Olympic Heroes

The UK news channels have not stopped trumpeting Britain's double Golds on the penultimate day of Athens 2004: Women's 1500m (won by 34-year old Kelly Holmes, who also won the 800m. A historic double Gold matched by Morocco's El Guerrouj), and the Men's 4x100 Relay Race.

I have watched the Men's relay finals about 5 times, and replays of the final seconds of the race probably more than 10 times in the span of a few hours. But I have to admit that I am very very impressed with the British boys for clinching the Gold. They were up against the US relay team, which comprised of three finalists in the Men's 100m event, two of whom won Gold (Shawn Crawford), and Bronze (Maurice Greene). On the other hand, none of the British relay runners even so much as made it to the 100m Finals. So winning the Gold was no mean feat. Respect.

Being a shallow and superficial girl, with some leanings towards ditziness, probably half my Olympics-watching comments relate less to the athletic prowess of the athletes, and more to their looks and physiques.

Just thinking about the number of good-looking athletes makes my head spin. But I have a list of my favorite Olympic heroes, boys to watch out for in Beijing 2008 (who coincidentally also happen to be pretty good-looking):

- Teng Haibin (China: Gymnastics): The wonder boy who cost his team a medal after falling down 5 times during the qualifying and finals. This is the first time in a long while that the Chinese Men's team have not finished in the Top 3 in Gymnastics. But the beautiful boy is divine on the pommel horse. His movements fluid and graceful, he seems to be floating weightlessly in a timeless world filled with poetry. Only 18, I sure as hell hope he fulfils the potential that everyone seems to see in him in 2008 Olympics, and I'm very much looking forward to see him shine there. [Gold: Individual Pommel Horse]

Teng Haibin on the pommel horse


Teng Haibin: the golden boy


- Tian Liang (China: Diving): The Gold-winner in Individual Men's 10m Diving in the last Olympics, he underperformed quite badly in a few dives to finish Bronze behind the Bill Murray-lookalike Australian (Silver), and fellow Chinese diver Hu Jia (Gold). Even so, he is worth watching out for, because he is one of the few good-looking Chinese athletes, plus I love his physique - lean and sleek with a sexy subtle inverted-V shape, I am more partial to his physique compared to the other divers. And let me tell you, those divers have pretty hot bods. [Gold: Syncro-diving 10m; Bronze: Diving 10m)

Tian Liang in action



Diving medalists: Mathew Helm, Hu Jia, Tian Liang




- Koji Murofushi (Japan: Hammer): This Japanese-Romanian boy is to be watched out for in the next Olympics if genetics and fatherly-training have anything to do with it. Although Hammer-throwing isn't the sexiest of sports, and I do not like chunky, beefy guys in general, this handsome giant makes a compelling case for big sweaty men grunting and yelling while hurling metal balls. [Silver: Hammer-throw]

Koji Murofushi


- Peter Waterfield (Great Britain: Diving): Along with Leon Taylor, he won the Silver Synchro-diving medal, Britain's first diving medal in 44 years. Not the tallest of guys at 1.68m, I nonetheless find him pretty sexy: good-looking (with a goofy toothy grin that makes him sooo adorable), bald (I have a thing for baldies and blondies), and a slurpable physique - uber cut and defined. [Silver: Synchro-diving]

Peter Waterfield


- Amir Khan (Great Britain: Boxing): A 17-year old boy who appeared from nowhere and caught the world by storm. Even I, who has had ZILCH interest in boxing, have come to hear of him (Okay... so the I was reading the Financial Times, and the FT had featured him). He is now guaranteed a silver at least, and will be boxing in tomorrow's finals. I haven't seen him in action, but might tune-in to watch wonder boy tomorrow. Oh... and he's not-bad looking too. :-)

Amir Khan


We actually ended up watching part of the Women's Volleyball Finals today with China facing off Russia. My housemate's friend and her British boyfriend had come over for dinner and was treated to a whole new experience of three girls' high-pitched shouting, sighing, and squealing with the changing fortunes of the Chinese team. I was incredibly amazed at the Chinese team's success, given that they had started off with two games against them, and given their midget-size compared to the lanky Russians. It sure did my short-heighted heart a whole world of good knowing that one can triumph in the face of giants.

Watching the Chinese team winning Women's Volleyball, I'm thinking of how far China has come from the past. I mean, in a freak turn of events, China even won Women's TENNIS (who has ever heard of Chinese tennis players??).

In the medals tally, as of today, US remained Number 1 at 34 golds, with China a close second at 31 Golds. That's a pretty impressive score. As an ethnic Chinese, I'm feeling pretty proud and happy at China's achievements. And I'm really hoping that they will finally get top spot in Beijing 2008. Isn't it time an Asian country won?

Finally, I believe that the South Korean Yang Tae Young should be awarded the Gold Medal for Individual All-Round Men's Gymnastics. It was a mistake in scoring you fuckwits. He deserves it. To refuse to award the true winner what he deserves over some technical rule is complete and utter bullshit. If an athlete who is found to have misused drugs can be stripped of a medal, then equally, redress should be made when an athlete is wrongly rewarded/penalised by a Mistake in scoring by fuckwitted judges.

I also believe that Svetlana Khorkina was marked unfairly in the Finals, and sincerely believe that she is the true star. But the Olympics have always been about politics. Gymnastics more so than others. I don't expect any fair treatment for her, because the world is unfair. But if the South Korean doesn't get his medal, then it really goes to show what a farce the Olympics is.



_{Source:
All images shamelessly nicked from the official Olympics website}