Asia Blog: China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam

If you organize the top-20 from the official medal table, and normalize the raw counts by the size of each country, Jamaica (with just 2.7M people) is the decisive winner:

Canada doesn’t do badly either, in 10th place. China, unfortunately, given its massive size, ends up last. So, given the recent controversy over “who won the olympics,” what is the best way to do these medal rankings? Total medals? Total golds? Normalized totals? Whichever way you go, someone is going to be unhappy.

Check out this Foreign Policy article How many ways are there to count Olympic medals? where they compare using a gold-is-worth-more weighted ranking with the current US/International methods. Another good take is BBC’s Five alternative Olympics medals tables, or Danwei’s Chinese media calls the Olympics for China. Depending who ask, China won or the US won the Olympics.

I prefer to say Canada won

Addendum of Data

What is Project 119? In 2001, immediately after winning the bid for hosting the 2008 Olympics, Beijing started a project to improve China’s performance in certain medal-rich sports they typically did poorly in. The total number of medals they sought to go after totaled 119, hence the name.

Athletics: 47
Swimming: 34
Rowing: 14
Sailing: 11
Canoe / Kayak – Flatwater: 12
Canoe / Kayak – Slalom: 4
Total: 122

In Sydney 2000, China won only one medal from the list of 119; in Athens 2004, they won four. For Beijing 2008, the medal possibilities have increased to 122, and China has invested millions of dollars into their athletes and facilities preparing for this year’s games. The First Post has an article China’s Olympic plan to topple America worth taking a look at:

For the past seven years, China’s communist authorities have been running an intensive training programme reminiscent of the Soviet Union’s methods – and goal of global domination – during the Cold War era. Unprecedented military discipline, huge sporting budgets, state-of-the-art foreign technology and proven international coaches have all been incorporated into what the Chinese call ‘Project 119′.

Pricewaterhouse Coopers has projected that the Chinese team of 639 Olympic athletes (more than double the 311 it sent to Sydney in 2000, and topping the US tally of 596 athletes this year) will pip the US in Beijing by a total of 88 medals to 87. American bookies currently have China as favourite to win both the overall and gold-medal counts.

With 61 medals (to the US’s 65) and an amazing 35 gold (to the US’s 19), Project 119 is clearly off to a good start. Go China!

If you were watching the opening ceremony on NBC at home, you might not have known that the stunning fireworks at its conclusion were actual a computer rendering:

A Sky story Olympic Fireworks Faked For TV indicates that the CG fireworks were only shown to TV viewers for a limited 25-30s segment, and only internationally. The NBC footage, shot live, shows the actual fireworks that were simultaneously occurring:

The global television audience of more than three billion people watched in amazement as a series of giant footprints outlined in fireworks proceeded through the night sky from Tiananmen Square to the Bird’s Nest stadium – except they were watching a computer animation. Even the giant television screens within the stadium itself broadcast the fake images.

The dupe was revealed by China’s Beijing Times. Speaking to the paper, the man responsible for the animation said he was pleased with the result. “Seeing how it worked out, it was still a bit too bright compared to the actual fireworks,” Gao Xiaolong told the newspaper. “But most of the audience thought it was filmed live – so that was mission accomplished.”

Next, we read how the Beijing Olympics committee used a 9 year old body double (Lin Miaoke) to lipsync Ode to the Motherland, which was actually sung by 7-year-old Yang Peiyi, who wasn’t cute enough for the ceremony itself:

“The national interest requires that the girl should have good looks and a good grasp of the song and look good on screen,” Chen said. “Lin Miaoke was the best in this. And Yang Peiyi’s voice was the most outstanding.”

During a live rehearsal soon before the ceremony, the Politburo member said Miaoke’s voice “must change,” Chen said in the radio interview. He didn’t name the official. So Peiyi’s voice was matched with Miaoke’s face. “We had to make that choice. It was fair both for Lin Miaoke and Yang Peiyi,” Chen told Beijing Radio. “We combined the perfect voice and the perfect performance.”

Poor Yang Peiyi, she must feel quite let down to not actually get to perform the song she sung for the opening ceremony. Besides the fireworks, song, there’s also a nice BSOD (yay Windows) that must have embarassed Bill Gates (who attended the games), and empty stadiums, in spite of officially having sold out all the events.

Still, the games appear to be an ongoing success. I can attest, watching the olympics opening myself, in spite of whatever technical tweaks Beijing pulled to get it to work smoothly, it felt natural, genuine, and honest. I personally enjoyed it–like good magic, you really don’t want to know what nuts and bolts made the trick. Just sit back and continue to let the Beijing 2008 experience take you away!

An article in the New York Times, Records Say Chinese Gymnasts May Be Under Age , indicates that some of the Chinese gymnasts, namely He Kexin, participating in the Olympic games may be younger than the 16 years old that is the official limit:

Chinese officials responded immediately, providing The New York Times with copies of passports indicating that both athletes in question — He Kexin, a gold-medal favorite in the uneven parallel bars, and Jiang Yuyuan — are 16, the minimum age for Olympic eligibility since 1997.

Their allegations are backed up by stories in the Chinese news, like Uneven-bars queen the new star in town from China Daily May 23, 2008:

Olympic gymnastics title contenders suddenly have one more thing to worry about other than the eight gold medals China claimed at the Tianjin World Cup last week. Her name is He Kexin.

The 14-year-old newcomer to the national team, who was recruited last year, has raised a lot of eyebrows recently after she broke two world records on the uneven bars in as many months. She will be just one more weapon on an already star-studded Chinese Olympic squad.

The gymnast He Kexin is definitely young looking–as evidenced by the above photo–but what advantage does a gymnast gain from being younger? I can only imagine that a few years of age would give her greater skill, and make her more formidable, not the other way around. The New York Times should seriously consider reviewing their policy of demonizing China before the 2008 Summer Olympic Games.

Update

According to Stryde Hax, He Kexin is listed on official Beijing Municipal Sports Bureau pages (one, two) as being just 14 years old:

618,”何可欣”,”女”,”1994.1.1″,”湖北”
1040,”何可欣 “,”女”,”1994-1-1″,,,”武汉市”,”六城会交流”