2008 Beijing Olympics

[lkfmdc]

This article is so misguided. First of all, there's a huge application process to become an Olympic sport that we are all painfully aware of now. Second, the full-contact part is slightly off, since wushu embraces sanshou and taolu. Third, I'm not sure we showed wushu to the world at all. I was watching and didn't see any coverage on NBC, Telemundo or MBC. The only coverage I saw was here on the web.

There no longer are "demonstration sports" and so wushu wasn't a demo sport

All China did was host a wushu event AFTER the olympics were over, in another venue, on the other side of Beijing.

How anyone got fooled into thinking they were going to the "olympics" boggles the mind

Furthermore, the "wushu" that was IOC accepted was taolu, San Shou/San Da did not qualify because China "forgot" to have competition for women until AFTER the process had already been rejected!

[GeneChing]

The Olympics now has recognized sports and International Federations (IFs - funny acronym). These are not official sports, but akin to the old demo sport concept. Wushu is an IF. There are the current IFs (some are really weird): Air sports, Bandy, Billiard Sports, Boules, Bowling, Bridge, Chess, Cricket, DanceSport, Golf, Karate, Korfball, Life Saving, Motorcycle Racing, Mountaineering and Climbing, Netball, Orienteering, Pelote basque, Polo, Powerboating, Racquetball, Roller Sports, Rugby, Squash, Sport climbing, Surfing, Sumo, Tug of War, Underwater Sports, Water Skiing, Wushu. The Wushu Tournament Beijing was held in the Olympic Sports Centre Gymnasium during the Olympics (Olympics: 8/8/8-8/24/8, WTB: 8/21/8-8/24/8), not after, not on the other side of Beijing. As for the sanda issue, the IOC accepted wushu as an IF, and that IF governs both taolu and sanda. Neither taolu or sanda was an official sport, but both are still under the IF and both were represented at the WTB.

[lkfmdc]

Wushu is an IF.

it is a big "if"

The Wushu Tournament Beijing was held in the Olympic Sports Centre Gymnasium during the Olympics (Olympics: 8/8/8-8/24/8, WTB: 8/21/8-8/24/8)

we BOTH know it was not part of the Olympics, we also both know many people tried to mis-lead people into thinking it was, if it walks like a duck.....

not on the other side of Beijing.

that was called sarcasm, maybe you got the flavor?

As for the sanda issue, the IOC accepted wushu as an IF, and that IF governs both taolu and sanda. Neither taolu or sanda was an official sport, but both are still under the IF and both were represented at the WTB.

A sport can not be considerd for inclusion if it does not offer equal participation for men and women. While Taolu DOES, San Shou/San Da at the time of review had still not offered competition for women at an international level. Not only incredibly sexist, and offensive, but incredibly stupid as well

[GLW]

And the likelihood that Wushu will get the nod - well, there would have to be a change in the number of events allowed or an event would have to be dropped so that Wushu could replace it.

Not likely.

Now, for an Olympic question.

Originally, when the uneven parallel bars was added for women't gymnastics, it was obvious why men did not do it. The bars at that time were closer together and the moves included that bounce where the mid body hit the lower bar while the gymnast was holding on to the upper one. A technique that works OK for a female but would make a male sing soprano pretty quickly....

Now, the bars have been spaced much wider apart. It is now impossible for the bounce move to be done unless the woman was built like Yao Ming. It is now an event with a lot of arm work, twists, changes from one bar to the next with the arms, and such... so there now seems to me to be no physical reason a male could not do it...

Is this just an instance of tradition being a female event and all (like there is no real reason the balance beam could not also be a male thing) or is there another reason?

[GeneChing]

nice to see martial arts medalists get props in other countries. in retrospect, i was disappointed that there wasn't more coverage of the lopez family.

Martial Arts Gold Medalists Look Forward to Chuseok
Choi Min-ho, judo gold medalist at the Beijing Olympics (right), and Lim Su-jeong, taekkwondo gold medalist Judoka Choi Min-ho and taekwondo player Lim Su-jeong delighted Koreans when they won gold medals in the Beijing Olympics. The Chosun Ilbo met with the wonder boy and girl of martial arts at the Olympic Park in Songpa district, Seoul with Chuseok or Korean Thanksgiving a few days away.

Although both of them are most familiar in sportswear, they looked just as attractive in traditional Korean clothes. Top Korean costume designer Lee Young-hee, who made hanbok for the heads of state attending the G7 Conference in Busan in 2006, presented the outfits to the two. Lim changed into a dark gray skirt and dark red jacket. It wasn't easy to imagine a fighter when the hem of her long skirt delicately flowed over her flower shoes. Told that this was the same style as the hanbok actress Lee Young-ae wore at the Venice Film Festival, Lim smiled. "I'm honored,” she said. “Am I good enough to be compared with her?"

Choi says he has been meaning to buy a traditional Korean costume. “Is this really a gift?" he asked.

Chuseok was lonely in the past for both of them. Athletes are fated to fight with themselves every moment to win in contests. They have to shed tears alone to stand on the Olympics stage. There is no end to the challenges they must conquer.

Asked what he recalls about past festivals, Choi hesitated and then said, "I remember nothing other than running in the hills in my hometown of Kimcheon alone at dawn. I exercised every waking minute."

Choi once suffered from insomnia due to the stress from training. In distress, he phoned his mother and asked her to send him some sleeping pills. Within a few days, a parcel arrived. It contained no medicine but a few books and a letter. The letter said, "A pharmacist says drugs hamper physical exercise. But you fall asleep whenever you read a book, so please read these books in bed." Since then, he has never suffered from sleeplessness.

Nothing much was different with Lim Su-jeong. "Once I got so depressed that I didn't exercise during a festival and took a rest at home. Selected as a national athlete in the first year of high school, I attracted a lot of attention. But my performance was poor. I fell into a slump when the training formula didn't suit me. Because of my depression, I even had clinical treatment. During the festival then, I just wanted to be alone."

But this Chuseok is likely to be full of happy memories for both athletes. Choi, on the eve of Chuseok, will go to the Daegu Stadium, the home ground of the Samsung Lions baseball team, accompanied by people from his hometown, to throw the first ball. "The baseball team is providing us with two buses and asked me to come along with all the people from my village,” he said. “And I'm going to the baseball stadium with my friends and relatives."

Lim is taking a two-day trip with her friends. "Friends of mine who don't do sports were sorry for not being able to see me. But I was rather angry, complaining that they don't understand me. I'm sorry for them. Taking the trip together, I hope to have time for a heart-to-heart.”

Will there be any discreet dates? Lim denies having a boyfriend. But Choi confides he befriended a flight attendant after the Athens Olympics who is the sister of his friend. After several meetings, they fell in love.

Lim cites ssireum (Korean wrestling) champion and popular comedian Kang Ho-dong as her ideal future spouse. "I like an ordinary man with charisma, like Kang Ho-dong."

Upon return home with their gold medals, the two have been busy with events and TV appearances and say they are too busy to think about anything. But their joy is palpable.

Once they are through with the best Chuseok of their lives, they return to their rigorous training routines and start the long and lonely struggles for the London Olympics. They promise they will be back.

[TenTigers]

Here are the top nine comments made by NBC sports commentators so farduring the Summer Olympics that they would like to take back:

1. Weightlifting commentator: 'This is Gregoriava from Bulgaria. I saw her snatch this morning during her warm up and it was amazing.'

2. Dressage commentator: 'This is really a lovely horse and I speak from personal experience since I once mounted her mother.'

3. Paul Hamm, Gymnast: 'I owe a lot to my parents, especially my mother and father.'

4. Boxing Analyst: 'Sure there have been injuries, and even some deaths in boxing, but none of them really that serious.'

5. Softball announcer: 'If history repeats itself, I should think we can expect the same thing again.'

6. Basketball analyst: 'He dribbles a lot and the opposition doesn't like it. In fact you can see it all over their faces.'

7. At the rowing medal ceremony: 'Ah, isn't that nice, the wife of the IOC president is hugging the cox of the British crew.'

8. Soccer commentator: 'Julian ****s is everywhere. It's like they've got eleven ****s on the field.'

9. Tennis commentator: 'One of the reasons Andy is playing so well is that, before the final round, his wife takes out his balls and kisses them... Oh my God, what have I just said?'


=

[GeneChing]

This is the same Zhonghua School that was featured in The Martial Arts Master of Ceremonies By Chen Xinghua and Chi Chien in our 2008 July/August issue.

'Space walkers' thrill athletes
(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-09-17 11:45

Remember the huge globe at the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics? Circling the 18m-high, 16-ton globe were performers doing the kind of weightless walk usually seen in outer space. They were from Zhonghua Martial Arts School from Shandong province.

Last Saturday night, some 126 performers, aged between 6 and 82, put up a show for the Paralympic athletes and volunteers at the Xiangyun Theater inside the Olympic Park.

The 17 numbers combined martial arts, acrobatics and song and dance. The audience was even invited to challenge the performers on stage.

Students from the Zhonghua Martial Arts School are regular performers at events connected to the Paralympics, just as they were at the Olympics. They also performed at the Closing Ceremony of the Olympic Games and held three shows at the athletes' village and the Olympic park.

One of the top 10 martial arts schools in China, Zhonghua Martial Arts School offers students both the regular primary school and middle school courses as well as martial arts training.

[SimonM]

winter and summer = 2 different things.

london 2012.

i know summer people who could give 2 cares about winter and vice versa.

I have a few events I follow in both. I give them equally weighted significance.

[GeneChing]

Interesting choice - go for the $ instead of 3X Olympic gold.

Enfant terrible Ishii two-times Japanese judo
8 hours ago

TOKYO (AFP) — Japanese judo is feeling two-timed by Olympic champion Satoshi Ishii, who is getting ready for the world of mixed martial arts only two months after saving the Japanese sport's pride at Beijing.

The 21-year-old will miss the 2012 London Olympics because the tradition-bound Japanese judo authority bans grapplers from turning professional.

An enfant terrible with his no-holds-barred fighting style and rough way of speaking that upsets the sport's purists, Ishii was one of only two Japanese men to claim medals in Beijing, winning him a major fan base at home.

But the over-100kg star sat out the world judo team championships here on Sunday, citing a fresh injury, just as a press report said he was "determined" to join mixed martial arts.

The hybrid sport, which combines techniques from judo, karate, kick-boxing and wrestling, has become a popular fixture on Japanese television, with colourful personalities and rowdy battles.

Ishii sounded unusually cautious when he explained his intentions on Tuesday.

"I am interested in joining the world of mixed martial arts, but for now I'm focused on graduating from school," the crewcut-sporting judoka said.

He is due to leave Tokyo's Kokushikan University, famous for its elite athletic programmes, in March. Media reports said that several martial arts organisations are interested in him.

"I still have time and there is no use being hasty," he said.

But judo leader Kazuo Yoshimura was furious.

"This guy turns everybody into an enemy. He'd better get out without delay," Yoshimura, director of technical development at the All-Japan Judo Federation, told reporters.

He added that he had already counted Ishii out of his plan for the London Games.

It would be impossible for Ishii to win a ticket to London, anyway, if he does not regularly compete in international events to earn points under new International Judo Federation rules to make the sport a global tour.

His possible departure from judo will deprive stylish Japan of a unique weapon against doggedly unorthodox fighters from the rest of the world.

"Judo is a brawl guided by rules," the flexible and hard-working Ishii said after winning his second national championship in April to earn his first-ever spot in the Olympics or the worlds.

Relatively small at 108kg and 181cm, he can win by both perfect execution of skills and crafty tactics to pick up minimal points. He has not lost a bout since stepping up to the over-100kg late last year, sweeping the Austria and Kazakh Open titles.

He has also amused the largely self-effacing nation with a big mouth that runs counter to the etiquttes of judo.

When he shook hands with mild-mannered prime minister Yasuo Fukuda, who stepped down last month due to low approval ratings, Ishii said: "His pureness came through. He's probably not popular because he's not so wicked."

He would follow other Olympic and world judo champions into professional martial arts -- but at an extraordinary young age.

Four-time world heavyweight and open champion Naoya Ogawa turned a professional wrestler in 1997 at age 29. In 2002, Barcelona Olympic gold medallist Hidehiko Yoshida joined a mixed martial martial arts league, called Dynamite, at 32.

Dutchman Willem Ruska, the 1972 Olympic double champion, turned a professional wrestler in 1976.

In the end, Ishii may meet his own target.

"My ultimate goal is to become the strongest man in the world," he said after his triumph in Beijing. "I will become the strongest in the world."

[lkfmdc]

It's truly a shame Judo in Japan is so closed minded. They are closed minded to even ways to advance their own game within Judo! There is no professional Judo so the horizons for atheltes are short.

[SimonM]

Seems like hide-bound traditionalists such as Kazuo Yoshimura need to learn to move with the times.

It's not just a Kung Fu problem.

[sanjuro_ronin]

There is no pro judo anywhere...

[SimonM]

The regulatory body in Japan seems to think that MMA is de-facto pro judo according to that article.

[GeneChing]

We're releasing the Uighurs. Some might remember my article Protestors Disrupt Tai Chi Demo at the American Olympic Torch Run in our 2008 July/August issue where I raised the Uighur issue. How many martial arts magazines get political that way, I ask you?

17 Guantanamo inmates ordered freed by judge
Del Quentin Wilber, Washington Post
(10-08) 04:00 PDT Washington - --

A federal judge ordered on Tuesday that 17 Chinese Muslims held at the Guantanamo Bay military prison be released into the United States by Friday, agreeing with the detainees' lawyers that the Constitution bars holding the men indefinitely without cause.

It was the first time that a U.S. court has ordered the release of a Guantanamo detainee, and the first time that a foreign citizen held there has been ordered brought to the United States.

U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina issued the landmark ruling in the case of a small band of captives, known as Uighurs, who have been held at Guantanamo for nearly seven years and are no longer considered enemy combatants by the U.S. government.

At a hearing packed with Uighurs who live in the Washington area, Urbina rejected government arguments that he had no authority to order the men's release. He said he had such authority because the men were being held indefinitely, and it was the only remedy available. He cited a June decision by an appellate court that found evidence against the Uighurs to be unreliable.

Urbina said in court that he ordered the release "because the Constitution prohibits indefinite detention without cause." He added, "The separation of powers do not trump" the prohibition against holding people indefinitely without trial.

A government appeal of the decision is likely.

Urbina scheduled a hearing for Friday with the Uighurs present to take testimony on how they might be monitored in the Washington area. He said the Uighurs would be in the custody of 17 Uighur families in the Washington area.

Members of the area's Uighur community reacted to the decision with jubilation. "We won!" one attendee exclaimed after the hearing, setting off a loud cheer.

Unlike other captives, the men cannot be sent to their home country because the Chinese government considers them terrorists and might torture them. U.S. authorities released five Uighur detainees to Albania in 2006, but no other country wants to risk offending China by accepting the others.

The Uighurs' attorneys argued that the men have been confined too long on flimsy evidence and pose no security threat to the United States. The lawyers have suggested that authorities could supervise them much as they monitor criminal defendants released pending trial. Later, the government could find the Uighurs another home, the lawyers have said.

Monday's hearing was originally scheduled to examine whether Urbina had the power to order the release of at least five of the Uighurs. Their attorneys filed court papers asking Urbina to also consider releasing 12 other Uighurs who remain in custody.

Over the years, more than 500 detainees have left Guantanamo Bay, an unknown number of whom ultimately were set free.

Scores of detainees are challenging their detentions in federal court after winning a Supreme Court ruling in June that gave them the right to have their cases reviewed by federal judges under the legal doctrine of habeas corpus.

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon has been conducting closed-door hearings in the cases of more than 20 of those detainees and intends to hold habeas hearings at a brisk pace, beginning later this month. First in line are six Algerians who were picked up in Bosnia in late 2001. Each detainee is scheduled to have a hearing over a six-day period.

In those cases, judges must weigh government evidence to decide whether the detainees are being held fairly.

In this case, Urbina had only two options: leave the Uighurs at Guantanamo Bay or order them released into the United States.

Justice Department lawyers have argued in court papers and at hearings that only the president has the authority to allow the men into the country. They also said the judge is barred from ordering their entry if they have ties to terrorist groups.

In court documents, they have contended that one of the men received training from a group that was later determined by the Bush administration to be a terrorist organization.

The Uighurs are natives of northwestern China who have been demanding an independent homeland. Chinese authorities consider them separatists. Over the years, some have sought military training in other countries.

In 2001, most of the Uighurs now in Guantanamo Bay were living in camps in Afghanistan until U.S. air strikes drove them into Pakistan. They were captured there and turned over to U.S. authorities.

[SimonM]

Although I acutally consider Xinjiang to be part of China I still am happy to see people being released from that internment camp.