Rick from Little Red Blog posted this short video showing the new Olympic stadiums. Worth a look if you’re not in driving distance of the Bird’s Nest!

Baseball is coming to Beijing!

American Major League Baseball games are coming to China for the first time, with the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres to play exhibition games on March 15 and 16 at the baseball venue for the 2008 Olympics.

Baseball 鈥� like soccer, American football and basketball 鈥� is eager to crack the market in China, which has a population of 1.3 billion with a swelling consumer class keen to spend on foreign brands.

Unlike soccer and basketball, baseball and American football are invisible on playgrounds in China and absent from TV coverage.

“Hopefully we can help you develop a love for the game as we love it in the United States,” San Diego Padres vice president Dave Winfield said at Thursday’s announcement in central Beijing, which was also attended by new Dodgers manager Joe Torre.

The exhibition games will be televised on the new Olympics channel, bringing America’s favorite pastime to viewers throughout China. ESL teachers using Parade English are new breathing a sigh of relief that they won’t be drawing a baseball diamond to a sea of blank faces anymore.

I can’t wait to see if the seventh-inning stretch catches on over here!

Via Xinhua

How should athletes prepare for competing in Beijing’s pollution?

As the lead exercise physiologist for the United States Olympic Committee, Randy Wilber has been fielding one bizarre question after another from American athletes training for the Beijing Games.

Should I run behind a bus and breathe in the exhaust? Should I train on the highway during rush hour? Is there any way to acclimate myself to pollution?

I’ve been hearing a lot about blue-sky days and factory shutdowns, but I’m home sick with yet another mystery cough. There’s a lot to be done before August. The constant cough that plagues expats and visitors is going to do more than just annoy Olympic contestants.

Chinese officials say the air in Beijing, one of the most polluted cities in the world, will not be an issue when China鈥檚 first Olympic Games start Aug. 8. They plan to limit vehicle use, close factories and do everything in their power to bring blue skies to Beijing. Jacques Rogge, the I.O.C. president, said he was confident the air would be clean because Chinese officials 鈥渁re not going to let down the world.鈥�

Mr. Wilbur’s plan is to issue carbon-filter breathing masks to Olympic athletes, and suggesting they wear the breathing maks from arrival in Beijing until the Olympic events.

鈥淚 think it would be a huge political issue and an embarrassment to the Chinese people and to the I.O.C. if American athletes wore masks in the event itself,鈥� Mr. Wilber said. 鈥淚f that image was beamed around the world on TV, it would cause nothing but problems.鈥�

He added, 鈥淚t鈥檚 much more important to guard against the pollution beforehand and go to the line with clean lungs.鈥�

Via New York Times

A Modern Lei Feng (a fellow Beijing Blogspot blogger) has posted a better look at the Olympic uniforms.

Unfortunately, it’s the tracksuit, not the white miniskirt.

The uniforms for the staff and volunteers of the 2008 Olympics were unveiled on Sunday as part of the celebrations of the 200-day countdown to the Games.

The uniforms feature “lucky clouds,” the same pattern used in the design of the 2008 Olympics torch.

Uniforms for BOCOG staff are red while those for volunteers are blue and those for technical officials are gray.

The design team of the uniforms were represented by the Cultural Activities Department of the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee (BOCOG), Beijing Institute of Clothing Technology, Academy of Arts and Design of Tsinghua University, China Central Academy of Fine Arts and Adidas, an official partner of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games

Via Xinhua

All kinds of 8-8-2008 and Fuwa-themed stationary!

Steel company Beijing Shougang Group has shut down a major blast furnace in part of China’s plans for cleaner air at the Olympics.

Beijing’s biggest steel company has shut down another of its blast furnaces as part of efforts to clean up the city before the Summer Olympics begin in August, Chinese state media said today.

The Beijing Shougang Group, one of the capital city’s major polluters, extinguished the fire in the number four blast furnace after 35 years in operation, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

I hate to rain on the cleaner-air parade, but I haven’t noticed any difference yet.

Via China Economic Review and Belfast Telegraph

The Beijing Olympic Basketball Gymnasium or Wukesong Indoor Stadium is ready to host qualifying matches and finals of the Beijing basketball event in this coming August Beijing Olympics. A high-definition LED display system was imported to meet NBA standards and in turn, let spectators enjoy NBA-level basketball matches.

On the outside, the building looks like a giant gold bar. But when visitors approach the venue, they can see individual yellow-colored columns that are wavy. It gives people the feeling of movement and optimism.

The gym covers an area of 63,000 square meters and can accommodate 18,000 spectators. A solar energy and rainfall collection recycling systems are used in this gym. Construction on the gym took two years and ten months to finish.

I’m sure Yao Ming would be impressed.

Via China Daily

I saw this box of Fuwa Band-Aids at the drugstore yesterday, and although I’m not planning on nicking myself in the near future, just had to get it. Cute, aren’t they? They’re real brandname Band-Aids by the way, Johnson&Johnson are Olympic sponsors.

I was a bit disappointed to get it home and find that the box only held SEVEN bandages! Look at that box again, and tell you wouldn’t have expected more than seven?

I do like them, they’re cute and colorful enough to distract wee ones from a shot or a scratch. My package had at least one of every color, except black. That naughty panda JingJing is conspicuously absent! I guess he’s too busy brandishing his baseball bat to appear on a Band-Aid.

Bloggers Olympics 2008 is a corner where bloggers around the world share their thoughts on the Beijing Olympic Games 2008. Kicking the first shot is ChillyCraps from tropical Singapore.

ChillyCraps is a mechanical engineering undergraduate at the National University of Singapore. He tries very hard to link everything with engineering with the help of his blog.

Old records are broken and new ones set in the sports arena, and the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games will be setting some new engineering record as well. Upon its time of completion, the China National Swimming Centre, or more affectionately known as the 鈥淲ater Cube鈥�, will be the largest ETFE structure in the world. (I know a cube has all its sides of equal length, but let鈥檚 not get too particular here)

Ethylene Tetrafluoroethylene, or ETFE in short, is the latest material in building technology. It is transparent, tough, corrosion resistant, and it鈥檚 lightweight. It offers flexibility that allows numerous possibilities in design for the architects, such as the unique bubbles in the walls and roofing of the Water Cube. There are over 3000 such bubbles of different sizes in the Water Cube design. In fact, its transparent property allows the Water Cube to operate as a green house, absorbing solar energy and reducing energy consumption, saving on as much as 30% of energy cost. Talking about 鈥渟tate of the art鈥� meeting 鈥渨ork of art鈥�.

The Water Cube was designed by Australian firm PTW Architects, Arup from United Kingdom and China State Construction Engineering Corporation. Construction will be a cooperation between Vector Foiltec of Germany and Shenyang Yuanda Aluminiun Industry Engineering. The ETFE film is supplied by Asahi Glass of Japan. With so much international cooperation, we see the Olympics spirit even before the race started!

I am no architect or designer by training, but this super-modern structure sure got me excited. I鈥檓 sure that even after the Olympic Games, the Water Cube is going to add vibrancy and life to Beijing, and sets the pace for more out of the box (or, cube) building designs in China.