My Olympic predictions vs the actualities

With less than 72 hours to go before the curtain goes up to mark the start of the XXIX Olympiad, I thought I should gaze into my Olympic rings and pick some winners. So here goes:

Women

100m - Sherone Simpson, Jamaica - right country, wrong athlete
100m hurdles - Susanna Kallur, Sweden****
200m - Allyson Felix, USA SB
400m - Christine Ohuruogu, GB SB
800m - Pamela Jelimo, Kenya WJR and it's goodbye to the legend that is Maria Mutola
5000m - Tirunesh Dibaba, Ethiopia
10,000m - Tirunesh Dibaba, Ethiopia OR
4x100m relay - Jamaica DNF
4x400m relay - Kenya******
BMX - Shanaze Reade, GB
Football - Brazil
Heptathlon - Kelly Sotherton, GB - fifth
High Jump - Blanka Vlasic, Croatia
Long Jump - Carolina Kluft, Sweden - ninth
Marathon - Catherine Ndereba, Kenya
Pole Vault - Yelena Isinbaeva, Russia WR
Triple Jump - Françoise Mbango, Cameroon OR

Men

100m - Olusoji Fasuba, Nigeria**
110m hurdles - Liu Xiang, China***
200m - Usain Bolt, Jamaica WR
400m - Jeremy Wariner, USA - right country, wrong athlete
400m hurdles - Kerron Clement, USA - right country, wrong athlete
800m - Abubaker Kaki*****, Sudan
1500m - Bernard Lagat, USA*
3000m steeplechase - Ezekiel Kemboi, Kenya - seventh; right country, wrong athlete
5000m - Bernard Lagat, USA - ninth
10,000m - Kenenisa Bekele, Ethiopia OR
4x100m - Jamaica WR
4x400m - USA OR
Basketball - USA
Decathlon - Bryan Clay, USA
Football - Argentina with the mercurial Messi and a stellar supporting cast
High Jump - Stefan Holm, Sweden - fourth
Long Jump - Irving Saladino, Panama
Marathon - Sammy Wanjiru, Kenya OR
Tennis - Rafael Nadal, Spain World No 1
Triple Jump - Phillips Idowu, GB

Legend

DNF - Did not finish
OR - Olympic Record
SB - Season's Best
WJR - World Junior Record
WR - World Record

I'm hoping my predictions will epitomise Corinthian ideals in their quest for Olympic glory.

Citius, Altius, Fortius

**REPLACEMENTS**
**Oh well, Olu didn't run as Olu can run, but Usain Bolt sure looked mightily impressive as he jogged his way to 9.92s so I'll plump for Usain to complete a sprint double.
*I reserve the right to nominate someone else as Bernard Lagat did not qualify for the final so I'm putting forward Asbel Kipruto Kiprop, Kenya
***I was hoping Liu Xiang could provide Beijing with a similar moment to the one Cathy Freeman provided in Sydney, but in reality the form guy leading up to the Olympics is the world record holder, the bespectacled Dayron Robles of Cuba so I'm nominating him.
****Lolo Jones, USA - right country, wrong athlete
*****Alfred Kirwa Yego, Kenya - right country, wrong athlete
******GB - fifth SB

Kenya 5 Ethiopia 4

With Kenya women chipping in with their first ever golds in the 800m and 1500m, Kenya was able to pip Ethiopia in the number of golds won. All of Ethiopia's golds were won by 2 people completing incredible double doubles in the men and women's 5000m and 10000m, Tirunesh Dibaba and Kenenisa Bekele. Sammy Wanjiru claimed Kenya's first ever marathon gold and Pamela Jelimo and Nancy Langat victories were historic for Kenya. Kenya confirmed her middle distance supremacy completing a men and women's double in the 800m, the men's 1500m and the event that is regarded as Kenya's own, the men's 3000m steeplechase.

Jamaica 3 USA 0

3 is the number of world records Jamaica's men set in the 100m, 200m and 4x100m relay, but perhaps I could have gone for Jamaica 4 USA 0 given that Jamaica won the men and women's 100m and 200m. The USA may point to their wins in the women and men's 4x400m relays, but then again the latter win wasn't so surprising given that they swept the individual event. It looks as if the era of US sprinting supremacy is well and truly over, roll on 2012.

The Emperor and Empress of Entoto

Entoto is the mountain at whose feet, the city of Addis Ababa lies and is the resting place of Empress Taitu. It was Empress Tatitu who convinced her husband, Emperor Menelik II to relocate Addis Ababa from the top of the mountain to the bottom to be nearer to the therapeutic hot springs at the base.

The forests that cover Entoto's slopes provide trails on which Tirunesh Dibaba, the double Olympic champion in the women's 5000m & 10,000m, trains. I was in Addis Ababa's national stadium in May when she won the 10,000m at the 16th CAA championships and the wall of sound that the spectators made throughout the 31 minutes that it took her to complete the race caused the stand in which we were sitting to vibrate.

Kenenisa Bekele emulated his compatriot Tirunesh by winning the men's 5000m & 10000m, but went one better when he set Olympic records in both events.

It's catching....NOT!!

Who said lightning doesn't strike twice?! No sooner do the US men's team botch the fourth leg baton handover in the men's 4x100m relay than the US women's team repeat the same botch on the same leg in their relay. In the case of the US women's relay team, it's a recurring nightmare, as the same botch, on the same leg with the same individual involved, occurred in Athens 2004.

UN-FLIPPIN-BELIEVABLE!!

Usain Bolt was in the middle of a press conference in Beijing when he was informed that he would be doubling up - his coach had given him the green light to compete in the 100m & 200m. When asked which event he would prefer to win, he said that he really wanted to win the 200m because it would mean so much more. Well tonight we witnessed just how much it meant to him.

He ran 19.30s with eight races in his legs so how much faster could he have gone if he was fresh? And if he decides to take up the 400m, we can probably expect to see the first sub 43s run.

He turns 22 tomorrow and I'm sure he'll celebrate with the youthful exuberance that we saw in the aftermath of his wins.

Wishing you a very happy 22nd birthday and I hope you'll continue to light up the track for many years to come.

Maximum efficiency and the economy of effort

When Yelena Isinbaeva cleared her first vault of the final at 4.70m, there were five competitors left from the original twelve. By the time she cleared her second vault of 4.85m, she was Olympic champion. To complete her warm up for a world record attempt, she took 3 attempts to clear 4.95m, an Olympic record, and then it took her another 3 attempts to vault 5.05m and set her 24th world record in the pole vault.

Pomp and circumstance

Whenever I watch Ang Lee's Wo hu cang long, I marvel at the aesthetics of his cinematography - a byword for understated elegance. For those who were lucky enough to be in Beijing's Bird's Nest Stadium yesterday and for the majority of the world's population who watched on tv or via the internet, Zhang Yimou's choreography of the opening ceremony showcased the pageantry of China's rich cultural history in an intricate tapestry, with understated elegance.

Maybe it was because it was his 3rd Olympics that the Fed managed to look so cool, Rafa in contrast was sweating bucketloads. Da MVP looked happy to be there and I think this augurs well for the USA's attempt to win back the basketball gold that they consider to be theirs.

Jiayou Zhongguo!!

Let the Games begin!!

There's been speculation about how much it's costing China to host the Olympic Games, with estimates ranging from US $43bn. The last time I checked, China wasn't embroiled in a 5 year old war which has cost US $3 trillion, according to Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel prize winner in Economics.

Those countries highlighting China's human rights record should seek to remove the log in their own eyes. How is it possible for a mother of 3 children, with a doctorate from MIT to disappear in Karachi, Pakistan 5 years ago and then reemerge at courthouse in New York to face charges of shooting at US officials - if the Justice Department was looking for a more plausible cover story, couldn't they have hired the writers of 24?! So, after arresting OBL's driver in 2002 and transferring him to the Guantanámo Bay gulag, he was found guilty of associating with Al-Qaeda, in a dubious US military trial, and sentenced to 66 months. Given the time he has already spent in captivity, he should be free in 5 months time, but the US administration have indicated that that won't be the case. France has been accused of complicity in the Rwandan genocide of 1994, BAE with the tacit approval of the British government continues to sell arms to that beacon of democracy that is the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and even manages to get the British government to pull an SFO investigation into the biggest BAE arms deal to the Kingdom after it emerged that Prince Bandar (Saudi fixer-in-chief) had been paid US $1bn over a period of 10 years. I could go on, but I won't.

China has recently overtaken the US to become the country with the largest number of internet users. She has also bought up a large amount of US debt which has made certain members of the US administration uneasy. Additionally, China has made significant inroads in Africa bringing their infrastructure expertise in exchange for Africa's natural resources. By not asking too many questions about human rights and democracy, China, has for the most part, been welcomed on the African continent, but China's African adventure has not gone down well with Africa's former colonial masters. Admittedly China's support of Sudan and Zimbabwe is questionable, but then so is the US' unstinting support for Israel.

Wishing China a successful XXIX Olympiad.

Jiayou Zhongguo!!