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Yet as I sat here watching the glorious fanfare that descended upon the Bird’s Nest in Beijing tonight, I could not help but be bothered by a few nagging questions which neither the humorous sight of Jackie Chan singing at the top of his lungs or the sound of a hundred fireworks could quell. These Olympic Games were truly remarkable; few can deny that. But now what? What happens after the last foreign Olympic athlete has boarded an airplane back to his home country?...

The 'Redeem Team" does it, beating Spain in a close game tonight.

THOUSANDS of Chinese farmers face ruin because their water has been cut off to guarantee supplies to the Olympics in Beijing, and officials are now trying to cover up a grotesque scandal of blunders, lies and repression. In the capital, foreign dignitaries have admired millions of flowers in bloom, lush, well-watered greens around its famous sights. Just 90 minutes south by train, peasants are hacking at the dry earth as their crops wilt, their money runs out and the work of generations gives way to despair, debt and, in a few cases, suicide. The water scandal is a parable of...

Laura Wilkinson has, among other things, an Olympic gold medal, a big ball of tape and a plan. The gold medal, won eight years ago in Sydney, represents the competitive apex of her 15 years in diving, which came to a close Thursday night (Thursday morning CDT) with her ninth-place finish in the women’s 10-meter platform final. The tape ball represents the physical stresses of hurling her body off a three-story tower day after day, month after month, embodied by the miles of athletic tape Wilkinson, 30, has required over the last year to wrap her wrist and, during Thursday’s...

BEIJING -- The U.S. men's volleyball team won the Olympic gold medal Sunday, defeating defending champion Brazil to complete a perfect run through a tournament shadowed by a grisly attack at a Beijing tourist site. The Americans captured their third gold medal in the sport with a 20-25, 25-22, 25-21, 25-23 victory in the final. Top-ranked Brazil, a two-time gold medalist, settled for the silver medal. The U.S. surge to the title came after coach Hugh McCutcheon's father-in-law was fatally stabbed the day before competition started. McCutcheon missed the team's first three games to be with his wife, a former...

For Gansu’s Uighurs, Beijing’s Olympics are a world away By Anna Bodner DPA, LANZHOU, CHINA Friday, Aug 22, 2008, Page 9 Olympic fever that has swept most of China seems to have limited influence in Lanzhou, considered the geometrical center of China. For many, the 3 million inhabitant city capital of Gansu Province is still a frontier town, and while the Games’ influence is hard to miss in the city center with flags on mass display in shops and cars, hardly a trace of the Olympics can be found in the city’s Muslim quarters, where minarets tower over the roofs....

am not going to allow myself to wonder why the IOC (International Olympic Committee) waited until three days before the end of the Olympics to fully address the Chinese gymnastic age scandal. I am not going to even dwell on the fact that the ID’s and birth certificates that China provided to the IOC last night could easily have been modified or reissued. I am just happy to see that the IOC took action...

<p>BEIJING (AP) - Despite persistent questions about the ages of several members of the Chinese women's gymnastics team that won the gold medal, the International Olympic Committee said Friday there is still no proof anyone cheated.</p> <p>The IOC asked the International Gymnastics Federation to investigate "what have been a number of questions and apparent discrepancies," spokeswoman Giselle Davies said.</p>

With the parents growing indignant and the Beijing Games winding down, the International Olympic Committee wants to “put to rest” persistent questions about the age of China’s gold medal women’s gymnastics team. The IOC said Friday there is still no proof anyone cheated, though it asked the International Gymnastics Federation to investigate “what have been a number of questions and apparent discrepancies,” spokeswoman Giselle Davies said. However, all the information the Chinese gymnastics federation presented supports its insistence that its athletes were old enough to compete.

Excerpt - BEIJING (Reuters) - The International Olympic Committee has ordered an investigation into allegations Chinese authorities covered up the age of a double gold medal winning gymnast because she was too young to compete. ~ snip ~

BEIJING -- Torri Edwards' screeching expression said it all on a night of rain-soaked relay calamity on the Olympic track Thursday. Think about the famous Edvard Munch painting, "The Scream," and you get general idea of back-to-back disasters unfolding for the U.S. relay teams within about 30 minutes. There was disqualification for the men in the preliminaries of the 400-meter relay, followed by the same for the women, a huge dose of Olympic-size ignominy. This wasn't a whisper to a scream. It was a scream to a scream at the Bird's Nest. And, on top of it all, the botched...

From faked CGI opening ceremony fireworks to “16-year-old” gymnasts, China has squashed the arguments of the supra-national idealists like it squashed the Tiananmen Square protests: ruthlessly, decisively, and with a brazen disregard for how bad it makes them look on the world stage. The first question that comes to mind is: should this come as a surprise? It isn’t as if China thinks we’re ignorant of their internal repression and human rights abuses. It also can’t be that we think those gymnasts are 16. Coming as it has in a time when formerly communist Russia has brutally flexed its own...

The International Olympic Committee has ordered an investigation into the age of Chinese gymnast He Kexin, The Times of London reports. Faced with almost insurmountable evidence which suggests that He is two years younger than the birth date listed on her Chinese passport, the IOC has launched an inquiry that could result in the stripping of He's gold medals. This news comes on the heels of another Times report that details the findings of a New York computer security expert who found official Chinese documents that list He's age as 14 years and 220 days. Mike Walker used a Chinese...

International Olympic Committee launches probe into He Kexin's age Tim Reid in Washington, Jeremy Griffin and Jane Macartney in Beijing The International Olympic Committee has ordered an investigation into mounting allegations that Chinese authorities covered up the true age of their gold-medal winning gymnastics star because she was too young to compete. An IOC official told The Times that because of "discrepancies" that have come to light about the age of He Kexin, the host nation’s darling who won gold in both team and individual events, an official inquiry has been launched that could result in the gymnast being stripped...

The International Olympic Committee has ordered an investigation into mounting allegations that Chinese authorities covered up the true age of their gold-medal winning gymnastics star because she was too young to compete. An IOC official told The Times that because of "discrepancies" that have come to light about the age of He Kexin, the host nation’s darling who won gold in both team and individual events, an official inquiry has been launched that could result in the gymnast being stripped of her medals. The investigation was triggered as a US computer expert claimed today to have uncovered Chinese government documents...

Every generation needs heroes. Young people especially need role models. How blessed we are that the role model of these Summer Olympics is Michael Phelps. Here is a young man who embodies self-discipline, hard work and goal orientation. It is not so much the world records he shattered. It is not only the number of medals he won. His whole outlook is to be celebrated. He has a commanding presence yet he is the boy next door. True, his endorsements will make him millions. Yet I dare say that is the furthest thing from his mind right now. As I...

Hacker uncovers 'proof' that Chinese gymnast is underage Jane Macartney in Beijing A determined computer expert has delved into cached pages on the Internet to unearth Chinese official documents showing a gymnast who took gold, edging Britain’s Beth Tweddle into fourth place, may indeed be underage. Controversy over whether He Kexin, gold medallist in the uneven bars, is under the minimum age of 16 has surrounded her participation in the Beijing Olympics. The latest challenge over the age of the tiny Olympian comes from the discovery through a cyberspace maze of Chinese official documents listing her date of birth. She...

Liu Xiang sent to Olympic death by China's £1 billion image-building exercise On the back of yesterday's China Daily, the English language newspaper in Beijing, the face of Liu Xiang filled a broadsheet page. But the tears had been airbrushed out, so to speak. By Kevin Garside Last Updated: 2:54PM BST 20 Aug 2008 Comments 29 | Comment on this article China's Olympic pin-up was selling the Nike brand and his country. He is the face of Nike in China, and of China across the globe. He didn't develop an ankle spur, injure his Achilles or damage his hamstring on...

You better eat your . . . Frosted Flakes? Olympic legend Michael Phelps will appear on boxes of the Kellogg's brand sugar cereal, drawing sharp criticism from health experts worried about the message he'll be sending to children across America. "I would not consider Frosted Flakes the food of an Olympian," said nutritionist Rebecca Solomon of Mount Sinai Medical Center. "I would rather see him promoting Fiber One. I would rather see him promoting oatmeal. I would even rather see him promoting Cheerios." The announcement yesterday that Phelps, 23, winner of a record eight gold medals at the Beijing Olympics,...

Mark Spitz thinks there's only one man who Michael Phelps can't beat. His name is Mark Spitz. Spitz, the American swimmer whose record of seven gold medals in a single Olympics Games was shattered by Phelps, said Wednesday that if the two legends squared off in their primes, it'd be a draw. "I think that the relationship between people that are great is they have a common thread of knowing how to beat their competitors and they know how to constantly be in shape and in top form," Spitz told the Daily News. "If that's the case, I'd know everything...