2008 Olympics Updates

With Beijing getting closer I’ve slipped on my Olympic-ringed spectacles to patrol the web for highlights.

How did anybody hear anything about an Olympics or its build-up before Mr Web popped up on our office desks with his new toy the internet? The occasional newspaper feature, books, pigeons carrying the latest qualifying results must have been the only way.

Trawling through the online archives, it seems 1996 was a bit of a watershed for internet coverage of the Games. We’ll forgive them for the shoddy graphics, but the likes of the Washington Post , and USA Today were on the ball for Atlanta. Sssshhhhh, whisper this quietly, but the BBC’s news website didn’t even start breathing until a year after that. Auntie had to wait until Sydney for her first Olympic effort.

The largest natural disaster to hit China in decades has struck in to the Sichuan county of Wenchuan. An earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale occurred at 1428 Beijing time, on Monday.
The worst hit area appears to be Beichuan county, 50km from the epicentre, where the BBC reports that 80% of buildings were destroyed [...]