2008 Olympics Closing Ceremony Pictures !!!

2008 Olympics Closing Ceremony Pictures : Liu Qi, President of BOCOG talks as Jacques Rogge, President of the International Olympic Committee looks on while the olympic flame burns in the cauldron above the stadium during the Closing Ceremony for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games at the National Stadium on August 24, 2008 in Beijing, China.

2008 Olympics Closing Ceremony Pictures : A dancer performs during the Closing Ceremony for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games on August 24, 2008 in Beijing, China.

2008 Olympics Closing Ceremony Pictures : A general view of the festivities during the Closing Ceremony for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games on August 24, 2008 in Beijing, China.

2008 Olympics Closing Ceremony Pictures : Performers are pictured during the Closing Ceremony for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games on August 24, 2008 in Beijing, China.

2008 Olympics Closing Ceremony Pictures : Drummers performs during the Closing Ceremony for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games on August 24, 2008 in Beijing, China.

2008 Olympics Closing Ceremony Pictures : Fireworks light up the sky above the National Stadium as the countdown ends and the Closing Ceremony of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games starts, in the National Stadium, Beijing, China, 24 August 2008.

2008 Olympics Closing Ceremony Pictures : London Mayor Boris Johnson waves the Olympic flag during the Closing Ceremony for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games at the National Stadium on August 24, 2008 in Beijing, China.

2008 Olympics Closing Ceremony Pictures : Georgina and Caroline Evers-Swindell of New Zealand carry their countrys flag into the National Stadium during the Closing Ceremony for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games on August 24, 2008 in Beijing, China.

2008 Olympics Closing Ceremony Pictures : Jacques Rogge, President of the International Olympic Committee waves the Olympic flag watched by London Mayor Boris Johnson during the Closing Ceremony for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games at the National Stadium on August 24, 2008 in Beijing, China.


2008 Olympics Closing Ceremony Pictures : Basketball player Lauren Jackson of Australia is pictured during the Closing Ceremony for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games at the National Stadium on August 24, 2008 in Beijing, China.

2008 Olympics Beijing - Olympics Closing Ceremony

The opening ceremony of Beijing Olympic watched by 32.2 million people in United States alone that was bigger than the American Idol this year’s season. The Beijing Olympics Closing Ceremony on Sunday will have more or less 7,000 participants and none of the 15,000 people who were in the opening ceremony will be in the finale.

Chinese Students will be involved during the Olympics Closing Ceremony and this finale deserves to be praised B/c the show will be Directed by Zhang Yimou who also directed the opening ceremony. Celebrities are expected, like Michael Phelps, David Beckham and a performance by singer Leona Lewis with Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page. Well, we hope there will be no bogus this time!

Olympic closing ceremony to feature 7,000 people

Olympic closing ceremonies usually offer less of a spectacle than opening nights, and the Beijing finale will have less than half the participants — but that's still about 7,000 people.

NBC Sports executive David Neal said Thursday he traveled 90 minutes west of Beijing to see a rehearsal of the ceremony conducted in secret on a college campus. Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou, who directed the opening ceremony, does the same for the Sunday's finale, set to air via tape delay at 7 p.m. EDT on NBC.

"It's just unlike any other closing ceremony I've ever seen," said Neal, executive vice president of NBC Olympics. Usually a simple vehicle for extinguishing the Olympic flame and setting the stage for the next games, this year's ceremony will have a great deal of entertainment, he said.

The opening ceremony was seen by 34.2 million people in the United States, a bigger audience than this year's "American Idol" finale. NBC will air the ceremony taped rather than live (Beijing's time zone is 12 hours ahead of the eastern U.S.). The same thing happened with the opening ceremony and NBC was concerned when some highlights got out over the Internet before they were broadcast on the network. But, if anything, it whetted the appetite of people who later watched on TV.

Related Articles :

2008 Olympics Beijing Closing Ceremony

Alicia Sacramone falls !!!

Alicia Sacramone is sad face of these Games

Every morning, as the bus bringing me into the Olympic Green complex travels past the tennis stadium where the sport's biggest stars are playing this week, I wonder if Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal have any idea what it is like to be Alicia Sacramone.

Her life is not like their lives, that's for sure.
The image of Alicia Sacramone shaking her head in disbelief and fighting tears after her poor performance in the women's gymnastics team finals is the face of these Games so far. She blamed herself for the Americans' losing the gold medal to China, which was a little too harsh, while realizing she would "have to live with my mistakes."

She's an Ivy League student with a future beyond gymnastics, but this was her one-and-only Olympic opportunity after four years of buildup. She blew it, and she knew it, acknowledging in various interviews that "pressure" and "nerves" got to her.
Sunday's individual vault finals will offer Alicia Sacramone a chance to leave Beijing with some better feelings, but the silver medal from the team competition will taunt her indefinitely.
And this is it, for a 20-year-old gymnast.

There's no U.S. Open next week for Alicia Sacramone, as there is for Federer and Nadal. There's no NBA season coming up for her, as there is for Jazz players Carlos Boozer and Deron Williams and their U.S. basketball teammates. Those guys may have gold-medal ambitions and enhanced endorsement potential, but their careers do not revolve around the Olympics - in contrast to the thousands of other athletes whose pursuits are totally defined by what happens during these 16 days in Beijing.

"Olympic people usually have a large portion of their life invested in that dream," said Rich Gordin, a Utah State University sports psychologist who has worked extensively with top-tier athletes.

Some of them have more at stake than others, obviously. The proof is in the NBC-driven schedule of these Games, staging Michael Phelps' swimming events and the gymnastics meets in the mornings in Beijing, prime time in the States. Phelps is capitalizing, coming through spectacularly in his quest for a record eight gold medals.

Yet whether their performances result in Wheaties box-style adulation as Kerri Strug and the other American women's gymnasts received after winning the gold in 1996 or the commentary from those who believe Sacramone "choked" when she failed to mount the balance beam on her first try and fell again during her floor exercise routine, there's a recovery process for every athlete.

"Gold medal or no medal, you still have to go through it," Gordin once told me.
Experts say that in the wake of a major competition, athletes will experience any of these strong emotions: euphoria, anger or depression.

I would guess you can rule out euphoria in Alicia Sacramone's case.
While figure skater Sasha Cohen was praised for persevering after falling during the finals in Turin two years ago and finishing second, there was no rationalizing of Alicia Sacramone's performance in various reviews. Saying she cost her team the victory is an exaggeration, even coming from her, because the Chinese won by 2- points, the equivalent of two touchdowns. With a better effort from her, the score would have been closer, but that's all.

Just the same, she will always wonder what happened in that last event. When she came twisting out of a tumbling pass and fell, Alicia Sacramone remembered thinking, "I can't believe I'm on the floor right now."

She was supposed to be on the floor, just not sitting on the floor.
The effects of her falls will be long lasting, but not permanent. Alicia Sacramone presumably will resume her studies at Brown University and move on from Beijing. "She's the strongest person I know," said Shawn Johnson, her mature, 16-year-old U.S. teammate.

But that characteristic will be tested Sunday, and for who knows how long after the Games are over.

2008 Olympics Beijing - Beijing enhanced Olympics show with faked 'fireworks'

Beijing Olympic organizers say their opening-ceremony fireworks
were enhanced by prerecorded footage.

Not all was what it seemed during the spectacular opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics.

Beijing organizers confirmed Tuesday that some of the fireworks display featured prerecorded footage.

Fireworks that burst into the shape of 29 gigantic footprints were shown trudging above the Beijing skyline to the National Stadium near the start of the ceremony.

Though the footprint-shaped fireworks were real, some of the footage shown to television viewers around the world and on giant screens inside the "Bird's Nest" stadium featured a computer-generated three-dimensional image.

"It was confirmed that previously recorded footage was provided to the broadcasters for convenience and theatrical effects -- as in many other big events," Beijing organizing committee spokesman Wang Wei said. "On the day of the ceremony there were actual footprints of fireworks from the south to the north of the city.

"However, because of the poor visibility of the night, some previously recorded footage may have been used."

The computerized images were produced by Crystal Digital Technology Co. of Beijing.

"We did our best to create a rendering that would look like the shot was taken live," company spokesman Lei Ming told the Beijing Times. "Most people could not tell the difference."

NBC said broadcasters Bob Costas and Matt Lauer told viewers the display was cinematic.

"This is actually almost animation," Lauer said on the air.

The ceremony won rave reviews around the world and was watched by more than 1 billion people.

In the United States on NBC, the ceremony averaged 34.2 million U.S. viewers, making it the biggest American television event since the Super Bowl.

Olympic Results

Olympic Results Tracking by iDashboard

if you haven’t heard of iDashboard, you’ve probably seen their dashboards at many other applications.

I discussed the importance of reporting and live data analysis for Call Centers and Service Desks.

Now iDashboard has another Olympic gift for you:

Beijing Olympic Real Time Updates



iDashboards is a leader and innovator in the field of enterprise dashboard software as well as one of the fastest growing companies in business intelligence. In addition, iDashboards has been awarded several patents in the space of data visualization for dashboards.

Why I like iDashboard:

1) Flash based (not Microsoft Silverlight) and browser independent (i.e. Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, etc.)
2) Platform independence (i.e. Windows or Linux servers)
3) Data retrieval from multiple databases - which is important since it’s pulling data from several venues
4) Seamless reporting features with Microsoft Excel. After all, the decision maker CFO signs the check, right?

With the results aggregated and displayed in dashboards each day, you can track their favorite athletes, countries and events.

The dashboard’s unique hover-and-click capabilities enable fans to select each country’s individual results by sporting event and individual athlete performance.

Additionally, Olympic sports icons direct users to the official Beijing Games Website providing live updates on the respective events.

To get a sample of what if feels like, you can capture and analyze the 2004 Olympics in Athens.

Olympic Results

The summer olympic games are here!

From it’s origins with the Greeks, The Olympics have evolved into a unifying global collaboration. It is such a great time to learn about other countries, watch hardened athletes give it their all and have a sense of national pride.

You can bookmark this page to keep updated on the results as they are reported by NBC…

Here is the current medal count. It is interesting that so many athletes compete, knowing that most will not place. Typically, the home country has an advantage, we will see how China fares.

Here are some additional results and medals count pages:

2008 Olympic Competition Schedule
Olympic Medal Count

Beijing Olympics opening ceremony !!!

China pulls wraps off Olympics' opening ceremony

More than 20,000 performers will spend more than three hours on Friday evening bringing 5,000 years of Chinese history to the world as the Games of the 29th Olympiad begin at the Beijing National Stadium.

And after seven years of preparation and months of controversy and protests, the celebration couldn't come soon enough for China's officials.

Here in Canada, the show will begin at 7 a.m. ET on Friday, hosted by CBC Television's Ron McLean and chief correspondent Peter Mansbridge. There will also be a pre-ceremony show at 5:45 a.m. ET on CBCSports.ca.

As always, details of the opening ceremony have been kept as secret as possible — a South Korean TV show did get a sneak peek last week, causing yet another controversy — but officials have said there will be 29,000 fireworks set off in numerous sites around the city as part of the celebration.

We also know who will be carrying the Chinese flag into the ceremonies — NBA star Yao Ming. But who will have the honour of lighting the cauldron at the end remains unknown.

The only thing officials have said is that the person will be renowned for their sporting achievement and "social influence."

Film director Zhang Yimou (House of Flying Daggers ) has overseen the ceremony which, coupled with the closing celebration, has reportedly run up a tab of more than $100 million US.

An estimated four billion people around the world are expected to watch the ceremony live or on tape.

Celebrations culminate with the parade of athletes from all nations — Canada's flag will be carried by kayaker Adam van Koeverden — the arrival of the Olympic flag, its raising to the accompaniment of the Olympic anthem, and the torch lighting.