08/08/08 – Let The Games [2008 Beijing Olympic Games] Begin

       

In a few hours time, Barbadians like millions around the world will watch the largest sporting event on earth  taking place in China. Host to the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics Games. Predicting overcast skies come Friday night for the nearly 4 hr opening ceremony  featuring 15,000 performers and 29,000 fireworks but no rain, Chinese officials would well do against any cloudy invasion of smog, fog and other og’s obscuring ones view whether live & direct or through camera’s lenses.

For the cold hard facts are despite China human rights records to the number of restrictions place on visitors alike, the Olympics would always be a drawing card for the rich and poor, bond and free. [Until the initial excitement wears off and one can't wait for it to end].

Olympic Village – Credit: Zhang Guojun/Xinhua 

Over 16,000 athletes, coaches and their entourage [including Barbados] from over 200 countries and regions have descended on the Olympic Village, [their home for the next 17 days]. Divided into 3 sections: [1] international, [2] residential, [3] operations, its features a main restaurant feeding 5000 people, apartments, fire station, tea houses, coffee shops, barber shops, leisure and exercise quarters, post office, clinic, library, entertainment center and shops. Canadian Press  reports that athletes are being housed under tight security. An army helicopter buzzed overhead, and the perimeter is encased with razor-wire fencing and soldiers that stand at attention.

37 different venues in 6 co-host cities besides Beijing will showcased the greatest sport competition over the next few days. Co-host cities are: Qingdao – [sailing], Hong Kong – [equestrian], Tiangjin - [football], Shanghai – [football] and Qinhuangdoa – [football]. All eyes rest on our Olympic team making exceptional performances with the region highest medals coming from Jamaica- [Usain Bolt and Asafa Powell], Bahamas and Trinidad & Tobago.

Barbados had its flag raising ceremony on Wednesday. Unfortunately no mention of it was placed on the Barbados Olympic Association’s website. Why? Difficulties getting info from out of China. Reason? Internet blockage. Yet I found links on the web on Jamaica and Cuba’s flag raising ceremonies. This outside the Caribbean area! I searched CMC [Caribbean Media Corporation] website. Their lastest news article on the Olympics[Aug 6th 08] is the same one printed today by the Nation. Isn’t CMC the official broadcaster of the Olympic Games in this part of the world? Isn’t the Barbados Olympic Association the official website of the Beijing Games? There’s is no reason in this mighty age of internet technology that a platform couldn’t have been created to allow athletes to blog on their experiences and send photos too. Some will make it through and just wouldn’t. And to think each member of the association have their email addresses online. All avenues ought to have been explored. Unfortunately no one thought about it according to the caller I [my wife] spoke too on the line. Hopefully a situation like this will be rectified come 2012. 

Opening Ceremony -  Friday 08/08/08 – 8pm [ Tape Delay]?

C.M.C [Caribbean Media Corporation] will carry live feeds from 6am – 10am and 10pm to 1am.

Enjoy.

Douglas Is Youngest Sailor In His Class At Beijing Olympics

  Gregory Douglas, at eighteen years old, is the only sailor representing Barbados at the 2008 Olympic Games. The sailing events are being held in the coastal city of Qindgao, where a magnificent sailing facility has been built for the games.

The sailors are challenged by the difficult conditions in Qingdao. The test events held at the site have shown that they will have to contend with light and variable winds, along with sometimes strong currents. Douglas, along with most sailors, has been following a preparation strategy that includes losing weight to improve his light wind performance.

400 sailors will be competing in 11 classes at Qingdao, with Douglas competing in the Laser class, which will see 42 countries represented. The leading sailors in the Laser hail from Australia, Great Britain, New Zealand and Canada. The current world champion is Tom Slingsby of Australia who has dominated the class over the past two years.

Since arriving in Qingdao on July 28, Douglas has been training with his coach Luis Chiapparro, a two time Olympian for Uruguay, along with his training partners at the event, Alejandro Foglia of Uruguay and Thomas Barrows of the US Virgin Islands.

They are following a daily program of sailing at the competition location to acclimatise to local wind, wave and current conditions, as well as maintaining their physical training routines. Douglas is the youngest sailor in the Laser class. He began sailing at the age of eight years with the Barbados Sailing Associations sail training programme.

He has represented Barbados at two ISAF Youth World Championships and most recently at the 2008 Laser World Championships in Australia with the assistance of the Barbados Olympic Association.

He commented that, My training regime is going very well. I am very comfortable with these sailing conditions and the heat here in Qingdao. I am still at the stage in my career where I can make major improvements in results through the excellent experience I am gaining by sailing against the very best in the world. I am no longer intimidated by these older competitors.

Source – Barbados Advocate 

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Invisible Skating A Hit With Viewers

A Video of men riding on invisible skateboards has caused a sensation on the internet.

The YouTube video, which has been viewed more than 1.6 million times, shows a group of riders floating on thin air, doing tricks down stairs and up ramps on skateboards which appear to have been digitally removed.

Every trace of the boards have been carefully removed, but with the riders’ shadows on the ground left intact.

Of the nearly 2000 comments made about the video, a number of viewers said the special effects were done by first filming the empty background with a camera on a track, then filming again on the same track with the skateboarders on green-painted boards.

The two videos were then digitally spliced together and the green boards were removed, they said.

One user suggested the riders had hidden wheels on their shoes.

A couple of viewers complained the video was a “fake”, prompting dozens of angry responses from people who said they should appreciate the impressive editing which went into removing the boards.

Source – news.com.au

Barbados Records Ecomonic Slowdown

Yes it’s late but it’s still important.

Rising world commodity prices have caused a significant slowdown in the Barbados economy.

Governor of the Central Bank of Barbados, Dr Marion Williams, reported last Friday that the 1.4 per cent economic growth recorded by Barbados over the first six months of this year was the lowest growth level recorded for the two quarters in the past five years. 

“During the first six months of 2008, the pace of real economic activity in Barbados was constrained by persistently high international prices for oil and other major commodities, as well as the slowing global economy,” Dr Williams told a media conference at the bank’s headquarters in Bridgetown.  

Calling Barbados’ economic performance “uneven” over the first half of this year, she revealed that after recording growth of 2.6 per cent between January and March, economic output was then “virtually flat” over the next three months.

Dr Williams contrasted the 1.4 per cent growth with the 3.6 per cent average rate of expansion recorded over the first two quarters of the last five years and attributed the current growth rate to slowdowns in both the traded and non-traded sectors.

Non-traded activity grew by an estimated 1.6 per cent, which was approximately 3 percentage points below the average increase in these sectors during the first half of the last five years; while traded output grew by almost one per cent, which she said was also significantly below the average rate of increase between 2003 and 2007.

Over the first six months of 2008, real tourism value-added rose by approximately 2.7 per cent, compared with an increase of 3.1 per cent in the corresponding period of 2007.

While output in the wholesale and retail trade, transportation, storage and communications, business and other services sectors grew moderately, with each industry rising by just over 3 per cent, activity in the construction sector fell by an estimated 6.7 per cent.

The end of several major infrastructural projects relating to Cricket World Cup 2007 plus a reduction in private residential and commercial real estate had the knock-on effect of dampening utilities production, with output of electricity, gas and water contracting by an estimated 1.4 per cent.  

Dr Williams further reported that this year’s sugar harvest yielded some 2,300 tonnes less than the 2007 crop although output in the non-sugar agriculture and fishing sector increased by 1.7 per cent, resulting principally from higher fish catches and milk production of 6.5 per cent and 2.1 per cent, respectively. She said that manufacturing output also dipped slightly, as the gains in the production of electronics and beverages and tobacco could not compensate for the fall in chemical production.  

And things are not looking up for the rest of the year as Dr Dr Williams told reporters that the current outlook for the rest of 2008 is for real output growth to be in the range of 1.5 per cent to 2.0 per cent. Moreover, she said this was only if there was no worsening in the slowdown of Barbados’ main trading partners or if prices of oil, food and other commodities did not rise further. 

Source – Caribbean360.com