Beijing Olympics Countdown - The Bird’s Nest

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It’s 11 days to the Olympics, and about time for another article to keep you up to speed. To recap, in our last article on the mascot Fuwa, the results from the survey indicate that you can relate (75%) to these “good luck dolls”. Fooowa! (that’s meant to be a remark).

Today we’ll take a look at the much anticipated Beijing Olympic stadium, also known as The Bird’s Nest.

Built at a cost of 423 million USD, construction compromised of 35 km of unwrapped steel to form this nest-like structure. One of the most creative stadiums I must say: from my limited experience of reviewing stadium structures (from soccer, where else), this stadium moves away from being all angular and futuramic and keeps it culturally spectacular. What do you think of the Bird’s Nest?

Beijing Olympic Countdown - Fuwa

In the run up to the Beijing Olympic games, I’ll be posting some articles periodically to keep you in the loop and excitement of the games. Today’s article is on the Beijing 2008 Olympic mascots: Fuwa.

The Fuwa literally means “good-luck dolls” in Chinese and were created by Han Meilin, a famous artist in China. These characters have taken China by storm, from merchandising to 3D animation.

‘Blade Runner’ Will Run In the Olympics

Empowering. Paralympic champion Oscar Pretorius, a double amputee sprinter, has won the right to compete in the Olympic Games in Beijing after the court of arbitration of sport backed his appeal against a ban initially imposed by athletics authorities. Pistorius, 21, who lost both legs when he was a baby, runs on shock-absorbing carbon-fiber prosthetics. This has earned him the nickname “Blade Runner.”

Questions have popped up as to what then it would mean for sports when Blade Runner is allowed to compete. The struggle seems to be hinged on what exactly does “fairness” mean, and as much as it would be unfair to disallow a disabled to compete against a ‘normal’ playing field, is it then also fair for the ‘normal’ people to compete against a pair of shock-absorbing carbon-fiber running machines?

What do you think?