News Articles on Beijing Olympics 2008

I guess his vocal is so standard but yeah not bad. Just wondering whether the organizer will invite international top-singers to perform in Opening Ceremony or not.

 

From The Times
August 5, 2008

IOC starts legal action over Beijing Olympics ticket scam

Hannah Fletcher in Beijing and Sophie Tedmanson

The International Olympic Committee began legal action against a website yesterday that allegedly set up a worldwide Olympic ticketing scam.
Hundreds of people in Britain, America, Belgium and Australia, desperate to be present at what are expected to be the biggest Games in history, paid about £30,000 for tickets and accommodation that did not exist to the website www.beijingtickets.com.
The International Olympic Committee began receiving complaints after travellers, including the parents and friends of competing athletes, arrived in Beijing to find themselves stranded.

Only a few hours earlier the website had looked so legitimate that it reportedly even fooled online fraud specialists.
It was based in the US and claimed to have offices in London and Sydney. It offered accurate information on events, a highly professional booking system and was littered with official-looking Olympic logos.
It was also advertising tickets to events that have been sold out for more than a week, however, including seats at the opening ceremony on Friday for about £1,100.
A final batch of 250,000 tickets released on July 25 prompted long queues, scuffles and brawls in Beijing. Two days later it was announced that tickets to every event except football matches outside the Chinese capital had been sold out.
The committee insisted that it was unable to compensate duped consumers but in the run-up to the Olympics it has been working hard to crack down on the rogue online ticket trade – an industry worth £1.5 billion in Britain alone.
Two weeks ago the International Olympic Committee and the US Olympic Committee shut a similar site, beijing-tickets2008.com. Officials admitted that they have no idea if the site has truly closed or simply moved to a new online address.

 

^^Apparently..^^

..(wanted to post the news y'day)...that same exact scam ticketing website was mentioned in a couple of the threads here, below...Hopefully no BCers actually fell for and became victims of this outrageous scam.:crying:
A lot of Aussies were caught up in the scam.

http://www.badmintoncentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=57856

http://www.badmintoncentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=50556

http://au.sports.yahoo.com/olympics/news/article/-/4849117/aussies-caught-olympic-ticket-scam
==========================================================
Aussies caught up in Olympic ticket scam
AAP - August 3, 2008, 6:14 pm

Olympic officials will ask a judge in California on Monday to shut down an online Beijing Olympics ticket seller accused of scamming Australian, US and European sports fans and travel agents out of tens of thousands of dollars.

The slick, professional-looking website, www.beijingticketing.com, boasts offices in Sydney, London and New York.

It is believed the offices do not exist.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has received complaints from hundreds of alleged victims in Australia and the rest of the world who fear they have been duped.

Some customers handed over more than $US57,000 ($A60,600) each for tickets, but received nothing back.

The people behind the website appear to have vanished just days before the opening ceremony in Beijing.

The only address on the website leads to an office in Phoenix, Arizona, but desperate fans hoping to travel to Beijing discovered another dead end when they visited the office.

The office was empty.

When AAP repeatedly called the phone number on the website, it rang out.

Texas-based travel agent, Jolanta Sochacka, is one of the scam's biggest victims.

Sochacka told the Los Angeles Times newspaper she purchased $US57,000 ($A60,600) worth of tickets for a family of seven but has not sighted the tickets.

When Sochacka asked a friend in Phoenix to check out the address, the friend found an empty office and no sign the company ever resided there.

"I've been in business for 18 years, I'm aware that there's fraud out there," Sochacka told the LA Times.

"But they looked so legitimate, their website was so elaborate."

The IOC and the US Olympic Committee (USOC) have had success in shutting another suspected Beijing Olympics ticket website scam down.

On July 23 they won a restraining order in Phoenix to close www.beijing-tickets2008.com.

On Monday, the IOC and USOC will ask a federal judge in San Francisco for an order to shutdown beijingticketing.com

The FBI may become involved in the investigation.

Other apparent victims of beijingticketing.com include internet entrepreneurs and software developers, who say despite their own expertise and experience with the internet, they were fooled by the elaborate website.

The site boasts: "We manage our extensive network of ticket agents through our three international offices - London, New York and Sydney".

David Boctor, a Los Angeles Internet entrepreneur who runs his own online retail store, paid beijingticketing.com $US11,505 ($A12,230) for hard-to-get tickets to the Olympic opening ceremony, swimming and diving.

He told the LA Times he became suspicious when the company stopped answering his phone calls in April and his credit card was charged for airline tickets he did not buy.

"If I failed to recognise this internet scam, very few other individuals with less of an e-commerce background would have had a chance," Boctor said.

"So I can empathise with others in the same position."

Another computer savvy victim California-based victim, Jonathan Murray, bought $US4,950 ($A5,260) for Olympic equestrian events.

"I work for a fairly large software company, and the team I manage is responsible for dealing with Internet crime," Murray, originally from Britain, told the newspaper.

"So it was quite amusing to everyone at work that I had been scammed on the internet.

"The important point I'm making by talking about this is that this was a bloody good scam."

Meanwhile in Beijing, Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) deputy chef de mission Lynne Bates said everyone involved in the Olympic family had been encouraged to purchase tickets through the official CoSport agency to avoid such problems.

"Of course it's disappointing," she told reporters in Beijing.

"We realise and understand that the IOC are looking to shut down and take further action on that website.

"But we at the Australian Olympic Committee of course have encouraged everyone, all our shadow team members, everybody that's part of the Olympic family, and advertised it very very widely, that CoSport are our official ticket agent and encouraged all enquiries and everybody to go that way.

"So hopefully there's not too many (affected), but as I say all the people that have followed the co-sport line will be fine."

 

i saw this ad but didn't post it, maybe now i should.
--------------------------------------------
Over the last few weeks and months, a number of websites designed to mimic official Olympic websites have been selling unsuspecting Olympics fans non-existent tickets to the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympic Games. Thousands of people expecting the experience of a lifetime have instead experienced the disappointment and shock of discovering just days before venturing to Beijing that the tickets they treasured simply do not exist.


The law firm of Moriarty Leyendecker Erben is in the process of tracking down the history of these fraudulent ticket sales, and determining who is responsible for allowing them to happen. We believe that anyone who played a role in stealing money and the hopes of a trip of a lifetime should be held accountable. If you believe you have been defrauded by one of these scams, we would like to hear from you. A brief questionnaire that will let you tell us about the problem can be found here.

Who Are We?
Moriarty Leyendecker Erben is a no-nonsense law firm that prides itself on protecting people who have been cheated. Since 1976, the firm has represented more than 25,000 clients in 48 states and several foreign countries. Our cases and approach to litigation have been reported by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, 60 Minutes, American Lawyer, National Law Journal, Texas Lawyer, NBC-TV, CBS Radio, The Boston Globe, The Dallas Morning News, Good Morning America, and The Houston Chronicle, among others. Kurt Eichenwald of The New York Times featured the legal team in his book, Serpent On the Rock.

 

Good interview report

 

Olympic flame sets off on final relay

By HENRY SANDERSON, Associated Press Writer
11 minutes ago

The Olympic flame approached the final destination of its long and sometimes contentious global tour Wednesday, greeted by rapturous crowds in the Chinese capital two days before it officially launches the Summer Games.
The arrival of the torch marks one of the final steps in China's seven years of preparations for the games that have cost billions of dollars, and one which Beijing hopes will serve as the country's symbolic debut as a modern world power.
The torch will tour Beijing before ending up at Friday's opening ceremony for the games. It will be carried by a diverse group, including China's first astronaut in space Yang Liwei, movie director Zhang Yimou and basketball superstar Yao Ming.
"I'm very happy to be here," said Yang before the relay kicked off from the Forbidden City, home of Chinese emperors since the 15th century.
"That the torch is finally in Beijing is a realization of a dream we've had for a hundred years," Yang said, minutes before he took up the flame as its first torchbearer.
Basketball star Yao Ming carried the torch out of China's symbolic Tiananmen Gate, below the portrait of Chairman Mao.
Overseas, the torch relay was disrupted by protests or conducted under extremely heavy security since it left Greece on March 24, turning an event that should have built up excitement for the games into something of a public relations disaster for the hosts.
The protests have mostly been in response to China's crackdown in March on anti-government riots in Tibet and to more general concerns over human rights issues in China.
On Wednesday, a pro-Tibet group said police detained four activists after they unfurled banners outside the Beijing National Stadium, site of the opening ceremony.
Three men and one woman from Students for a Free Tibet climbed two electricity poles in front of the stadium, dubbed the Bird's Nest, and unfurled the two banners at dawn, said Lhadon Tethong, the New York-based group's executive director.
One banner said "Tibet will be free" and the other said "One World, One Dream" — the slogan for the Beijing Olympics — with the words "Free Tibet" in Chinese.
After an hour, fire trucks pulled up and the protesters were peacefully led away by police and members of the internal security force, Tethong said.
"We have not had any contact with them because their phones are off," she said.
Sun Weide, the spokesman for the Beijing Olympics organizing committee, did not answer his telephone. Zhao Min, from the Beijing Public Security Bureau spokesman's office, said officials were trying to confirm the incident and had no immediate comment.
The torch arrived back in the capital late Tuesday, after an emotional run in Sichuan province, the site of China's deadly May 12 earthquake which killed almost 70,000 people and left some 5 million homeless.
It was paraded Tuesday through about eight miles of the provincial capital of Chengdu. Hours later, a powerful aftershock struck other parts of Sichuan province in western China and nearby provinces, but it was not felt in Chengdu.
The original route of the torch in Chengdu was altered, taking it through an industrial part of the city rather than a more historic section that houses Tibetan communities, apparently out of concern that anti-government protests could mar the ceremony. Deadly riots against the Beijing government broke out in the capital of neighboring Tibet in March, and pro-Tibet activists have disrupted the torch relay overseas.

A huge stage was set up at the Forbidden City's Meridian Gate for lion dancers and other traditional dance performances. Despite the muggy heat, thousands of people lined Chang An Avenue, which runs through the heart of Beijing, to cheer on the torchbearers.
"I'm just so happy I couldn't sleep last night," said Liu Yuzhen, a 54-year-old retiree who was one of the dancers. "It's our torch and it's in Beijing. It's a chance of a hundred years and it's finally here."
From the Forbidden City, the torch was to pass landmarks such as the futuristic egg-shaped National Center for the Performing Arts and Tiananmen Square. The expansive square is iconic for its symbolism as the seat of the communist government, but also was the focus of pro-democracy demonstrations in 1989 that were violently crushed by security forces.
The crowd in Tiananmen square was small and strictly controlled in ordered lines as the torch wound its way around Mao's mausoleum. The only people allowed in were media and organized groups of supporters, mostly from major Olympic sponsors Lenovo and Coca-Cola, who shouted "Go China! Go Olympics!" and waved corporate flags.
"I feel the Olympics will help China develop, because China used to be so closed, and it gives an opportunity for the whole world to see China," said Weng Jianming, a 21-year old student at the Beijing University of Forestry.
He got up at 3 a.m. to be bused to the square but it was worth it to catch a glimpse of Yao Ming, he said.
The torch will end the day's relay at the Temple of Heaven in south Beijing, where the emperor went to perform sacrifices for a good harvest. The Beijing leg will involve 841 torchbearers over three days and will also visit the Great Wall at Badaling, a site where prehistoric fossils of Peking Man were discovered.
Security was tight along the torch run and Tiananmen Square was secured by armed police officers. The only people allowed onto the square were media and special guests.
Organizers have been on heightened alert since an attack in the country's restive Muslim region in the west killed 16 policemen on Monday.
On Tuesday, International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge said the committee was discussing whether to eliminate international relays. He said the IOC would retain its tradition of lighting the Olympic flame in Ancient Olympia and starting the torch relay in Greece, but may limit flame processions to domestic routes within Olympic host countries.

Associated Press writer Audra Ang contributed to this report from Beijing.

 

Jacky Chan is not great singer....he is just so so...I hope they put Jacky Cheung instead.... my Idol....or Dao Lang/Dadawa

 

RI shuttlers set out to tame Chinese dragons

Primastuti Handayani , The Jakarta Post
Jakarta | Wed, 08/06/2008 10:23 AM | Sports

Indonesia has long relied on badminton to win gold medals at the Olympic Games.
This year is no exception. The question is whether our shuttlers can retain "the gold medal tradition" with many of them yet to give a convincing performance on the international stage.
Since badminton was first included in the Olympics in 1992, Indonesia has been winning gold medals in the event, with Susy Susanti and Alan Budikusuma taking out the women's and men's singles titles during the sport's debut year.
Men's doubles team Ricky Subagdja and Rexy Mainaky triumphed at the 1996 Atlanta Games, Candra Wijaya and Tony Gunawan won at the 2000 Sydney Olympics and Taufik took gold in the 2004 Athens Olympics.
Taufik is back, trying to recreate his winning form of four years ago. But his fitness remains in doubt as he is recovering from a fever.
"I think his condition is about 80 to 90 percent fit now," Badminton Association of Indonesia (PBSI) chairman Sutiyoso said.
"It's gonna be tough because he will face challenges from Lee Chong Wei of Malaysia and Lin Dan of China. It won't be easy for him."
Taufik, who is seeded seventh at the Olympics, has drawn Malaysia's Wong Choong Hann in the first round. If he can clear the first and second-round hurdles, the 26-year-old Indonesian is likely to challenge fourth seed Chen Jin of China.
He declined to comment on his chances, saying: "Let's wait and see."
Taufik has been in the spotlight because of his recent lackluster performance. His winning form was most recently seen at the Yonex-Sunrise Asian Continental Championships in April last year. This year, his best achievement was reaching the quarterfinals at the All England and Swiss Open.
Indonesia is also pinning its medal hopes on the mixed and men's doubles.
"I believe our shuttlers will do their best to win. Our best chances lie with the mixed or men's doubles events. However, there's a possibility we could steal a gold in the women's doubles," said Sutiyoso, who has promised a bonus of Rp 1 billion for any gold medalists.
For the mixed doubles, Indonesia is sending two-time world champions Nova Widiyanto and Lilyana Natsir and Asia champions Flandy Limpele and Vita Marissa.
Lilyana said although she would also play in the women's doubles with Vita, her main focus would be on the mixed doubles.
"Frankly speaking, we have a better chance in the mixed doubles," she said.
Vita agreed. "The draw shows that our pool is slightly lighter than the women's doubles."
But doubles coach Richard Mainaky warned his proteges not to be complacent about the draw. "They must bear in mind that the rally-point (scoring) system never gives any advantage to any players. They must stay alert."
Nova and Lilyana will meet Han Sang-hoon and Hwang Yu-mi of South Korea in the first round.
If they can get through, the top seeds are likely to face Sudket Prapakamol and Saralee Thoungthongkam of Thailand in the second round.
Third seeds Flandy and Vita will first take on Kristof Hopp and Birgit Overzier of Germany, with Thomas Laybourn and Kamilla Rytter of Denmark likely to be their next opponents.
In the women's doubles, Vita and Lilyana will challenge favorite Yang Wei-Zhang Jiewen of China in the first round at the Beijing University of Technology Gymnasium.
Despite coming up against top seeds and world champions, the Indonesians said they were by no means discouraged.
"It's the Olympics. It's different from regular tournaments," Vita said. "It's us against them."
The men's doubles are poised for tough tasks with top seeds and world champions Markis Kido and Hendra Setiawan of Indonesia up against China's second pair Gua Zhendong-Xie Zhongbo in the first round, and the second seeds, former world champions Cai Yun and Fu Haifeng of China, to meet Danish veterans Jens Eriksen and Martin Lundgaard Hansen.
Despite the tough trip to the next round, Kido was upbeat about his chances.
"We want to win," he said. "And we will."

 

Yeah. Jacky Cheung is an awesome singer with great personality compare with Jacky Chan whose famous quote :" I am doing the wrong thing in which most of the guys will do...."

 

After That, Lion dance will be replacing Badminton at OG

 

Yup, Jacky Cheung has great voice. Sun Nan who sings Forever Friends also good too. Hmmm, don't know about another Mandarin singers...

 

Opening Ceremony plan released

Updated: 2008-08-06 12:36:23
(BEIJING, August 6) -- With two days to go before the start of the Beijing Olympics, the organizers of the Games released the plan for the Opening Ceremony, which takes place on August 8.

The ceremony will start at 8:00 p.m. and will last about three and half hours, with China's Liu Huan and Sarah Brightman from Britain chosen to sing the theme song, said Zhang Heping, director of the BOCOG Opening and Closing Ceremonies Department at a press conference.

A 75-minute "pre-ceremony" performance that will end at 7:00 p.m. will feature folk and ethnic art from 28 teams across the country, Zhang said.

The core part of the ceremony -- the artistic performance -- will last one hour. It will be divided into two parts -- one to highlight China's age-old civilization and the other to highlight China's splendid modern era. The theme song will come at the end of the performance.

The post-performance part of the ceremony will last two and a half hours and comprises various Olympic rituals and traditions, including a declaration from Chinese President Hu Jintao opening the Games and a two-hour long parade of athletes. Delegations from 205 national and regional Olympic committees will enter the stadium according to the order of the simplified Chinese characters.

"The passion will be lighted on the night of August 8, offering the hundreds of thousands of spectators in the National Stadium, as well as hundreds of millions of people outside a spectacular performance," Zhang told the press.
-- source : the Official Website of Beijing 2008 OG --

*Unfortunately above news didn't mention the title of theme song that will be performed by Liu Huan and Sarah Brightman. Hmm, just remember about Sarah Brightman-Jose Carerras collaboration to sing beautiful theme song 'Amigos Para Siempre' (Friends for Life) in Barcelona 1992.

 

Rumours said that YAP will be demoted to Juniors doubles coach after Olympics.. Wish it was true

 

why sam???...why u hope so???

 

Or that YKH will go elsewhere. And that Rashid or Rexy will be offered the chief coach post. Misbun was chief coach bf - during the 2004 OG me thinks, he knows how it's like, maybe that's why no rumors on Misbun being offered.

Read today's Berita Harian, got some more rumors abt Datuk Andrew Kam (KLRC owner) might be vying for the BAM President post to replace Datuk Nadzmi

 

If Andrew Kam is BAM president...we may a chance to see US$ 1 Million tournament