and have it posted on the Internet. Doing so would be tantamount to an athlete acting as a journalist. And that is grounds for being thrown out of the Games.
posted by Steven Den Beste on Sep 2, 2000 - 18 comments