The CBC has just announced that it will provide a daily Beijing Olympics online highlights package in Mandarin.
Starting Aug. 9, the first day of full competition at the Games, the service is being made available on four websites: CBCSports.ca, rciviva.ca (Radio Canada International), radio-canada.ca (French-language Radio-Canada), and cbc.ca/bc/chinesenews, a site launched July 22 to serve CBC British Columbia's Chinese-language viewers in their native tongue.
This kind of initiative is nothing new for the CBC, which has provided Italian, Mandarin, Cantonese, Hindi and Punjabi coverage of Hockey Night in Canada telecasts during the past two seasons (specifically Hockey Day In Canada and the Stanley Cup playoffs).
"CBC is committed to providing all Canadians with the most comprehensive coverage of the Beijing Olympic Games," said Joel Darling, CBC Sports' director of production. "This a great opportunity to serve more of Canada's rich and diverse communities and CBCSports.ca is an ideal platform to reach them and bring them closer to the Games."
Beijing 2008 will receive the most extensive broadcast and Internet coverage in Olympic history. We'll break it all down for you over the next few days, as the lighting of the flame in China's capital draws ever closer. We're only nine days away now.
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NBC reports it has sold 96% of its advertising inventory for the Beijing Games, putting it on pace to set all all-time Olympics revenue record.
The NBC Universal target for Beijing: $1 billion US. The network paid $894 million for rights to the 2008 Summer Olympics, so a profit is clearly within reach.
Given the 12-hour time difference between Beijing and the eastern U.S. — where the biggest American population base is located — that's some impressive feat. It's also a testament to the intrigue, excitement and yes, controversy, surrounding the arrival of the Games in the world's most populous country.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
It's Millar Time ... Again
First off, let me say the Canadian Olympic Committee couldn't have picked a finer flag-bearer for the upcoming Beijing Olympics.
Kayaker Adam van Koeverden did us proud four years ago in Athens, winning a gold and bronze medal. More than that, though, he is a true spokesman for amateur sport in this country, relentlessly supporting causes such as Canadian Athletes Now that make a very real difference in the lives of so many of our Olympians.
He is also at the forefront of what many like to call the "new breed" of Olympians wearing the red maple leaf. Those who aren't merely happy to just show up at a major Games, but head onto the biggest stages of them all with thoughts of nothing short of victory dancing in their heads (and aren't shy about saying it, either).
For all of that, and so much more, van Koeverden is the ideal candidate to lead our athletes into the "Bird's Nest" Olympic stadium in Beijing in 16 days' time.
Can't help being amused — hell, impressed — by the groundswell of support, though, for the grand old man of Canada's Olympic team. And I mean not a hint of disrespect toward Ian Millar by calling him that.
The showjumper from Perth, Ont. — the little Ottawa Valley town which has contributed a remarkable four members to the 2008 Canadian Olympic team — will compete in a record-tying ninth Olympics next month in China. And it would be an even 10 if Canada hadn't boycotted the 1980 Moscow Games.
Millar, by all accounts nothing short of the finest of gentlemen, wears Canada's colours proudly whenever and wherever he competes around the globe. At 61, he's a marvel and a treasure. So much so that he was right at the top of the list when speculation began in the past few days about candidates for the flag-bearer role.
Lots of folks were behind him, too. While you might expect Millar would be favoured by Ottawa Sun readers — they gave him a leading 34% support in an online poll — even more impressive were the results gathered by the Toronto Star in a similar survey. A staggering 80% of Star readers wanted to hand the flag to the 61-year-old Millar.
Like we said, it's no insult to van Koeverden, a more than worthy selection. But rather, an immense show of respect to an Olympian who, one more time, deserves a collective tip of our Canadian hats.
*****
For a complete listing of our Canadian Olympic team, visit the COC website here.
Also worth a look is this Toronto Star graphic, which tells you all our athletes' hometowns. If you don't know who from your own backyard is about to make the dream of a lifetime come true, that is.
Kayaker Adam van Koeverden did us proud four years ago in Athens, winning a gold and bronze medal. More than that, though, he is a true spokesman for amateur sport in this country, relentlessly supporting causes such as Canadian Athletes Now that make a very real difference in the lives of so many of our Olympians.
He is also at the forefront of what many like to call the "new breed" of Olympians wearing the red maple leaf. Those who aren't merely happy to just show up at a major Games, but head onto the biggest stages of them all with thoughts of nothing short of victory dancing in their heads (and aren't shy about saying it, either).
For all of that, and so much more, van Koeverden is the ideal candidate to lead our athletes into the "Bird's Nest" Olympic stadium in Beijing in 16 days' time.
Can't help being amused — hell, impressed — by the groundswell of support, though, for the grand old man of Canada's Olympic team. And I mean not a hint of disrespect toward Ian Millar by calling him that.
The showjumper from Perth, Ont. — the little Ottawa Valley town which has contributed a remarkable four members to the 2008 Canadian Olympic team — will compete in a record-tying ninth Olympics next month in China. And it would be an even 10 if Canada hadn't boycotted the 1980 Moscow Games.
Millar, by all accounts nothing short of the finest of gentlemen, wears Canada's colours proudly whenever and wherever he competes around the globe. At 61, he's a marvel and a treasure. So much so that he was right at the top of the list when speculation began in the past few days about candidates for the flag-bearer role.
Lots of folks were behind him, too. While you might expect Millar would be favoured by Ottawa Sun readers — they gave him a leading 34% support in an online poll — even more impressive were the results gathered by the Toronto Star in a similar survey. A staggering 80% of Star readers wanted to hand the flag to the 61-year-old Millar.
Like we said, it's no insult to van Koeverden, a more than worthy selection. But rather, an immense show of respect to an Olympian who, one more time, deserves a collective tip of our Canadian hats.
*****
For a complete listing of our Canadian Olympic team, visit the COC website here.
Also worth a look is this Toronto Star graphic, which tells you all our athletes' hometowns. If you don't know who from your own backyard is about to make the dream of a lifetime come true, that is.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
The Bible Of The Games
My newest Wallechinsky is perched in prime position on the end of my coffee table, awaiting the next lighting of the flame.
And so, the countdown to the Beijing Olympics can now officially begin.
If you are any kind of Olympic junkie, you know you can't approach any Games — Winter or Summer — without David Wallechinsky's definitive work by your side. I speak, of course, of The Complete Book of the Olympics, and while expecting any tome to live up to such lofty billing, I can say with great confidence that Wallechinsky's effort surely does.
This is a compendium that is purely staggering in its scope, an 1,182-page behemoth that does much more than just offer a compilation of results. Rather, every single event from every games since the first of the modern era (1896 in Athens) gets an anecdote of its own. Some are rather brief, others amazingly detailed and not always about who won and who lost.
It is truly the kind of book meant to be devoured in small bites, rather than all at one sitting. And, for any fan of the Games, it's something you'll no doubt find yourself lured back to again and again.
Wallechinsky was first introduced to the Olympics when his father, novelist Irving Wallace, took him to the 1960 Rome Summer Games. He has gone on to become one of the world's more foremost Olympic historians, one who's received the Olympic Order from the International Olympic Committee.
His first volume of The Complete Book of the Olympics, published in 1984, weighed in at a modest 628 pages. It covered both the Summer and Winter Games, though the latter rated only a small 66-page segment at the back end of the book. Things, obviously, have grown greatly in the six follow-up editions published since then.
When the IOC moved to an alternating format in 1994, it spawned a secondary series: The Complete Book of the Winter Olympics. The fourth edition, for the 2006 Turin Games (when Wallechinsky brough his nephew, Jaime Loucky, on board as a co-author), gave readers 312 pages of storytelling and more.
As the years — and the Games — continue to roll on, the scope of the books will continue to grow.
Count on me to keep adding every volume to my collection.
And so, the countdown to the Beijing Olympics can now officially begin.
If you are any kind of Olympic junkie, you know you can't approach any Games — Winter or Summer — without David Wallechinsky's definitive work by your side. I speak, of course, of The Complete Book of the Olympics, and while expecting any tome to live up to such lofty billing, I can say with great confidence that Wallechinsky's effort surely does.
This is a compendium that is purely staggering in its scope, an 1,182-page behemoth that does much more than just offer a compilation of results. Rather, every single event from every games since the first of the modern era (1896 in Athens) gets an anecdote of its own. Some are rather brief, others amazingly detailed and not always about who won and who lost.
It is truly the kind of book meant to be devoured in small bites, rather than all at one sitting. And, for any fan of the Games, it's something you'll no doubt find yourself lured back to again and again.
Wallechinsky was first introduced to the Olympics when his father, novelist Irving Wallace, took him to the 1960 Rome Summer Games. He has gone on to become one of the world's more foremost Olympic historians, one who's received the Olympic Order from the International Olympic Committee.
His first volume of The Complete Book of the Olympics, published in 1984, weighed in at a modest 628 pages. It covered both the Summer and Winter Games, though the latter rated only a small 66-page segment at the back end of the book. Things, obviously, have grown greatly in the six follow-up editions published since then.
When the IOC moved to an alternating format in 1994, it spawned a secondary series: The Complete Book of the Winter Olympics. The fourth edition, for the 2006 Turin Games (when Wallechinsky brough his nephew, Jaime Loucky, on board as a co-author), gave readers 312 pages of storytelling and more.
As the years — and the Games — continue to roll on, the scope of the books will continue to grow.
Count on me to keep adding every volume to my collection.
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