China overwhelms with numbers

When the Chinese contingent arrived in Athens, it set itself a target of 25-30 gold medals, not much of an improvement from the 28 it won in...

When the Chinese contingent arrived in Athens, it set itself a target of 25-30 gold medals, not much of an improvement from the 28 it won in Sydney. One of the reasons was that China had brought in a young team 8212; the boy who won the men8217;s 10 m air rifle, Abhinav Bindra8217;s event, is only 17 8212; with an eye on Beijing 2008, where as host country, an official says, China is aiming for 8216;50 gold medals8217;. Like elsewhere, at the Olympics too the Chinese can overwhelm you with numbers. They brought 407 participants to the Games, 269 women and 138 men. The journalistic contingent is equally massive. There are 367 accredited Chinese media-persons covering the Games. The corresponding figure for India is 36. There must be a message there somewhere.

Money order from Melbourne

Other than low-end tourism and shipping 8212; remember Aristotle Onassis? 8212; Greece doesn8217;t have much of an economy. It is very dependent on remittances from Greeks abroad, what Indians from Kerala to Uttaranchal know as the 8216;money order economy8217;. So acute is the Greek equivalent of 8216;brain drain8217; that the third largest Greek-speaking population, after Athens and Thessaloniki, is in Melbourne, in faraway Australia.

Boys from Baghdad win hearts

Thessaloniki, 500 km from Athens and Greece8217;s second largest urban centre, was the venue for most the football matches at the Olympics. It8217;s biggest game, in a sense, was the bronze medal play-off between Italy and Iraq. The Boys from Baghdad were sentimental favourites, all of Greece, and the world, seemingly backing them. The build-up to the match was sombre. A little before kick-off, an Italian journalist taken hostage by Iraqi rebels was killed. The Iraqi came up to the Italians before the match and offered condolences. They even offered to wear black armbands as a mark of solidarity 8212; but the IOC refused permission. In the end, Italy won the match with a lone goal, but the Iraqis went home with the hearts.ON a lighter note, a joke doing the rounds here gives credit for Iraq8217;s football success to the Americans. After all, didn8217;t they win matches thanks to their pre-emptive strikers.

Games the Greeks played

The Ancient Olympics were only one of at least four major sporting festivals the Greeks devised 2,500 years ago. Collectively these are remembered by classical scholars as the Panhellenic Games. Year one saw the Olympic Games, with olive wreaths as the prize to winners. With year two, came the Nemean Games celery crowns as well as the Isthmian Games laurel wreaths. The third year was the summer of the Pyhtian Games the pine tree doing the honours. In the fourth and final year, the double-header, the Nemean and Isthmian Games, were back. Then the cycle began all over again. Each four year cycle was known as an Olympiad.

Write-kind of massage

Tucked away in a corner near the back entrance to the Main Press Centre in Athens is a massage clinic. Journalists, presumably tired and harassed by deadlines and demanding editors, rushing from stadium to stadium, their shoulders hurting from hours of carrying laptops and cameras, can drop in here for a massage. Lest anybody get wrong ideas, the ladies and occasional gentlemen at the clinic focus exclusively on therapeutic massage. While the service, so thoughtfully provided by the organizers, is free, this reporter would like to clarify that he hasn8217;t found time to visit the massage centre.