What's goin' on?

A good example of how to organize all the things that are going on into an interactive, simple piece of design.
I wonder how the BBC are going to handle the games, who are they going to use to design the programming system and information design?

SOO MANY EVENTS

There are...SO....many.....events.
And times, and athletes, and heats, and locations, and countries.
When you are trying to follow the Olympics, weather your watching on the TV/internet etc or you are actually there, there must be a way of making in simpler to follow. I mean look at this list of events.
Long right.

There must be better way.

In an unsure time, can we support our athletes?

If you look at our athletes very clinically, they are just part of the Olympic machine, they need to be built and maintained too. We have already seen some American athletes lose funding from sponsors dropping out (source), could this happen to out lot? I hope not. We rely on the national lottery to fund our athletic program, but i suppose in these times people might be playing the lottery more.

On the other hand...
“This also might be a perfect chance for companies to jump into sponsorships, when other companies might be too financially weak to do so.”

UH OH!!!!!!!

Gosper, a vice-president of the Sydney Olympics organising committee, said: "I think you and your team face the toughest time – short of wartime – to get the project to 2012."
Outch!

Full article. Careful, its a tough read.

Lessons for London

Guardian correspondents round up the Beijing Olympics and look forward to our turn in 2012

Michael Hobson's Diary

The runner Michael Hobson is keping a diary on the BBC (it can be seen here). I think things like this is the key, its a great easy way to help the general population understand all the effort and time needed to be an olympic athlete, its a great and very personal insight into the young lads life and hopefully will build a nice fan base for him when the real thing comes around in 2012. I wonder what other ways athletes can create a presence online, ways that we can see there progress throughout the ups and downs on the road to the olympics.

Chinese power! British power?

"It's the time to blossom," the gold medalist said: "Now I can show the Chinese power to the whole world."

At 2008, team GB won a record number of medals coming 4th overall. This shows we can punch well above our weight in terms of achievement, but will out spirit match our achievement in 2012. Mayor Boris Johnson has already said were not going to have the same kind of opening ceremony as they did in China, were going to go for something more 'British'. Will this way of thinking extend to the support? I think its a major concern, i hope us Londoners and the UK as a whole dont get bogged down with the negative aspects of staging the Olympics (Cost etc) and realise that its going to happen, and just use there energy on getting behind our athletes.