Olympic tragedy: how China’s top dancer ended up in a wheelchairChinese dancer Liu Yan was set to perform at the Beijing opening ceremony, until she was paralysed during rehearsals.
Beijing Olympics
Go for gold, back the paralympians
If we re-directed all Olympic funding to our Paralympians we would win a whopping 345 gold medals and be the most successful Paralympic sporting nation on Earth, write Dr James Connor and Dr Jason Mazanov.
Olympics a missed opportunity for digital TV
The Olympics were a great chance to use digital TV to benefit consumers, but weren’t. It’s time for the government to rethink its current broadcasting agenda, writes Peter Cox.
The murky world of elite sports funding
Why, in a small country do we have three levels of sport funding, and worse, competition and duplication between levels – particularly the State institutes/academies? Writes Dr James Connor.
This week in politics
Kevin Rudd finally comes home
H.G.’s Golden Nuggets: goodbye to all this
Eighteen hours of Olympic television coverage reinforces the idea that sitting on the lounge doing bugger all, while stuffing your face with take away food, is in fact good for you, writes H. G. Nelson.
Games coverage uncovered
Seven’s coverage is disjointed and sliced and diced to fit viewing habits, not sporting events, writes Glenn Dyer.
…and now back to Bruce and Johanna in Beijing
Welcome back.
H.G.’s Golden Nuggets: Losing starts with silver
Australia’s medal tally has seen off the challenge of the Shaky Isles but we are locked in a death struggle with Great Britain, writes H. G. Nelson.
Swimming the most covered Olympic sport in Oz. Shock.
The Olympic coverage in Australia has been dominated by swimming, writes Media Monitors’ Patrick Baume.
H.G.’s Golden Nuggets: A pool dream of topless Casey
The knock on from The Silver Stangas big second is that hundreds of fat , unfit kids will take equestrian option when completing their school sports selection form, writes H. G. Nelson
Drugs and sport: an obvious combination
Why exactly do we ban performance-enhancing drugs for athletes, wonders Dr James Connor?
Last night’s TV ratings
The Winners … the Losers … News & CA … the Stats … Glenn Dyer’s comments.
H.G.’s Golden Nuggets: Lethal Liesel and the Sea Cucumbers
Superlatives were thick as Beijing smog as the Aussie assault continued yesterday, writes H. G. Nelson
Memo China: this is bordering on the tragic
The Beijing organizing committee has clearly not quite grasped the subtleties of Baron de Coubertin’s Olympic maxim: it’s not winning that counts but the taking part, writes Charles Happell.
GetUp: not even Stokes could get our ad on air
The Seven Network are having trouble sticking to a consistent story — originally they denied GetUp had booked any ads at all, then, once GetUp produced the confirmed booking sheets, claimed the booking was for another ad unrelated to Tibet, writes Ed Coper from GetUp.
Coles and Red Rooster lead Olympics cash in
Fast food chain Red Rooster and retailer Coles are among the early leaders in local heats of the 2008 Beijing Olympics ambush marketing competition, writes Stephen Downes.
Media briefs: Olympics fetish, Entertainment, Tassie-style!
Olympics fetish … Entertainment, Tassie-style! … do young journos have a future? …. how popular bloggers get bureaucratized … newspapers and twitter.
The Cane Toads for a Free Tibet Action Committee in Beijing, Part 2
A mysterious figure
Media briefs: Pre-writing the news, How to promote a DVD the ABC way
Free speech v privacy … Pre-writing the news … How to promote a Summer Heights High DVD ‘special edition’ … Vale Perth’s Channel 31
On corruption, capitalism and autocracy
Keane’s assessment of the pros and cons of autocracy vis a vis ‘democracy’ seems to me parochial and reliant on an ignorance of history, writes Guy Rundle.
H.G.’s Golden Nuggets: Killer Jackson and Matt’s fat 30
Suddenly it is Day 3 of competition and a lazy susan of sporting snacks is on the revolve, writes H.G. Nelson.
Mungo: War and the Olympiad — a history
Russia spoiled my plan to make this column an Olympics free zone, writes Mungo MacCallum.
