Whatte match ....

the match played yesterday (is it y'day or today or both?) between Lleyton Hewitt & Marcos Baghdatis was a cliffhanger match. 282 Minutes sheer / pure tennis. End of it i liked Baghdatis's attitude towards the game where kept denying the ice cold Hewitt the match point some 5 times. End of it he was in tears while leaving the court at 4:34 am AST.

pleasure watching tennis ....

that too in the newly installed Set-top box at home (chennai has Conditional access system) and i was avioiding to bite the bullet to move from FreeToAir channels to paid channels ....

Top 10 wishes @ Beijing olympics

after the Top 10 stories, now the Top 10 wishes ...

1) "I wish Liu Xiang will become an Olympic champion"

2) "I want to become a torchbearer for the Beijing Olympics"

3) "I wish I could watch the Olympic opening and closing ceremonies together with my family and friends"

4) "I wish the Olympics success"

5) "I want to pose for a photo in front of the newly-built Olympic venues"

6) "I wish the Chinese women's volleyball team will successfully defend their Olympic title"

7) "I wish for smooth road traffic"

8) "Count me as an Olympic volunteer"

9) "I want to be photographed with sport stars and get an autographed copy"

10) "I want to exchange Olympic pins with friends from other countries"

soon the Top 10 key terms ............

Culinary delights @ Beijing Olympics

Foreign athletes famished for Chinese food may find their appetites are not satisfied in the Olympic Village during next year's Games, according to a menu distributed by the organizer.

Asian-style food including Chinese, Japanese and Korean dishes would together account for 30 percent of the menu designed for athletes in the Olympic Village," said Xiang Ping, deputy director in charge of the Games Service Department of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games (BOCOG).

She said that a preliminary menu had been drawn up and sent for expert appraisal, with results expected next month. "Western food will comprise most of the menu," she said.
She did not disclose whether the famous Beijing roasted duck or Kung Pao Chicken (diced chicken with peanuts) would appear on the menu.

Xiang said that there would be no religious segregation, such as a special Muslim canteen, in the Olympic Village. "The International Olympic Committee has suggested to BOCOG that the Games' spirit of sharing and harmony should surpass religious distinctions," said Xiang.
She said the menu would designate special dishes for athletes with religious dietary requirements.

Bionic Ball, Technology in the foot ball ....

A new "bionic ball" being tested at the Club World Cup in Japan could soon be a regular feature at FIFA tournaments, its developers said on Thursday.The technology, involving magnetic sensors that determine if the micro-chipped ball has crossed the goal line, has worked well so far, according to co-designers adidas and Cairos.

The developers added that feedback from the players at the seven-team competition had been positive."We are very satisfied," adidas's chief of FIFA Affairs Gunter Pfau told a news conference in Tokyo to demonstrate the ball's qualities. "No ball was damaged. All the systems have worked."An implanted microchip sends an instant signal to the referee's wristwatch to indicate if the whole of the ball has crossed the line.

courtesy : the daily star

Traditional Medicines @ Olympics 2008

Athletes will be able to use traditional Chinese medicines at next year's Olympics without risking positive dope tests if they take basic precautions, a Beijing organising committee (BOCOG) official said on Tuesday.

Dr. Dai Jianping, who state media quoted last week as saying traditional medicines would not be used, said all Chinese drugs were subject to the same regulatory standards as those from the West."There is no direct relation between Chinese traditional herbal medicine and doping," Dai, who is responsible for medical services at the Games, told reporters."It has been around for several thousand years and is very healthy for the body. Like Western medicines it can protect the body. It would be like saying vitamin C is a kind of doping."Dai said China's drug administration had to approve all traditional medicines and, as in other countries, the ingredients were analysed and listed on packaging."After the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) announces the banned list, we select those that can be used and those that can't," he said.

Chinese coach Ma Junren, whose long-distance runners broke several world records in the early 1990s, said his charges used traditional products such as turtle blood to help them achieve their fast times.

Ke Nako. Celebrate Africa's Humanity

The 2010 FIFA World Cup will be the 19th FIFA World cup, an international tournament for football, that is scheduled to take place between11 June and 11 July 2010 in South Africa. It will be the first time that the tournament has been hosted by a nation in theConfederation of African Football, leaving the Oceania football confederation as the only FIFA Confederation never to have hosted the event.

The logo for the 2010 FIFA world cup was recently unveiled

Venues

The final venue list was released for the World Cup: Bloemfontein, Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg (two), Nelspruit, Polokwane, Port Elizabeth, Pretoria and Rustenburg.

The stadiums ..... venue for the victorious

Hey some of the places where the action will happen at the Beijing 2008 olympics ...... be there to watch the fun, atleast be glued to your TV sets to watch the action.

Pin the hopes

The medal(s) for the Beijing Olympic Games 2008 is designed with inspiration coming from Bi ....... China's ancient Jade piece inscribed with Dragon ....

Dry run @ Beijing

Beijing has had to divert water from a willow-lined river northeast of the city to replenish its Olympics rowing and canoeing venue which has run dry, Xinhua news agency said on Monday.The municipal government had spent about 430 million yuan ($57 million) to divert water 13 km from the Wenyu river to the Chaobei river which had run dry for nine consecutive years, Xinhua cited deputy director of the Shunyi district reform and development commission Qin Yongjun as saying.

The Olympic rowing and canoeing centre in Shunyi was built especially for next August's Games and features a 3-km rowing lake which holds 1.7 million cubic metres of water.Beijing sits in the arid north China plain, where water tables are falling fast due to climate change and rising consumption by farmers and booming cities.The country has embarked on massive engineering projects to divert water from rivers feeding the south to the dry north.It is also starting to address the serious problem of pollution of water supplies from untreated city sewage, industrial waste and farm run-off

Xinhua said Shaanxi province, in the northwest, will build ten sewage disposal plants to reduce pollution in the Weihe River, the largest tributary of the Yellow River.
By 2010, it plans to build 40 sewage plants along the Weihe River, which receives more than 800 million tonnes of sewage and wastewater annually. The Weihe accounts for about 18 percent of the discharges in the Yellow River basin, the source of irrigation and drinking water for millions of people in the north.