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Home | Olympics | List of Olympic Blogs
New York Times Launches Beijing Olympics Blog
 The New York Times has launched a blog for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing called Rings.
Rings is dedicated to the full range of topics surrounding the summer Games in Beijing, from the competition itself to the social, political and economic issues attached to them. Rings brings together analysis and perspectives from sports, foreign and business reporters at The New York Times and in its bureaus around the world.
"We expect the Rings blog, which draws on The Times's talent and resources across all departments, to become a must read for those interested in all aspects of the Beijing Games," said Sandy Keenan, deputy sports editor, The New York Times. "The blog will serve as an engaging platform for continuous sports and news coverage during the Games."
The Games in Beijing are already generating worldwide attention, and Times journalists have begun to post about issues such as the controversy surrounding the torch relay, the intricacies of the Olympic trials in the United States and discussions of Web censorship by China's government.
Much of the coverage of China recently has been devoted to the earthquake in China's Sichuan Province. The coverage of this catastrophe will continue even as the Olympics arrive in August. Other mainstream media outlets have also launched Beijing Olympics blogs including Countdown to Beijing (Reuters), Olympics 2008 (BBC) and Blogging Beijing (Seattle Times).
Update 8-9-08: If you looking for more Beijing Olympic blogs and Twitters please go here.
Posted on May 17, 2008
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International Olympic Committee Considering Allowing Athletes to Blog
The Associated Press is reporting that one of the many issues the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is looking into the issue of whether or not Olympic athletes should be allowed to blog.
In between debating weighty issues like whether solo synchronized swimming is actually a sport or whether gymnastics really is fixed, the International Olympic Committee is looking at allowing athletes to blog.
It's a delicate issue. The IOC doesn't want to step on the toes of the traditional media, and there's a fear the athlete's village could turn into a battle zone of dueling blogsters.
Imagine Chad Hedrick and Shani Davis going after each other online before they meet on ice.
"We want to avoid a free-for-all situation," IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davies said.
Blogging was banned by the Olympic Charter at the 2006 Olymics in Turin, Italy and some countries discouraged their atheltes from blogging. If blogging is allowed in 2008 it will be interesting to see if any countries encourage athelete blogging at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.
Update 2-10-07: The BBC is reporting that the Australian Olympic Committee is banning Australian athletes from blogging in Beijing. They are afraid blogging could turn the Olympics into a reality TV show.
Posted on February 9, 2007
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Blogging the Torino Olympics 2-24-06
Olympic blog coverage has remained pretty steady throughout the Olympics so far. It dipped below 5,000 english language posts per day (according to Technorati) after the opening ceremonies but it might pick up again as we get closer to the closing ceremonies on Sunday. Here are some
highlights from the blogosphere:
Figure skating leads Olympic events in blog popularity according to this
BlogPulse grap and yesterday's ice skating was one of the most watched events. Shizuka Arakawa won the first Olympic figure skating gold for Japan. An injured Sasha Cohen said she felt "just really ecstatic to come home with a medal."
Irina Slutskaya won the bronze medal. Michelle Kwan did not compete -- she left the games early after an injury.
Google has lots of Olympic doodles. Google's
Curling doodle was probably the best one.
Shani Davis became the first black athlete to win an individual gold medal in Winter Olympics. More here, here and here.
Jonny Wier didn't medal like he had hoped but he would still be interesting to shop with.
Posts about Bode Miller's continuing struggles at the Olympics can be found here, here, here, here and here.
Off Wing Opinion has been covering Olympic hockey.
Jordan Cooper says NHL and NBA players should be kept out of the Olympics.
A Korean man claims to be the father of U.S. medalist Toby Dawson.
AdJab says advertisers are disappointed with the Olympics.
Shaun White, aka the Flying Tomato, won the men's halfpipe and has become a media star.
Mr. Sun finds coverage of when The Herminator (skier Hermann Maier) met the Terminator.
Creating Passionate Users blogs about the abudance of iPods at the Olympics including the US Snowboarders who have "iPod controls built into their Olympic uniforms." Creating Passionate Users blogs that when Hannah Teter said she was listening to her boyfriend's band during her halfpipe gold medal run it sent lots of people to the band's blog.
Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto have a blog where they are discussing the silver medal they won for the U.S. in ice dancing.
There will be a Brazilian bobsled movie based on the Brazilian bobsled team competing in Torino.
Darren Barefoot would like a dedicated luge channel. Many viewers wish they could watch all the events for their favorite sports instead of just a few from each sport.
Blame Gretzky for Canada's loss in hockey.
Eonline says American Idol had more viewers than the Olympic ice skating events. Was there enough Olympic buzz? Online the traffic story is opposite with NBCOlympics.com getting much more traffic than in 2002.
The Dilbert Blog says cursing should be an Olympic sport.
For more Olympic coverage be sure to check out this list of blogs providing dedicated coverage.
Posted on February 24, 2006
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Blogging the Torino Olympics
The Olympics are underway and so are the blog posts. "Olympic" is now one of the top five search terms on Technorati. We have compiled a
long list of blogs that are providing coverage of the Torino Olympics. Below are some recent Olympic coverage highlights from the logosphere.
This year's mascots are Neve and Gliz. Neve is a female snowball.
Gliz is a male ice cube. Blog posts about Neve and Gliz can be
found here,
here,
here and
here.
Bode Miller, a U.S. skier, is one of the most talked about
Olympic athletes. He made the covers of both Newsweek and Time magazines and was
recently interviewed by
Matt Lauer. There are several blogs devoted to Bode including Bode by Jake and
Bodelicious.net.
Birds and Scoochie: Gawker and the
Drudge Report discuss Katie Couric's bird problems.
A post
by David Whitley says Katie Couric hit on him: "Actually, she had noticed me and was yelling 'Scoochie! Scoochie!' Little did I realize at first that it was the pet name she'd picked out for me. I generally prefer for women to call me 'Thor' or 'Your Majesty,' but since Katie makes about $15 million more a year than I do, she can call me 'Willard Scott' if she wants."
James Martin at Olympics.about.com blogs
about the Mongolian team. They already won best of show at the Olympics opening ceremony for their hats.
ShoppingBlog.com has more on hats -- the Olympic
hats made by Roots for the USA team.
Michelle Kwan had a "less than perfect" practice. There are rumors she may
pull out. If so, Emily Hughes (the sister of Sarah Hughes) will take her place. But stephj03 says don't count
Kwan out yet. Other posts about Kwan's chances here,
here,
here, here,
here and here.
InsideGoogle points out that Google has an Olympic logo
and videos via NBC.
Google Blogoscoped is also reporting this information.
The Light the Torch blog has multiple b5media bloggers covering
the Olympics as well as bloggers from other blogs and networks blogging in a
community effort. B5media is donating the income from the blog to athletes organizations and
hopes to generate $5000 in donations.
The Blogging Mayor of Round Lake was watching.
He enjoyed the opening ceremonies but he admits that he has "never taken to winter sports."
Lost Remote gave the opening high marks: "Kudos to NBC for producing what I believe
is the best-written six minutes of television I've ever witnessed. Earlier tonight, I
saw an early feed of the Olympics open in standard definition. Then I raced home to
watch it in high-def. The writing, poetry. The voice, eloquent and unique. Not your
typical dumbed-down-to-the-lowest-common-denominator stuff."
You can't buy the Olympics keyword on AdWords
Deadspin on the Nordic Combined: "I watched about all of the Nordic Combined this afternoon. It's an odd little event. Everyone does a ski jump first, and the farther you jump, the more of a headstart you get in the cross country skiing portion of the event. Seems a little contrived, doesn't it? Why not also combine shuffleboard with a spelling bee, and give the winner a medal?"
Girl in a Book points out the
2006 Knitting Olympics (via Gold Rush)
LAist finds some Olympic Blogs.
Katie Foley describes
the cowbells at the Opening Ceremony: "In the middle of the madness, there was a break when all of the participating countries marched into the stadium. It was like a popularity contest for the world. It was fun to clack my cowbell for the nations that I had been to, and decided to love in that moment. Some just because I liked their little outfits."
Chad Hedrick wins the
first gold for the U.S. Tales from Turin says
Chad is considered one of the "hot athletes."
Cynthia describes
eating for 2 hours at Pizza & Cozze: "We first got served a plate with some kind of cold cut, some shredded greens and some seafood like octopus, squid and shrimp...I tried the shrimp (OK), octopus and squid, but i didn’t care for it. Then, they served us with pizza, 8 different pizza one after the other. The pizza is very different, the sauce very rich and sweet. My favourite was the Margherita and the peperoni, but the peperoni was very hot and spicy and I needed to drink lots. For desert I had a strawberry pannacotta, i didn't care for it at first, but after I got used to the texture of the cake, I really enjoyed it."
The Torino Tracker blogs that the Canadians are looking unbeatable in hockey after trouncing Italy 16-0.
Road to Torino blogs about the Zach Lund controversry.
Lund is a U.S. skeleton slider who has been suspended for a doping violation.
AP is calling it "AP Blogs from the Olympics" but you can't link to any individual entries just to the entire collection of post. Maybe they look more bloggish on some of the newspapers that carry the blog.
Posted on February 11, 2006
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Athlete Blogs Banned at 2006 Winter Olympics?
 A Kyodo News article says Japan is advising their athletes not to blog during the 2006 Turino Winter Olympic Games because it is banned by the Olympic Charter.
The Japanese Olympic Committee is telling athletes competing at the Turin Winter Olympic Games not to open web logs because the Olympic Charter bans athletes' journalist activities when the games are on, and violators will be disqualified.
After Kentaro Minagawa (Albirex Niigata) finished fourth in the Men's World Cup Slalom in Wengen, Switzerland, on Jan. 15, he updated his blog the next day.
He wrote: "This evening, I am relaxing as yesterday's event is finished. I want to win, too. I want to slide down faster than anybody else."
Shin Taira, head of the JOC's business publicity department, said, "We are in trouble because there is no clear-cut standard to judge to what extent journalist activities are allowed, but diaries and detailed reports are no good during the Olympics period."
This was also the case at the 2004 Olympics according to a post in 2004 by Ross Mayfield and a USA Today article from August, 2004:
Athletes may be the center of attention at the Olympic Games, but don't expect to hear directly from them online — or see snapshots or video they've taken.
The International Olympic Committee is barring competitors, as well as coaches, support personnel and other officials, from writing firsthand accounts for news and other Web sites.
An exception is if an athlete has a personal Web site that they did not set up specifically for the Games.
The IOC's rationale for the restrictions is that athletes and their coaches should not serve as journalists — and that the interests of broadcast rightsholders and accredited media come first.
Roger L. Simon is also inquirying about the 2006 policy regarding Olympic athelete blogs for Pajamas Media. It is unclear exactly what the policy will be for the athletes but fans may have to wait until after the Olympics to see personal photographs and blog entries by the Olympic athletes themselves.
Posted on January 29, 2006
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USA Today Adds Blog Homepage
USA Today has created a blog homepage for their growing network of blogs. Before this blog index it was difficult to find USA Today's blogs. The network currently contains five blogs including Today in the Sky, a travel blog by Ben Mutzabaugh; Pop Culture, an entertainment blog by Whitney Matheson; Kevin Maney's blog, a technology blog by Kevin Maney; Tech Space, a science and technology blog by Angela Gunn and Will Bridie Make It?, a sports blog by Brigid Farrell who is trying to make one of five spots on the U.S. Olympic short-track speedskating team. Brigid Farrell's blog is one of the more unique blogs out there. The latest post on the blog says she did not make the team but she gave a great effort:
I can't believe that the Olympic Trials are over. This is not the result I was wanting, but I can walk away knowing I gave it all that I could; I have no regrets.
Editor's note: Bridie finished tied for 11th with 4 points; the top five skaters were eligible to make the team.
Posted on December 18, 2005
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The 2008 Olympics have kicked off in Beijing. The main website for the Olympics is at 
