Jamaica wins the medal tally, by population
Jamaica ranked first in Beijing Olympic medal tally by population, highly ahead of China and the United States. In Australian researcher Simon Forsyth’s “gold medal tally by per million population“, Jamaica was winning with 2.1582. The runner-up is Bahrain and Estonia the third. Jamaica also holds the top in total medal tally and weighted medal score both by per million population. India, the second most-populated country in the world, ranks last in all three tallies. Complete list can be found in Forsyth’s website.
India’s first individual Gold medal
Although India had won 8 gold medals in Olympics hockey, it never won any individual gold medals. Abhinav Bindra won the gold medal in the 10-meter air rifle Monday, giving India its first medal of the Olympics. This is the first time any Indian won a gold medal in an individual event. India’s population is 1 billion to be exact 1,129,866,154. India’s neighbor China with a slightly larger population and similar economic condition took 32 Gold medals in 2004 Athens Olympics.
Symbolization of the Olympic Rings
The meaning of the Olympic rings of blue, black, yellow, red and green traditionally represent the 5 different areas of the world involved in the Olympics such as North and South America, Africa, Australia, Asia and Europe. According to the Olympic Charter,it symbolizes the union of the five continents and the meeting of athletes from all the around the world at the Olympic Games.
But if the white background in the Olympic flag is included as the sixth color, then it is intended to represent nations competing in the Games of Olympiads I, II, III, IV, and V. David Young the historian, says that these rings could also symbolize the previous five Olympiads completed prior to 1914 and each color does not correspond to a specific continent, because there are technically seven continents on Earth, not five. But according to psychologist Karl Jung, circles or rings represent wholeness, and when joined together, continuity.
Olympic themed Laptops and USB drives
As the sponsor of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, Lenovo unveiled winning “Cloud of Promise” themed laptops earlier and now they release a USB drive with the same theme. If the devices come as limited edition there will be a great future eBay value for them. The “Cloud of Promise” theme for the Beijing Olympics was designed by Lenovo and selected over 300 competing themes.
Follow the Olympic Torch
Google launched an embedded map layer which enables users around the world to follow the path of the 2008 Torch Relay as it traverses the globe. The torch relay map allows you to follow the path of the age-old flame, and learn about the cities it passes through as it makes its way across numerous countries and bodies of water. By going to http://maps.google.com/torchrelay, you can view an animated trail that starts in Olympia, Greece and follows the torch from country to country.
Olympic torch arrived in China
THE Beijing Olympic flame arrived in the Chinese capital amid tight security. The flame, encased in a lantern, was to be officially welcomed at a ceremony at Tiananmen Square. Games of the XXIX Olympiad starts on 8th August.
