The New York Times reviewed a mostly forgotten piece of Olympic history in the article Phone Call From China Transformed ’84 Games:

The call he will never forget came for Peter Ueberroth in the middle of the night on May 12, 1984, over a crackling phone line from Beijing. It carried the news he believed would determine the fate of the Olympics, not just the Games he was working to organize in Los Angeles that summer but all the ones beyond.

At the other end of the line was Charles Lee, the man he had sent to persuade the Chinese to send their team to the Olympics for the first time. Ueberroth, the leader of the Los Angeles organizing committee, was asking China to defy a Soviet Union-led boycott that was announced four days earlier. The Soviets said the boycott would keep 100 countries away from the ’84 Games. If the Soviets succeeded, Ueberroth said flatly, “we were done.”

Salvation came when Lee called and told Ueberroth, “They’re coming.”

China went on to win 15 goldmedals, 8 silver medals and 9 bronze medals, for a total of 32 medals. And according to Wikipedia, “The first gold medal to be awarded at the Los Angeles Olympics was also the first-ever medal to be won by an athlete from China when Xu Haifeng won the 50 m Pistol event”

Related Links
Nike China 1984 Olympics Event
1984 Summer Olympics
China and the Olympic Movement

Popularity: 8% [?]

I try to read the latest news from my former home, Nanjing, and at least keep an eye out for the more bizarre stories. At first blush the story 2 sued for pyramid sales scam does not seem too odd, as pyramid scemes occur throughout the world.

The Nanjing procuratorate has filed a lawsuit against two leaders of a ‘cultish’ group involved in a pyramid sales scheme involving 834 students from 33 universities in Jiangsu’s provincial capital.

Yang Zhi, who was known as “an excellent student”, and the charismatic ringleader, surnamed Wang, have been detained by authorities for the scheme, which was recently made public by the city’s Industry and Commerce Bureau.

The students involved - most of them came from poor, remote areas, and yearned for self-improvement and larger incomes - were drawn into an organization widely described as “somewhat cultish”, and centered around the charismatic Wang and ritualism.

The “cultish” aspects are the interesting areas here, and are certainly the most strange.

“We would get up at 6:30 every morning, clean the room after breakfast, recite aphorisms and encouraging stories, and then explain these readings to others,” Zhang Tao, a group member from Nanjing Agriculture University, said. “Those who didn’t do a good job of explaining their readings would have to do pushups as a penalty.”

Wang was idolized by many of the group’s members.

Fan Jia recalls the day she asked Wang how she could better express herself. He told her: “Once you free yourself from psychological inhibitions, you can do anything.”

He then told her to remove her clothes, and she obeyed.

“I didn’t feel any shame at all but just followed him,” Fan said.

Popularity: 9% [?]

In one of the stranger stories that I have seen surrounding the Beijing games Japan wants lepers to be able to attend Olympics. This is one of the issues that China and Japan will discuss when they have talks on human rights in Beijing next week, and Japan will say that there is no medical basis for this ban.

The organizing committee of the Beijing Olympic Games revealed a guideline June 2 declaring anyone who suffers from leprosy, mental illness, sexually transmitted disease, open pulmonary tuberculosis and those who may commit terrorist acts cannot come to China during the event from Aug. 8 to Aug. 24.

Earlier this month, a Japanese group created by academics and citizens to eliminate prejudice and discrimination against leprosy sufferers asked the Chinese Embassy in Tokyo to abolish the ban on leprosy sufferers.

According to the above guidelines, someone with AIDS also wouldn’t be able to go to the games?

Popularity: 11% [?]

Yesterday, Forbes released this list of China’s 25 Most Powerful Celebrities. Rather than debate what it means to be a “powerful” celebrity, here is how Forbes determines it:

To generate the annual list of China’s 25 Most Powerful Celebrities, Forbes’ China bureau surveyed both the earnings and fame of China’s leaders in film, sports, media and publishing. As is the case with the Forbes Celebrity 100, the list is determined by a combined ranking of income and celebrity, or appearances on Web sites, print publications and other media.

In this case, Forbes looked at 27 magazines, 27 newspapers and 18 television programs over the course of last year. To qualify, contenders needed to be born and raised in mainland China (those from Hong Kong or Taiwan weren’t included).

And to save you the time of going through the slideshow, I have listed them below.

1. Yao Ming (NBA)
2. Liu Xiang (Hurdler)
3. Jet Li (Actor)
4. Yi Jianlian (NBA)
5. Zhang Ziyi (Actress)
6. Fan Bingbing (Actress)
7. Zhao Wei (Actress)
8. Zhou Xun (Actress)
9. Li Bingbing (Actress)
10. Zhao Benshan (Actor)
11. Gong Li (Actress)
12. Xu Jinglei (Actress)
13. Guo Degang (Actor)
14. Zhang Guoli (Actor)
15. Zhang Liangying (Singer)
16. Huang Xiaoming (Actor)
17. Ge You (Actor)
18. Lin Dan (Badminton)
19. Sun Li (Actress)
20. Huang Shengyi (Actress)
21. Leon Lai (Actor)
22. Lang Lang (Pianist)
23. Zhang Yimou (Director)
24. Chen Daoming (Actor)
25. Yu Dan (Writer)

Popularity: 11% [?]

While a silly name, the Nike Hyperdunk is an impressive shoe.

It sort of looks like something Iron Man would wear while playing basketball.

Popularity: 16% [?]