Touch…

Since the torch relay kicked off in Beijing on March 31th, it has passed 19 cities on its route. Now the torch soon will be arrived in Hong Kong, beginning its journey on this beautiful land with 5,000 years civilization and history. In Hong Kong, there will be 120 torchbearers, including top athletes, celebrities, officials, business tycoons, students and teachers. Besides, horses, dragon boats and a sightseeing ship will be used to carry the Olympic flame during the torch relay, which makes me really anticipate its happening.
As we know, the torch relay has gone through a hard time because of Tibet protestors. IOC also had a meeting to discuss whether the torch relay should be cancelled in the future. Many people are quite anxious about the torch relay in Tibet. But I had a faith that it is going to be successful because we have 1.3 billion people and a well organized government to support it. In my point of view, the torch relay is actually a dream relay. It is a dream of the whole world. It is our honor to hold it and pass it and we will defend it with our bodies and souls. As for me, the most excited moment of torch relay will be on the highest peak in the world, Mt. Qomolangma. Make a best wish for that. May it has a best day.

Carrefour has encountered resistance storm since the Olympic torch relay event in Paris. As Labor Day is approaching, boycott against Carrefour has achieved its climax. “Boycott Carrefour, if you were Chinese!”“May 1 to Carrefour cold field”…… several days, messages like those through phone, QQ, MSN and any large Forum such as a fire in a prairie quickly spread throughout the network.
Apparently these spontaneous boycott movements come from people’s patriotism. Some experts said economy, just as Olympics, should not be politicized. Personally I cannot agree any more. However, the reason why people boycott Carrefour is Carrefour itself expressed that it boycotts Beijing Olympics with its homeland, France. One of banners in boycotting impressed me most. It is said Carrefour, it’s not us who abandon you, it’s your mother!
To be honest, none of us wants this happen. It could be better. Hope everything can go back to normal. Hope Beijing Olympics, this big event for everybody can be held successfully!

A few days ago, Vera showed us a movie called “Battle of Sexes”as she promised us. The title refers to a tennis match between Bobby Riggs and Billie Jean King. It is filmed according to a true story happened in 1973. Riggs was a tennis star, but he was old and not popular any more. In order to make money and promote his popularity, he came out of retirement as a male chauvinist to challenge one of the world’s greatest female players, claiming that the female game was inferior and a top female player could not beat him even at the age of 55. King accepted his challenge after Riggs beat another top female tennis player, Margaret Court. This match turned out to be a battle of sexes. To save women’s dignity, King got trained in a harsh way and beat Riggs fluently to end this battle.. Personally, I am also inspired by this movie. I have a great conviction that women are as intelligent and powerful as men and women can accomplish anything that men can do. Let’s cheer for King, cheer for women!

The reality for women in sports is unpleasant. However, the reality for black women in sports is cruel. That’s what the author really wants to talk about. When people fight for women’s right, they only care about white women. When people fight for black people’s right , black women are ignored again. They don’t deserve what they suffered. Although some organizations have made some efforts to improve the situation of women in sports, only a few black women benefit from it. The disparaging stereotype which considers black women lack passion in sports and they originate from slavery should be thrown out of the world forever. 21 century is an era of competing fairly and peacefully and we should abandon the old idea and treated everyone as equal.

Recently some activists and foreign politicians are utilizing the Olympics to draw attention to China’s political issues. What they are trying to is to put the problems under the microscope and politicize the Games. China’s foreign minister claimed that those so-called human rights groups are violating the Olympic charter and their malicious intention will never get a way.

Olympics belong to the athletes and those people who yearn for peace. It’s a stage for them to communicate with each other. It’s a way for us to make the world a better place. Many international communities and foreign leaders have expressed their broad support for the Beijing Games. And we are going to appreciate them support by holding the most splendid Olympics in the history!

According to the latest research, Beijing’s air quality has been improved a lot. However, IOC and some athletes still show their concerns at it. Last Monday, Jacques Rogge, the president of IOC, said that certain outdoor events lasting more than one hour could be postponed during the Olympic Games if pollution levels exceed certain thresholds. With a view to athletes’ health, they would like to delay the competition for a couple of hours until the pollution reaches an acceptable level.

It’s quite considerate for them to make this decision. But I don’t think that will happen in August. In order to achieve the goal of “Green Olympics”, the government has taken many kinds of measures, such as planting more trees，restricting cars. Apparently, we have harvested some effect. With great conviction, I believe the sky will be bluer and bluer and air will be fresher and fresher.

According to a new study, male athletes still attracts 90 percent of reporting on television news and sports highlights shows, which is as same as the results taken in 1989, even though a great change has happened on women’s sports over the past three decades. The extremely uneven proportion of TV coverage between men and women’s sports exists all over the world. Many broadcasts even don’t involve in women’s sports at all and no women anchors appeared on any of the three network—affiliated news shows. And sometimes when a broadcast referred to an outstanding female athlete, like Sharapova, the commentators are always apt to comment on her appearance instead of her amazing performances.
This is the reality of women’s sports. They get trained as hard as male athletes, but they can never get the equivalent attention as men do. What accounts for this? That could be a dozen of reasons, such as people’s stereotype of sports and women. However, can we change the situation? What can we do?
The researchers suggested that the audience should demand the coverage of women’s sports. As far as I am concerned, to some extent, only if the producers and reporters show their interests on it, it can be improved. They are the persons who lead audience’s attention on male’s athletes. What if they talk about women’s sports from dawn to dusk? So obviously, how to arouse sports media’s interest on women’s sports is also a significant problem to resolve.
To fight for its TV coverage, women’s sports still has a long way to go. Best wishes for women’s sports! Hope we can know about sports deeply through female athletes!

A few days ago, China has planned to play this month’s World Cup qualifier with Australia at Kunming. However, this plan evoked Australia coach Pim Verbeek’s strong dissatisfaction. He said China did that deliberately since the only way for China to beat them is to make it as difficult as possible. And he proclaimed that they will respond to the challenge by a victory.
To tell the truth, I cannot understand Verbeek’s behavior. What was he doing?Is he scared? Is he agitated by the plan? His response is completely out of our expectation. China has arranged several matches in Kunming. Many famous team, like Real Mardrid, has played there before. But no one has ever complained about the high altitude and long distance. Indeed, after the draw against Iraq, China has to win this match. But we will do our best to win the game by the skills and our tactics, not changing those objective conditions. As for Australia, if you are good enough, show us in field!
Mr. Verbeek, we are looking forward to your team’s “extraordinary” performance in Kunming. Don’t disappoint us! Enjoy!

In Feb 24th, German diver, Sascha kLein beat Zhou Luxin in men’s 10m platform, becoming the first as well as the last foreign gold medalist of this World Cup. His victory crashed China’s diving party and also put the Achilles Heel of Chinese team under the sunshine once again since last year’s world championships in Melbourne.
This World Cup was held in Water Cube, National Aquatics Centre. Most of the audience was Chinese and of Course, what they anticipated was a big haul of medals dropped into the pocket of Chinese team. Zhou’s failure disappointed them. In their point of view, he should have won the game. As for Zhou, the great pressure accounted for it and he was not in a good condition, especially after the previous World Championship.
However, to some extent, the Achilles Heel delivers a glimmer of hope to other nations and motivation to China. Diving is one of best events of China. They never lack of marvelous divers. China’s nation anthem winds around the venue once and once again, which looks like a great mountain suppressing other teams.
But the Achilles Heel gives them an opportunity to crawl out of the mountain. The German caught it. When I saw them cheering with champagnes, I also felt happy for them. They deserve the hard-won medal. Meanwhile, China should happy for them too. We can imagine how awful it is when you cannot meet a rival. Now they have a lot of work to do. They need to find a way to consummate their routine to bring the glory back.
Hope China will fulfill their mission perfectly.
May the best man win!

The “Good Luck Beijing” 2008 16th FINA Diving World Cup opened on Tuesday and it will last for a week. Almost 300 athletes will compete in this event, including Guo Jingjing, the Chinese diving queen and Dmitry Sautin, the Russian diving czar.
This event is held in Water Cube, the National Aquatics Center.
The divers are quite satisfied with the venue as it is so beautiful and comfortable.
I feel quite excited to get involved in it as a volunteer. Water Cube is my favorite venue and Diving is one of my favorite sports. Unfortunately, I couldn’t dive due to my immature swimming skills, but I love to watch it. Since I didn’t need to work yesterday my director led me to watch the game in VIP stand. At that time men’s 3-meter springboard synchronize diving just started. In the end He Chong and Qin Kai won the game by a long shot. Congratulations to them! They indeed made an amazing performance. Hope they can continue this glory in Summer Olympics. Good Luck!