Last week, I heard that the IOC and Co. were injecting the Olympic Village with a cache of condoms, totaling 100,000 in count.

Au contrere, mon frere.

The Beijing Health Bureau thought this initial number was tailored more to a Young Life church lock-in, and decided let’s just bump that up to half a mil, shall we?

“About 400,000 free condoms have been distributed [by the Beijing Health Bureau] to 119 contract hotels of the Olympic Games to ensure that safe sex takes place during the fortnight-long event…Xinhua quoted Jin Dapend [Beijing Health Bureau’'s Party chief] as saying that condoms had been put in over 90,000 rooms of 424 hotels rated three stars and above.” (Freshnews.in)

Unsure if it’s related (it is), but Michael “Prowl-Mode” Phelps can’t seem to get this look off his face since wrapping up…his competition portion of the games.

LINKS:

Beijing health bureau officials distribute 400,000 condoms for safe sex during Olympics
When Not Busy, Hoops Stars Flock To Beach Volleyball

Enjoy the trailer for the ATHF movie “Colon”

Muxtape Shut Down For Now (via Pop Candy)
College Fan Sees Every Team, Needs New Hobby (Sports By Brooks)
Mixed Martial Arts in the Olympics? It Just Makes Sense (Fan IQ)
Team Domination (Mac Gs World)
Michael Phelps Sportsmanship, Funny Video (NESW Sports)

….linoleum knife!

According to this, Phelps is more apt to house a lumberjack than stick to his alleged diet regimen.

(via The Guardian)

He refers to the left page of a Ponderosa menu as the Individual Medley. (NY Post)

This guy’s diet makes my Thanksgiving look like peril of third world famine.

The Angry T for Pope…see the madness here.

Slowly curbing my Olympic woes.

If you’re a Pandora aficionado, create a Lil’ Wayne playlist – you won’t be disappointed. The story about him in Blender more or less predicts his imminent spontaneous combustion.

Congratulations to Jamie Mottram on the birth of his first kid (Mister Irrelevent)
Wake up with Misty May (Barstool Sports)
Lebron James, 2008 Olympic Diving Alternate, Video (NESW Sports)
The Ultimate NES Collection for sale (Average Dudes)
China’s badminton bad boy has girls swooning (via Deadspin)

…I would have bet the house that there was at least a double ff, cc, or nn in aficionado.

If you weren’t aware that the Olympics is a concentrated meat market, then you haven’t tuned into beach volleyball yet, or synchronized swimming, or synchronized diving (or badminton, for that matter!)

Anyways, the IOC took notice…

“The UNAIDS, the Beijing organising committee BOCOG and International Olympics Committee are providing 100,000 condoms as part of a campaign on HIV prevention and anti-discrimination. At the Sydney Games in 2000 athletes quickly exhausted a supply of 70,000 and another 20,000 had to be brought in.”

The initial plan to distribute 250,000 was met with religious protest, and the numbers were scaled back.

Chinese condom maker, Elasun, is cashing in big time on the Chinese internet with the Olympic sport-themed ad campaign that features cycling, basketball, archery, and swimming.

archery

swimming

cycling

…The stick-man swimming upstream kind of messes with your head, no? And, the archery, well, that’s just brutal.

LINKS:

Condoms to satisfy needs of “young, strong, single” Olympic athletes (The Star Phoenix)
Olympic condom ads (The Sydney Morning Herald)

Enough of the pageantry and hullaballoo, time to start banging out medals...literally.

The first gold medal will be give out on Saturday…in an event with guns! (umm, awesome?) The home country could jump out to the early lead in the medal count, as China’s Du Li is expected to take gold in this event – the Women’s 10-Meter Gat-off. (fine, it’s actually called the 10 m. Air Rifle)

Expectations for this snipette couldn’t be higher, as China dominated the 2004 shooting events – winning four golds, nine medals in total. The pressure is so intense that her coach hired Du – who took gold at Athens – a psychologist leading up to the competition.

The Loot officially starts being handed out Saturday Morning when IOC President Jacque Rogge will present the medals himself to the winners of Women’s Air Rifle.

Links:

Shooting Set To Kick Off Olympic Programme (The Telegraph)

Here’s Radiohead at Lollapalooza last week (Seeing them tomorrow at All Points West! Huzzah!)

Gina Carano, Cris Cyborg to Fight (Not Each Other) at Next CBS EliteXC Show (Fanhouse)
In Case You Forgot, There Are Sports at the Olympics (FanIQ Blog)
A Blogger’s Schedule (The Sports Dollar)
Winnie Cooper wrote a book! (Cuzoogle)
“Pineapple” Breaks Wednesday Record (The Zaz Report)

Chinese Artist, Ai Wei Wei, a design consultant for the Bird’s Nest Stadium, says he plans to stay away from the Olympic Opening Ceremony.

“The “Bird’s Nest” National Stadium, which I helped to conceive, is designed to embody the Olympic spirit of “fair competition”. It tells people that freedom is possible but needs fairness, courage and strength. Following the same principles, I will stay away from the opening ceremony, because I believe the freedom of choice is the basis of fair competition. It is the right I cherish most.”

Ai Wei Wei

In a by-line article for The Guardian, Wei Wei says he wanted the stadium to represent freedom, not autocracy, and that China must change.

“We live in a world where everything is politicised, but some people insist the Olympics should be different. They imply that this fortnight of sport is somehow disconnected from history and psychology, unrelated to theory and morality and on a more elevated plane than base human nature. They argue that anyone who links the games with politics has sinister ulterior motives, that they are anti-Chinese. But the real reason they don’t like politics is because any discussion of the subject reminds people who was responsible for making China so detached from the rest of the world.”

The Olympics are planning to throw quite the bruhaha to celebrate the unveiling of this stadium. They’re going to blow up 35,000 fireworks in 1,800 locations around the city. People are so pumped, they’re not even complaining that Jackie Chan is performing. (musically!)

And as the designer at the center of this spectacle, Wei Wei stands to take a healthy share of the credit (Who designed the Athens Olympic Stadium? Zeus?) Wei is an important player and this is his big moment. The fact that he’s willing to forego his ultimate celebration because he thinks it’s all a guise and a sham is admirable.

Good for you, Asian Zeus. I respect your conviction.

LINKS:

Beijing Olympics: The Bird’s Nest stadium (The Telegraph)
Why I’ll stay away from the opening ceremony of the Olympics (The Guardian)