Summer Olympian

The big news this week for Human Interest Saturdays is of course the startling decision by Court of Arbitration for Sport to allow double amputee sprinter Oscar Pistorius the chance to qualify and compete in the Olympic…

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Last Tuesday the United States Olympic Committee brought in Chinese cultural experts to speak to about 35 athletes. Their message: “Be good ambassadors. Don’t do anything that would offend.” Our first thought was what did they really learn? We love learning what’s…

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Zara Phillips’ recent confirmation as a member of the five-person British equestrian team took no fan of the sport by surprise. She is the reigning world eventing - a rugged combination of equestrian’s three disciplines…

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Did you get your mother a card and some flowers for her special day? Well here’s another gift from the…

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While your watching the your favorite athlete at the Beijing Olympics this year the cameras will inevitably flash to his/her nervous parents. Maybe one of them has left their seat out of anxiety, maybe one has their eyes covered, or maybe they’re…

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Performance-enhancing drugs and the Olympics. The proverbial elephant in the room. Someone’s not afraid to talk about it and it’s none other than Victor Conte, head of the infamous Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (Balco) lab and supplier to countless would-be cheaters. In…

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The Wall Street Journal has had the most thoughtful, insightful, and interesting Beijing Olympics coverage of any English language news source. Their nonpareil work continued today with this excellent Page One article about the Puerto Rican…

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Oscar Schmidt, all-time Olympic Games scoring leader and b-ball star in five Olympiads, was this week given Brazil’s top honor to private citizens, the “Ordem de Rio Branco.”

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South African Natalie du Toit qualified for the Beijing Olympic Games today in the 10 kilometer open water race after finishing fourth at…

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Not every Chinese-born Olympian will be competing for their birth country in Beijing. Dozens of competitors now living throughout the world will be making a homecoming during this years’ Olympics. In fact eight will…

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Mia Farrow, of all people, becomes a key player in the Olympic protest movement with the delivery of a speech scheduled for Friday at the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents’ Club. The subject of the talk is to be Sino-Sudanese relations and…

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Now if you thought the Sunday New York Times’ front page article “Witness in Track Doping Case Is Ready to Name…

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To paraphrase the ad, “We’ve come a long way, baby.”

A long way, that is, from the days when the likes of Ted Williams lent likenesses to tobacco companies to push more cigarettes. For not only have most athletes…

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Ottawa-based public opinion research firm Phoenix SPI, upon releasing its most recent numbers, announced that “most Canadians would like to keep politics out of the Olympic Games, and do not want Canada to boycott the Beijing…

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Trinidad and Tobago’s Shane De Silva leads a team of three ladies to referee in the 2008 Beijing Games’ women’s soccer competition.

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