Young gymnasts practice at the Xiannongtan Sports School in Beijing – Photo: Ed-meister

Every time the Olympics roll around, newscasters begin discussing the IOC’s age rules, and it seems like the age of Chinese athletes frequently gets called into question. Though coaches insist that China’s team members are old enough to compete in the Olympics, the question usually remains: Are China’s athletes really as old as they say they are?

Last week, the IOC announced that it was stripping China of its 2000 women’s team bronze medal in gymnastics because one of the team’s gymnasts, Dong Fangxiao, was below the age requirement at the time of competition. The International Gymnastics Federation’s rules state that gymnasts must be 16 years old. The IOC has found that Fangxiao was actually 14 years old when she competed.

China lost its bronze medal in the team event, and the US team moved up from fourth to claim the last place on the podium.

There was a time when it was acceptable for gymnasts to compete as children; Nadia Comaneci was only 14 when she won her Olympic gold medal in 1976. Citing the mental and physical stress that competition places on children, the IGF raised the minimum age to 15 years old in 1981, then again to 16 years old in 1997.

After this latest investigation into underage gymnasts, I have a feeling there may be further probes into another age-related controversy that surfaced in 2008. During the summer games that year, the IOC investigated another Chinese gymnast, He Kexin, after discovering conflicting documents that listed two different dates of birth for her. At the time of the Olympics, she was either 14 or 16, depending on which documents officials consulted.

As of today, Kexin and two other Chinese gymnasts who were under investigation still hold the medals they won at the 2008 Olympics. Still, if the IOC’s ruling on the 2000 Olympic team are any indication, no length of time is enough to bury controversies like these.

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-The USA’s Bode Miller won a gold medal in the Super-combined event, a jump from his 7th-place finish in the downhill portion. He’s also won a silver in Super-G and a bronze in men’s downhill.

-Two weeks after never having won a gold medal at home, Canada now has eight. Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir took gold in ice dancing on Monday night, becoming the youngest and first North American couple to do so. On Wednesday Callie Humphries and Heather Moyse won gold in women’s bobsled.

-Russian ice dancers Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin offended some Aboriginal leaders with their Aboriginal-themed original dance, in which the pair wore outrageous costumes and stuck out their tongues. After the dance, the pair dropped from first place to finish with bronze.

-The Canada vs. USA men’s hockey game on Sunday evening was the most viewed sports program in Canadian television history. 21.5 million people tuned in, most of them Canadian. The result was a whole lot of heartbreak when the US won 5-3.

-After losing to the Americans, the Canadian team picked up and beat Russia for the first time in 50 years, winning 7-3 on Tuesday. Goalkeeper Ilya Bryzgalov called Russia’s loss “the end of the world.”

-Norway’s King Harald accepted a pair of the Loudmouth patterned pants worn by the Norwegian curling team. When invited to wear the pants to Norway’s match on Tuesday, the king reportedly declined.

-Scotty Lago, the American silver medalist in the halfpipe, left the Olympics early after the appearance of some “scandalous” photos that appeared to show him using his silver medal to pick up women. According to TMZ, Lago can’t talk about the event until his “blackout period” ends on March 3.

Photo by Michael Francis McCarthy

-Norwegian skiers have been dominating this week. In men’s cross-country skiing, Norway’s Petter Northug claimed gold. Another Norweigan, Marit Bjoergen, won her third gold medal of this year’s Olympics in the 4×5km cross-country relay. She also won gold in the 15km pursuit and the 1.4km sprint.

In the ski jump, 20-year-old Austrian Gregor Schlierenzauer won gold with a jump of 146.5 meters.

-Bill Demong won the USA’s first-ever gold in Nordic combined on Tuesday, while teammate Johnny Spillane took silver. Austria’s Bernhard Gruber won bronze.

-The Netherlands’ Sven Kramer was disqualified in the speed skating 10,000m competition after his coach, Gerard Kemkers, told him to switch lanes. The move was illegal, and Kramer lost what he called “the best 10,000m I have ever skated.” Despite the fiasco, the skater says he’ll stay with his coach.

-Finally, an incident during the giant slalom on Thursday has created tension between American skiers Lindsey Vonn and Julia Mancuso. After having to restart her first run because Vonn had crashed and was still on the course, Mancuso finished the giant slalom in 8th place. Disappointed by the outcome, Mancuso expressed frustration with the fact that Vonn had gotten so much attention during the Olympics. Vonn later said she was “hurt” by the comments.

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When I was in high school, there was a school-wide debate about whether cheerleaders and members of the dance team should be allowed to earn letterman jackets. The hardcore jocks were quick to denounce the squads as non-athletic, while the cheerleaders and dancers produced their bruises and bandaged ankles as proof of how tough their activities were.

Photo By:AbbyNormy

My Random House Webster’s Dictionary says that a sport is “an often competitive athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess.” Wikipedia adds that a sport is “an organized, competitive, and skillful physical activity requiring commitment and fair play.”

Based on these definitions, I think it’s safe to say that competition, skill and physical exertion are all required components of a sport. Still, I’m not sure I can get behind things like the Krystal Square Off Hamburger Eating Championship as being legitimate sporting activities, even if they do meet the definition’s requirements.

Sports vs. Leisure

For what it’s worth, I think there is a difference between a “sport” and a “leisure activity.” Running a marathon, playing soccer, or participating in a dog sledding race? I think those all qualify as sports. But playing poker or going ice fishing? I’m tempted to say those are leisure activities.

Photo By:Brain Child VN

In addition to considering the dictionary definition, I also believe that an activity that can be judged objectively has more validity as a sport than those that require subjective judging.

There is no question about which speed skater crosses the finish line first, but when style plays a part in a judge’s consideration, as it does in snowboarding or ice dancing, it makes me question whether it isn’t simply a pretty display of athleticism rather than a sport.

I suppose I could let the ice dancers hang out in the name of Olympic competition. But what about after the games, when Apollo Anton Ohno is taking a lazy lap around the rink for the fun of it or Bode Miller is testing out a new pair of skis? If they’re not in competition at that moment, have they crossed the line into leisure activity territory?

All through the Olympics, we’ve been arguing at home about what defines a sport. I think the answer I’ve come to is that it all depends. Maybe it’s the atmosphere. Perhaps it’s a named competition that awards medals.

For the cheerleading and dance squads in my high school, it was the long hours of practice and the shin splints.

Feature Image by: Vvramak

Community Connection:

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-The games started on a sad note with the death of Nodar Kumaritashvili, a Georgian luger who died during a practice run after hitting his head on a steel support. NBC banned the graphic video of his crash after some people questioned whether it was ethical for the network to air it.

-Germany’s Tatjana Huefner won the gold for women’s singles in luge, with Australia’s Nina Reithmayer coming in second and Germany’s Natalie Geisenberger taking third.

-Maelle Ricker took gold in snowboard cross, becoming the first Canadian woman to win a gold medal in a home Olympics. Deborah Anthonioz of France won silver and Olivia Nobs of Switzerland took bronze. American Lindsey Jacobellis, who was a favorite to win gold, didn’t even make it to the final four.

Photo by Brooks Elliott

-A change in weather during the men’s biathalon caused nine-time Olympic medalist Ole Einer Bjoerndalen from Norway to fall to 17th place. France’s Vincent Jay took gold, Norway’s Emil Hegle Svendsen told silver, and Croatia’s Jakov Fak took bronze.

-Japan’s Aya Yasuda was disqualified from luge for being “overweight.” The additional weight of her equipment and a miscalculation caused her to be less than a pound over the limit for a luger.

-South Korean Sang-Hwa Lee won gold in women’s 500m speedskate, beating the German world record holder, Jenny Wolf. China’s Wang Beixing took bronze. Another South Korean, Tae-Bum Mo, took the gold in the men’s race, which took place on his 21st birthday.

-China dominated the pairs figure skating, with Shen Xue and Zhao Hongo taking gold, and Qing Pang and Jian Tong taking silver. Former world champions Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy of Germany won bronze.

-Evan Lysacek won gold in men’s figure skating, becoming the first American to do so since Brian Boitano in 1988. Russia’s Evgeni Plushenko and Japan’s Daisuke Takahashi took silver and bronze.

-Switzerland’s skiers are bringing in the gold. Ski jumper Simon Ammann took the first gold on Saturday, followed by first-time Olympian Dario Cologna, who won Monday’s freestyle cross-country race. Didier Defago won the men’s downhill race earlier the same day.

-The Canadian women’s hockey team has been shutting down opponents, with victories like 18-0 against Slovakia, 10-1 against Switzerland, and 13-1 against Sweden. Their triumph is facing criticism, with some countries saying that the Canadians should be more merciful with opponents so they don’t discourage other teams.

Photo by Brendan Lally

-The Canadian men’s hockey team also got off to a good start, beating Norway 8-0 on Tuesday.

-Latvia’s Haralds Silovs made history by competing in two different events in one day. Silovs skated in the men’s 5,000m on the long track in Richmond, then finished fourth in the short track B final at Vancouver’s Pacific Coliseum.

-The USA is leading in gold medals, with five. The most surprising victor was skier Lindsey Vonn, who became the first American to win gold in women’s downhill despite a shin injury that occurred just two weeks before the games. Moguls skier Hannah Kearney won in women’s freestyle , beating Canadian Jenn Heil, who won in 2006 and was expected to win again.

In the men’s events, Shani Davis took gold in the 1000m speedskate, while Seth Wescott won the men’s snowboard cross. Snowboarder Shaun White won in the halfpipe competition, but waited until his victory run to pull out his newest trick, the Double McTwist 1260.

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Marjan Kalhor, an Alpine and slalom skier from Iran, has little chance of placing at the 2010 Winter Olympics, but her presence at the games is an already an achievement.

Out of the four Iranian athletes who will compete in Vancouver, Kalhor is the only woman. In fact, she is the first woman from Iran ever to compete in the Winter Olympics.

Kalhor, 21, has been skiing since she was four years old. She won a national event at age 11 and a bronze medal at a competition in Turkey when she was 16. At 18, she won a gold medal in slalom and a silver medal in the giant slalom at a Lebanese event. More recently, she placed 60th in the giant slalom at the 2009 World Championships in Val d’Isere, France.

Photo: hapal

She has been aiming for the Olympics since the 2006 games in Turin, Italy.

Iran sent its first female Olympian, Lida Fariman, to compete in shooting in 1996, and Iranian women have since competed in rowing, archery, and taekwondo. Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad even supported an initiative to encourage women athletes to participate in sports, but religious leaders have forced him to back away from the plan.

Iran’s mandatory Islamic dress code complicates things. Some female gymnasts and swimmers have switched sports in the hope of getting to the Olympics in an event that requires participants to be fully dressed. Skiing is one of those sports, though one mullah reportedly has said that women shouldn’t ski because the movement of their knees “looks like dancing.”

During the competition, Kalhor will wear an aerodynamic ski suit and helmet, just like her opponents. Off the slopes, she will still be expected to observe the Islamic dress code, or hijab.

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Photo: Kaila Angello

Women’s Ski Jumping

How is it that curling is an Olympic sport but women’s ski jumping has yet to attain Olympic status?

Men’s ski jumping has been an event since the first ever Olympic games in 1924, and ski jumping is the only winter Olympic sport that does not have both male and female competitors.

Female ski jumpers from around the world protested, declared discrimination, and filed lawsuits, but were still denied a spot in this year’s Olympics. The International Olympic Committee concluded that there are simply not enough female participants around the world to warrant inclusion in the games.

Photo: Morgan Goodwin

In order for a sport to achieve Olympic status, the IOC must first recognize it as a sport, then make sure that the sport adheres to certain guiding rules and practice. Finally, it determines if the sport is widely practiced around the world.

Women ski jumping advocates are already petitioning the IOC for inclusion in the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.

Skijoring

Skijoring is a close relative of dog-sledding in which one or more dogs or horses pull a rider on skis, who helps out by skating and pushing along with poles.

The dog and skier are both equipped with skijoring harnesses and tethered to each other by a length of rope. Instead of using reins, the skier uses verbal commands to control the dogs.

Horse skijoring debuted in the 1928 Winter Olympics as an exhibition event but has not appeared since.  The International Federation of Sleddog Sports is working with the IOC to get skijoring, which is popular in Canada and parts of the US, included in the next winter games.

Bandy

Photo: Let Ideas Compete

Bandy is essentially a cross between soccer and ice hockey.  Using sticks, teams of 11 skaters each try to score by hitting a ball into the opposing teams goal.

Bandy was an exhibition sport in the 1952 Olympic Winter Games, and is already fully recognized by the IOC.  As such, it may have the best shot out of any of these sports at appearing in 2014.

“The Russian Olympic committee very much wants to see bandy at Sochi, and they have the support of Vladimir Putin,” said Magnus Skold vice president of the Federation of International Bandy. “There’s a very good chance that they can make it happen.”

Community Connection

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Photo: Zevotron

Why is it that stupidity on the part of a few people has to cost everyone else millions of dollars?

Leave it to the would-be airplane bomber on Christmas Day and the White House party crashers to get everyone worked up over potential security breaches at the Olympic Games.

The Olympic Games are not immune to terrorism. Recall, for example, the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich when Palestinian gunmen killed 11 Israeli athletes and coaches, or the bomber who killed one person and injured several others at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta.

Photo: 2sirius

This year, though, it’s not just the derailed airplane bomber or party crashers that are putting people on high alert. In the past year, the Sri Lankan cricket team was ambushed in Pakistan and the soccer team from Togo was subject to a machine gun attack in Angola on its way to the African Cup.

The terrorist attacks of September 11, divided feelings about the wars in the Middle East and extremism that has brought about racial and religious profiling could result in some seriously intense moments at one of the most well-known events meant to bring together people from around the world.

When Vancouver’s bid for the Olympics was approved seven years ago, the International Olympic Committee marked $175 million for security purposes. Today, that budget is more than $900 million.

So what can those headed to Vancouver this month expect? More than 15,000 police, private security, and military personnel will be focused on security at the Olympics. There will be a surveillance blimp hovering over the city and more than 900 surveillance cameras will monitor venues and crowded public areas. Thirty miles of air space around the city will be restricted as well.

It’s not just the Olympics that are imposing stricter security measures. No one carrying a big bag will be allowed to attend the Super Bowl this weekend, and all fans will be subject to metal detector and pat-down screenings. Anyone planning on attending the World Cup can also expect extensive screening and search measures.

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Photo by: Tim in Sydney

I’m fairly skilled at paying as little attention as possible to sports news. I know just enough about football to have an idea about which teams might end up in the Super Bowl. I’m aware of where the 2010 World Cup will be played, and I know that Tiger Woods’ career is as good as over.

But when it comes to coverage of the Olympic Games, I’m all over it like cliches in bad writing. I follow all the major sporting events, but I especially like underrated ones like curling and the biathlon.

Leading up to any Olympic Games, there is always plenty of media coverage (remember the pollution problems in China?). The Olympics are, in many ways, a short-lived sports soap opera that drops in, engulfs our lives for a few weeks, then leaves quickly and quietly. I admit, I love every minute of the drama.

Photo by:Lululemon Athletica

So goes the story in Vancouver, home of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games.

Last week, Whistler Ski Resort, the official alpine skiing venue for this year’s games, ran into financial problems and is scheduled to be auctioned off on February 19th. Though the owners of the property say it’s business as usual at Whistler, my guess is this has kept a few Olympic planners up at night thinking about back-up plans if the property goes bankrupt.

A more tangible problem for skiers is the lack of snow falling on the slopes. Cypress Mountain, located on Vancouver’s North Shore and site of the freestyle skiing and snowboarding events, has not had a particularly snowy season, and forecasters aren’t predicting any additional precipitation for the mountains prior to the Olympics.

So Plan B is in place: use straw and wood to build up courses, then cover the straw and wood with snow hauled in from other areas of the mountain. This could impact the ski cross and snowboard cross races because the technical nature of these sports relies on high jumps, which will be difficult to manipulate without natural snowfall.

But none of this matters if athletes don’t show up to compete, which is the situation a few skiers and snowboarders in Britain are facing. The British Ski and Snowboard Federation is also dealing with funding issues and could fold before the Olympic Games. This would leave 15 British athletes without membership in a federation, which is a requirement for Olympic athletes to compete. British Olympic officials are preparing a contigency plan for the athletes, but there is no guarantee the plan would satisfy the International Olympic Committee.

Community Connection:

There are two sides to every story. In addition to bringing athletes together from around the world, the Olympic Games in Vancouver also has a dark side.

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The Olympic Flame has been around since the ancient Olympic Games held in Olympia, Greece. Back then, a flame would be ignited by the sun and kept burning until the games were over. The Flame did not appear in modern form until the 1928 Olympic Games in Amsterdam.

The Olympic Flame’s journey still begins in Greece, and is recognized as a symbol of peace for those nations participating in the Olympics. On the opening day of this year’s journey, the Flame was lit in Olympia, using just the sun’s light and a parabolic mirror, in accordance with ancient ritual. The Flame was then passed to Vassilis Dimitriadis, who launched the Vancouver 2010 Torch Relay.

Nowadays, things are a little more technologically advanced. Air intakes provide sufficient oxygen to the Flame so it remains burning, a dual burner system keeps the Flame from being extinguished, and blended fuels ensure brightness even in the most extreme Canadian weather conditions.

Photo by eponymous anon

I knew very little about the predetermined route of the Olympic Flame, but I did know that my province, Newfoundland was its first Canadian destination.

Following some news sources, I learned the Olympic Flame was being exchanged between torchbearers in a dory, a traditional Newfoundland fishing boat, at the mouth of Petty Harbour. I assumed the celebrations were over.

However, when I left the office at the of the day, I emerged onto Water Street in downtown St. John’s to find people lined up along both sides of the road. I found myself standing among the masses, completely unaware of what was going on.

When the torch and its procession of Olympic hysteria finally turned around the corner, the crowd erupted. People sang, clapped their hands, and shouted. A man ran by, shoving two Olympic flags into my hands. Kids ran beside the Flame, reaching out to become a part of history. I started grinning, waving my flags lamely, completely caught up in the moment and united with my peers.

The Greeks must be proud to realize their ancient history is still creating international unity. As IOC president Jacques Rogge said in his speech at the lighting of the Flame, this tradition is here to stay.

“The longest national Olympic Torch Relay in history will create a spirit of global community and world citizenship. It will inspire new hopes, new dreams, particularly among the younger generation, to take part in the Games. It will invite Canadians and visitors from around the world to gather and celebrate the Games with glowing hearts.”

COMMUNITY CONNECTION:

Are you attending the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver? Tell us about what you’re most looking forward to.