The real story that Bob Costas won’t discuss — because NBC invested $900 million in broadcast rights for Beijing and had to deliver a feel-good Olympics for their advertisers — is the explosive dimension of athlete activism before the Games.  Jacques Rogge won’t discuss it either.  But as IOC president, Rogge was surely involved in pre-Games defusing of a dangerous and complicated situation that involved a number of countries.  It was international sports realpolitik at its best.

I enjoyed this item, courtesy of Juliet Pyles, on some the nicknames the Chinese have given to high-profile Olympians.

Baseball has been my favorite sport since before there was a designated hitter, but I have zero interest in the Olympics competition because the best players in the world –major leaguers– aren’t involved.  I haven’t watched so much as a second of any of the games.  Apparently, the United States v. China game was like an old Dodgers and Giants basebrawl, though fortunately, there was no Juan Marichal-clubbing-John Roseboro-with-a-bat (opens in a new window) kinds of mayhem.

China’s Liu Xiang, the defending gold medalist in the men’s 110-meter hurdles and perhaps the most popular athlete in the country, is out of the Olympics after being sidelined by an Achilles injury. In terms of the impact this news will have in China, it’s roughly as if Michael Phelps pulled out before his first swimming event.

From the L.A. Times comes this weird tale about the crowds — or lack of them — at many Olympic venues. All the tickets for all the events have been “sold out” for weeks, yet an event might have only 25% of the seats filled. No one knows exactly why, but now organizers are busing in crowds to fill seats.

I don’t care about the medal race that a lot of people and countries obsess about, as if winning Olympic medals somehow tells us something positive about that country (one could argue the opposite). Still, I found it odd that the medal table of the official Beijing 2008 website ranks countries based on the number of gold medals it has won. Of course, it’s just a coincidence that China happens to lead in that category but is second in overall medals.

I am very impressed with the schedule and results section of the official Beijing 2008 site. It really is “real time.” During men’s gymnastics, shown live in most of the U.S., the site was updated within seconds of each competitor starting and finishing. You also get the complete order of start, the medal events are highlighted by a small gold graphic and it is easy to navigate. As for converting time, Beijing is 12 hours ahead of the U.S. Eastern time, 13 from Central, 14 from Mountain and 15 from Pacific. It is nice to see a site that works like it should.

You can thank Elasun for this one. The Chinese condom maker caught the Olympic spirit through an ad campaign that works condoms into references for the sports being played in Beijing. Think of Kobe Bryant dunking into a condom, Michael Rogers cycling on two condom tires and Michael Phelps swimming over rubber ridges.

Los Angeles Times sports columnist Bill Plaschke, a frequent panelist on ESPN’s Around The Horn, and the Chicago Tribune’s Kevin Pang tasted the finer side of Beijing cuising while there for the Olympics and decided to head over to one of the city’s penis restaurants. Said Plaschke of the ox penis he tried: “It’s very rubber, it’s got a little texture to it, but it’s really tasty. I guess I like penis.”

Video after the jump . . .

China’s Olympic athletes know pressure like no athletes anywhere. The pressure to win medals is so huge that anything short of gold, silver or bronze is considered a failure. Some call it the “home field disadvantage.” From the Los Angeles Times:

Air rifle athlete Du Li was considered a shoo-in to win China’s first gold medal in the Beijing Olympics on Saturday. Buckling under the pressure of 1.3 billion expectant Chinese, she choked.

Boosted by gold medals today in shooting, judo, weightlifting and synchronised diving, China drew even with the US in the overall medal count. After two days of competition both China (6-2-0) and the US (2-2-4) have won 8 medals.

With a gold-silver-bronze sweep in the women’s sabre (fencing) earlier today the United States has jumped to an early lead in the overall medal count. China, currently sitting in second, won gold in both the men’s 10m air pistol and the women’s 48kg weightlifting competitions.

The medal counts of the United States and China will be closely watched at these Olympics. The US has won the medal count at the last several summer games, but China has inched closer and closer each time. Historically, the host country always enjoys a spike in total medals won. In Athens, the US had 102 medals; China was second with 63.

The Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics was technically spectacular, not a surprise given that it cost at least $100 million (twice that of the Athens Games in 2004) and had the weight of an authoritarian government behind it. The gymnast who skywalked across the top of the stadium to light the torch performed a stunning feat that had me staring, mouth agape. And, of course, no one does fireworks like the Chinese.

The XXIX Olympic Games commenced at 8:08pm Beijing time on this 8th day of the 8th month of 2008. Eight is considered a lucky number in China — and they are very zealous about it! The Seattle Times staff shares a few examples:

Let the games–er, the stagecraft–begin. The opening ceremony is typically a circus of symbolism celebrating the host nation’s history and culture. Maybe we’ll see a procession of tanks, you’re thinking. Well, probably not. We can only hope the party isn’t so self-consciously scripted that it comes off as a dud.

Reports earlier this spring suggested that Beijing’s gay scene had become a government target in advance of the Olympics. The Gay Times of London is challenging that notion, insisting that the western media was too quick to jump on the gay oppression story and that the shutdown of popular gay night clubs was infact the result of fire and safety issues rather than homophobia.

“It makes me very angry that gay activists, who know nothing about China, and don’t even live here, report that the Chinese government is trying to stamp out gay culture.” Edmund C is one of the co-owners of Destination, the aircraft-hangar sized, industrially styled nightclub that’s the pivot of gay Beijing.

It’s disappointing to see the Beijing Olympics veering back into gender testing — which was supposedly abandoned in 1999 by the IOC.  But their move is not surprising.  The Chinese are applying “The Art of War” to international sports in a classic way.

They want to win piles of medals and prove their superiority as an emerging world power.  As the host country that sets policy for these Games, they have surely scoured their own team, to make sure all karyotypes conform to XX and XY.  However, their late announcement that they intend to test will place other countries at a psychological disadvantage.  These countries have already selected their teams, and some of those selectees might not pass the test.  So it will constitute a pre-competition strategy for Chinese authorities to summon any athlete they choose for testing.  Even if that individual passes the test, her psyche may be jarred and she may not perform as well.  Imagine the anxiety of waiting for test results, when you know that loss of your career, your previous medals, might result.

Time to set aside speculation about vice-presidential running mates and Green Bay Packers quarterbacks. The real question this week is who will light the Olympic cauldron in Friday’s Opening Ceremony? The final torchbearer is always a closely guarded secret — and occasionally produces a spectacular moment (if you don’t remember the archer who shot the flaming arrow at the Barcelona games in ’92, check out the video). So, who’s it gonna be? I’m betting it won’t be the Dalai Lama. The AP tapped the rumor mill last week and came up with this:

We’ve been hearing for years about the smog dangers in Beijing. The Chinese have reportedly been shutting down factories and limiting car use for months to stave off the international embarrassment of having the IOC postpone events due to smog. With under two weeks left before the Opening Ceremonies, reports are coming in that on Monday a “blanket of smog” had enveloped Beijing, and that visibility was no more than a “few hundred meters.”

A Chinese official said that the government would “implement an emergency plan 48 hours in advance if the air quality deteriorates.” Deteriorates? Looking at some pictures, I don’t see how it could get any worse! And what emergency plan are they going to implement that will clear the air in 48 hours? Are they going to stop all cars and factories and buy some giant fans to blow the smog away? I’ve been assuming all along that this would end up being a non-story for the Olympics. Now, I’m starting to believe it might become the story of the Olympics.