GB as HOST
Great Britain is the official host of the Olympic Games 2012. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) amidst some controversies that included complaints from the Parisian/French National Olympic Committee, which was also vying to be the host, chose it.
Composed of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, the United Kingdom of Great Britain left no stones unturned to deserve the honor, the right as well as the heavy responsibility and obligation to make it a successful event.
Over 200 nations are participating in this major international event in which thousands of athletes participate in various sports competitions.
The actual host city is London, known as the first city to have hosted the Olympic games three times – in 1908, in 1948, and in 2012.
It invited the most heads of state (120) to a single Olympic game. If not invited for free, those who attended the Opening Ceremony shelled out either $3,250 (the most expensive in history), $2586, $1608, $242, or $35 depending on where they were seated.
To celebrate by drinking, a pint of beer at the Olympic games costs $11.20 – more than twice the national average price in GB. A 330 ml bottle of Heineken costs $6.50. In the Beijing Olympics in 2008, sports fans spent only $2.46 for a pint of beer.
According to the Oxford University’s Said Business School, the London Olympics is the most expensive Olympics ever. Costing $13.01 billion, the figure includes all sports-related costs, security, transport, opening and closing ceremonies, construction of venues and the athletes’ village.
GB (GRANDIOSE BEGINNING) – The Opening Ceremony
Inspired by William Shakespeare’s play, “The Tempest”, the Opening Ceremony “was a feast for the eyes and displayed Britain’s rich history and sense of humor”, says the Chinese state media. Like the rest of the world, I share the view that the participation of the Queen, especially Her Majesty’s parachuting with James Bond, the funny performance of Mr. Bean, Lord Voldemort’s dreamy appearance, the performance of Paul McCartney and several stars, “green landscape and choirs”, made the ceremony a grandiose beginning, a spectacular and “jolly good show”.
GB (Gigabytes) of MEMORIES
To store the memories of the Opening Ceremony and subsequent events in the Olympics in pure text or word document, a GB would let you store about one million pages. To store photos, you could store tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of them. If you want to download and store videos, you have thousands depending on the length of the videos and/or audios.
You can just imagine how much MEMORIES of the London Olympics you can store in your 64GB IPAD, your 8GB iPhone, or your laptop with a TB (Terabyte) of an external hard disk.
RECORDS BROKEN and BROKEN RECORDS
Special mention is the participation of Oscar Pistorius, called “The Blade Runner”, making Olympic history by running in the first heat of the first round of the men’s 400 m in the Olympic Stadium. Pistorius had both his lower legs amputated since he was 11 months old. He is the first double amputee to compete in both the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
NUMBERS
The most Olympic gold medals won by an individual is 18 and the honor goes to American swimmer Michael Phelps. He is also the most decorated Olympian of all time by winning a total of 22 medals.
Venus and Serena Williams of USA each won 4 gold medals in tennis equaling the record set by Arantxa Sanchez of Spain and Steffi Graff of Germany.
GB’s Sir Chris Hoy won the most Olympic track cycling gold medals in Olympic history with five.
Talking about SPEED, the fastest in both 100 m and 200 m dash among the men is Usain Bolt. His own record has yet to be broken. In swimming, the fastest men’s 1500 freestyle is 55.98 seconds and was achieved by Sun Yang. Missy Franklin, Rebecca Soni, Dana Vollmer and Allison Schmitt ran the fastest in women’s 4 x 100m medley relay with 3 minutes and 52.05 seconds. Missy Frankin also ran the fastest in 200m backstrokes with 2 minutes 4.06 seconds.
Looking at AGE, the youngest Olympian and Gold Medalist is 15-year old Katie Ledecky of Bethesda, Maryland. She also sets the U.S. record in 800-meter freestyle. Laura Trott of GB is also the youngest in a girls’ cycling event. She was 20 years old when she won gold as part of GB’s team pursuit trio. Felix Sanchez of the Dominican Republic became the oldest person to win the 400 m hurdles at age 34 with a time of 47.63 seconds at the Olympics.
For STRENGTH and AGE, Zulfiya Chinshanlo of Kazakhstan is the youngest weightlifting gold medalist in the Olympics.
There are other records already broken and may still be broken as the Olympics continues as of this writing. I will discuss them in my next article.
GB (GREAT BASKETBALL)
The basketball tournament is not done yet but worth mentioning is the amazing performance of Team USA so far. In the U.S. vs. Nigeria game, noted are the following statistics: Team USA scored a total of 29 three-point goals (record); 156 points (record); 42 assists; 49 points in one quarter; point difference of 83 points; and Carmelo Anthony hitting 10 three-point field goals (record).
GB (GOOD BROADCASTING)
Congratulations and a big thank you should be extended to NBC and its affiliates: NBC Sports, MSNBC, CNBC, and BRAVO; its APPS: NBC Olympics and LIVE EXTRA; and of course, its websites: www.nbc.com and www.nbcolympics.
I look forward to accessing ALL of them for the rest of the Olympic games.
GB – Goodbye for now!
Great Britain is the official host of the Olympic Games 2012. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) amidst some controversies that included complaints from the Parisian/French National Olympic Committee, which was also vying to be the host, chose it.
Composed of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, the United Kingdom of Great Britain left no stones unturned to deserve the honor, the right as well as the heavy responsibility and obligation to make it a successful event.
Over 200 nations are participating in this major international event in which thousands of athletes participate in various sports competitions.
The actual host city is London, known as the first city to have hosted the Olympic games three times – in 1908, in 1948, and in 2012.
It invited the most heads of state (120) to a single Olympic game. If not invited for free, those who attended the Opening Ceremony shelled out either $3,250 (the most expensive in history), $2586, $1608, $242, or $35 depending on where they were seated.
To celebrate by drinking, a pint of beer at the Olympic games costs $11.20 – more than twice the national average price in GB. A 330 ml bottle of Heineken costs $6.50. In the Beijing Olympics in 2008, sports fans spent only $2.46 for a pint of beer.
According to the Oxford University’s Said Business School, the London Olympics is the most expensive Olympics ever. Costing $13.01 billion, the figure includes all sports-related costs, security, transport, opening and closing ceremonies, construction of venues and the athletes’ village.
GB (GRANDIOSE BEGINNING) – The Opening Ceremony
Inspired by William Shakespeare’s play, “The Tempest”, the Opening Ceremony “was a feast for the eyes and displayed Britain’s rich history and sense of humor”, says the Chinese state media. Like the rest of the world, I share the view that the participation of the Queen, especially Her Majesty’s parachuting with James Bond, the funny performance of Mr. Bean, Lord Voldemort’s dreamy appearance, the performance of Paul McCartney and several stars, “green landscape and choirs”, made the ceremony a grandiose beginning, a spectacular and “jolly good show”.
GB (Gigabytes) of MEMORIES
To store the memories of the Opening Ceremony and subsequent events in the Olympics in pure text or word document, a GB would let you store about one million pages. To store photos, you could store tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of them. If you want to download and store videos, you have thousands depending on the length of the videos and/or audios.
You can just imagine how much MEMORIES of the London Olympics you can store in your 64GB IPAD, your 8GB iPhone, or your laptop with a TB (Terabyte) of an external hard disk.
RECORDS BROKEN and BROKEN RECORDS
Special mention is the participation of Oscar Pistorius, called “The Blade Runner”, making Olympic history by running in the first heat of the first round of the men’s 400 m in the Olympic Stadium. Pistorius had both his lower legs amputated since he was 11 months old. He is the first double amputee to compete in both the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
NUMBERS
The most Olympic gold medals won by an individual is 18 and the honor goes to American swimmer Michael Phelps. He is also the most decorated Olympian of all time by winning a total of 22 medals.
Venus and Serena Williams of USA each won 4 gold medals in tennis equaling the record set by Arantxa Sanchez of Spain and Steffi Graff of Germany.
GB’s Sir Chris Hoy won the most Olympic track cycling gold medals in Olympic history with five.
Talking about SPEED, the fastest in both 100 m and 200 m dash among the men is Usain Bolt. His own record has yet to be broken. In swimming, the fastest men’s 1500 freestyle is 55.98 seconds and was achieved by Sun Yang. Missy Franklin, Rebecca Soni, Dana Vollmer and Allison Schmitt ran the fastest in women’s 4 x 100m medley relay with 3 minutes and 52.05 seconds. Missy Frankin also ran the fastest in 200m backstrokes with 2 minutes 4.06 seconds.
Looking at AGE, the youngest Olympian and Gold Medalist is 15-year old Katie Ledecky of Bethesda, Maryland. She also sets the U.S. record in 800-meter freestyle. Laura Trott of GB is also the youngest in a girls’ cycling event. She was 20 years old when she won gold as part of GB’s team pursuit trio. Felix Sanchez of the Dominican Republic became the oldest person to win the 400 m hurdles at age 34 with a time of 47.63 seconds at the Olympics.
For STRENGTH and AGE, Zulfiya Chinshanlo of Kazakhstan is the youngest weightlifting gold medalist in the Olympics.
There are other records already broken and may still be broken as the Olympics continues as of this writing. I will discuss them in my next article.
GB (GREAT BASKETBALL)
The basketball tournament is not done yet but worth mentioning is the amazing performance of Team USA so far. In the U.S. vs. Nigeria game, noted are the following statistics: Team USA scored a total of 29 three-point goals (record); 156 points (record); 42 assists; 49 points in one quarter; point difference of 83 points; and Carmelo Anthony hitting 10 three-point field goals (record).
GB (GOOD BROADCASTING)
Congratulations and a big thank you should be extended to NBC and its affiliates: NBC Sports, MSNBC, CNBC, and BRAVO; its APPS: NBC Olympics and LIVE EXTRA; and of course, its websites: www.nbc.com and www.nbcolympics.
I look forward to accessing ALL of them for the rest of the Olympic games.
GB – Goodbye for now!
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