Post-Olympics

London Olympics came to a close on Aug 12th, when herds of superstars gathered in London Bowl and sang popular British songs since last London Olympics. The closing ceremony lasted for more than three hours, with athletes swarming on the stage and audiences cheering and laughing. After 16-day excitement, London finally waved goodbye to its guests and hopefully it will soon be back to normal life.

Comments on London Olympics seem mixed. IOC President Rogge hailed it as "happy and glorious games", while Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko accused hosts Britain of using political clout to win medals. Like most Olympics in the history, complaints and glories coexisted in London: athletes get the glory, and judges or politicians receive complaints. Heroes are created by Olympics, like Phelps with his 22 Olympic medals. Disputes over rules are also raised, like Daley's seven dives and disqualification of eight badminton players. We try to enjoy fair Olympics, pretending sports are independent of politics, which however is not true: just think of the advantages British athletes have taken of their nationalities, and the unprecedented No. 3 position on the medal tally of Britain. But compared to media who demonize athletes with different background, Olympics did a much better job. When Ye Shiwen was questioned about doping, Olympics knew it was their responsibilities to clarify the fact. Maybe we are already too used to the hideous side of the world, therefore regardless of all the scandals, we still enjoy Olympics, and probably will only remember the glories of Olympics years later.

And that's what we should really pay attention to. Obsession with glories can only make Olympics worse in the future. Frequent cunning play-around with rules should ring the alarm bell. It not only makes games dull, but prevents capable athletes from moving forward. Mo Farah created the best record of Men's 5000m in London Olympics due to his outstanding strategy and won a gold medal. However because of his intentional speed cut in the first few laps to hinder other runners, his record was much worse than current Olympic Record. The same thing happened in women's distance races as well. I'm not saying strategies should not be applied to games, but better rules should be adopted to prevent Olympics from getting "lower, slower and weaker".

Another concern comes from the inefficiency caused by monopoly. Some sports events are dominated by a few countries: like archery by South Korea and badminton by China. Dominance may impede other countries from joining the game given the hopelessness of winning, and it makes sense to encourage less advantaged countries to participate. One way is to have exchange programs for coaches. Korean coaches help Italian athletes get champion in archery, Sun Yang received two gold medals in swimming under the guidance of an Australian coach, and Chinese coaches can be found in almost every diving team in the final. Better training proves effective in improving players' performance.

However sometimes coach exchanges are not enough to make changes. No matter how excellent coaches are hired, Chinese men's basketball and football teams never manage to improve their records in international competitions. Another option is introduced: exchange athletes rather than coaches. It's interesting to see that in table tennis competitions, there are always two Asians playing against each other, regardless what their nationalities are. These players may even be friends and used to receive training in the same team, but now representing different countries. Athlete exchange is probably the worst situation as there is no real improvement in skills of foreign athletes, nor does it popularize the sports abroad. Monopoly is becoming a headache for IOC, who has tried different ways of restricting dominators, but the effect is small.

205 countries attended London Olympics, but only seven of them got more than 10 gold medals. Medals concentrate in a few countries, and this trend seems to be irreversible. Each country's performance in Olympics is strongly correlated with its economy: richer countries can spend more on training equipment and hiring better coaches for their athletes. As long as inequality in the world lasts, monopoly will continue and even exacerbate as inequality is enlarged. If we believe the Solow's converging point, maybe we can expect a fixed ranking on Olympic medal tally of each countries in the future.

Benefits for the Host City

After spending approximately $17 billion on infrastructures, Olympic venues and other operational costs, London got paid off in a different way. Olympic referees showed their gratitude for the host city in a barely disguised way. In the just-concluded 10m diving final, Daley, a British nominal diving genius, was offered an opportunity to dive again after his first failure. Daley made his way to the podium after unprecedented seven dives with the help of referees and British audiences.

Daley is not the only British athlete who benefited from referees' favoritism. During Women's Double Sculls Final on Aug 3rd, British athletes got permission from referees to suspend the competition when they found their boat broken in the midway. The game was resumed after they fixed the boat. French athletes failed to keep their leading position in the game, and lost to Britons. Similarly, in the Men's Team Cycling, the British team took advantage of the rules with supports from referees. Philip Hindes fell shortly after taking off on purpose (as he admitted later in an interview) so that he could get a second chance and restarted the game. Britons again beat French and received a gold medal. In spite of Hinder' confession of deliberate crash, the IOC supported Britain and declared no reason to question the result, which looked particularly ironic after eight badminton players disqualified from London Olympics for passive play one day ago.

This was not the first time that the host city of Olympics taste sweetness from referee's unprofessionalism. Hitler did similar thing during Berlin Olympics in 1936, where Jewish and black athletes were strongly discriminated against and German athletes won most of the gold medals. Londoners did not seem to advocate for fair-play, and they cheered for the British medals even if they were donated by referees rather than earned by players. In comparison to audiences in Athens who hissed referees after Nemov's marvelous performance on horizontal bar and insisted revising the intentionally underrated grade, audiences in London are simply too desperate for victory.

$17 billion is not small money. If the IOC was willing to accept this budget, at least it could improve the expenditure structure a little bit by hiring more professional referees. Too many appeals in London Olympics already raised doubts on the correctness of referees' decisions, and the lack of unanimous criteria exacerbated the distrust. A temporary basketball stadium without restrooms is annoying enough, but not as bad as unprofessional referees who brutally defy athletes' efforts and make the results a big joke.

It's Show Time

Liu Xiang ended his last show in men 110m hurdle in London in pain. As the first Asian gold medalist in sprint in Olympics, Liu Xiang burst on to the scene in Athens Olympics and shot to fame after creating a new Olympic record in men 110m hurdle. He was hymned as a hero on his return to China, and soon got advertising contracts worth billions. Four years later in Beijing Olympics, people anxiously waited in the packed "Nest", cheering at Liu Xiang's appearance in the 110m Hurdle Heat. However before the starting gun went off, Liu Xiang suddenly signaled the referee and quit the game. Audiences burst into uproar, reprimanding Liu of "deceiving." Later Liu's coach cried in the news release and explained that Liu was succumbed to previous tendon injury.

Controversy has lasted four years ever since. Denunciation on Liu's withdrawal never stopped. Some netizens said, as I quoted, "I would feel much better even if he crawled to the finishing line - that's Olympics spirit. Now I just feel cheated." Liu lost some ad contracts too, but big sponsors like Nike and Tsingtao Beer didn't abandon him. During London Olympics, Liu's ads still account for a quarter of all the ads shown in CCTV live.

When the day came for 110m hurdles in London, Chinese audiences again showed their keen for Liu. A picture showed hundreds of people stopping boarding in a subway station in Beijing to watch Liu's competition on the screen. Although there was rumor about injury after his arrival in London, people still had great hopes for him. Liu didn't withdraw this time, but he stumbled at the first hurdle and fell to the track. He sat on the floor, painfully holding his tendon and looking at his rivals rushing for the end. After everyone else finished his competition, Liu hopped all the way to the last hurdle and kissed it. He left London Bowl in a wheelchair. Chinese commentators cried over the recurrence of his old wound, and journalists retrospected all his achievement as a hurdler later. Liu prompted even more speculations in London than the last time.

It seems rather obvious that Liu is aware of his injury and the risk he is taking to sprint again. But why he is running again?
- Maybe he just wanted to try his best. London could be his last Olympics, thus he wanted to say goodbye in a decent way but failed to do so;
- Maybe he didn't want to go but the blames after his last withdrawal scared him, so he forced himself to run  to avoid the same reprimands despite the problem with his tendon;
- Maybe it was an awkward show under pressure from government and advertising sponsors, as he had to bear a loss of millions if he stayed away from the court;
- It is also rumored that Liu was a victims of conspiracy. The distance between the starting line and the first hurdle was increased by 0.13 meters. However the likelihood of this adjustment should be below 1%.

Almost every athlete aspires victory, therefore it shouldn't be surprising if Liu wanted to bet his luck in spite of potential disastrous results. But it still looks weird after his mysterious withdrawal in Beijing: how likely is an athlete to win a champions four years later when he starts to reach the age limit of a sprint with even worse injuries on tendon.

If the disgrace four years ago has been so painful to him that he'd exhaust every resort to save his reputation, he knew the best way was to finish the 110m regardless of how he reached the end. Since audiences only wanted him to show respects for the game and have some "Olympics Spirit", it is better to show them a strong-minded and sports-loving Liu Xiang instead of a can't-get-the-champion one. And more importantly, external pressures left him no choice. Chinese government needed Liu to disguise its weaknesses in field events, whose appearance is a demonstration of its old glories. Liu's advertising sponsors had to bear huge losses if he ended with infamy. Thus whether he could run or not, he had to do something to save his reputation.

After his transient victory in Athens, Liu reaped huge profits from his gold medal, but enormous pressures as well. As an unprecedented flier, Liu epitomizes China's achievement in the field, and he simply can't retire until a successor is found. In a country where athletes are paid by tax payers to win medals, athletes are committed to not only winning games, but also fitting a cost-benefit analysis by the government. It is sad to see an athlete distracted by concerns other than sports, but it's the price to pay for every athlete's own choice.

Fair-play

Judges helped Arthur Zanetti take down Chen Yibing in Rings in London Olympics. Choosing the same set of movement, Chen and Zanetti had visible differences in the quality of execution, which was reflected in a reverse way by their scores. Because athletes and their coaches couldn't appeal on scores of execution, Chen had no choice but to accept the result.

This is not the first time that gymnastic judges gave contentious scores. Eight years ago, Nemov from Russia failed to receive a model in horizontal bar despite his almost-perfect performance. Audiences were so angry at the scores that they stood up, waving flags (mostly Greece) and booing the judges. The competition simply couldn't continue: the next American gymnast stood by the equipment but the noise kept him from even touching it. About five minutes later, the judges changed the score under pressure, but it was obviously not high enough to please the audiences. Catcalls lasted for another five minutes until Nemov waved to audiences to show his gratitude and asked them to sit down. The audiences burst into applause and followed Nemov's request, then the competition was able to continue. Nemov did not get a medal for his last show in Olympics, but his splendid performance and this notorious "black score" are remembered forever.

I always believe there must be a reason for the frequent abnormalities. What could be possible explanations to this? Leaving corruption or bribery aside, judges may be motivated by: 1) encouraging athletes from countries traditionally weak in gymnastics by giving them higher scores ; 2) accidentally missing some errors done by other athletes; or 3) punishing Chinese and Russian teams for the lack of beauty in spite of their high difficult levels. The first candidate is hard to tell: everyone has his own criteria for beauty. The second one is hardly a reason: one judge can make mistakes, but it's hard to have five judges make the same mistakes. In the case of Nemov, even laymen - the audiences could tell who had done a better job, judges could not just defend themselves by making "accidental" mistakes. The reluctance for them to revise the scores also suggested their intentional downgrading for certain athletes.

It probably makes sense to encourage gymnasts from South Asia and Africa by giving them better scores on the same performance, it's not surprising either to thank hosting countries with a little inflation. But in 2004 Athens Olympics, judges favored US gymnasts: there is no point encouraging US to further develop its gymnastics: it's strong enough. In 2008 Beijing Olympics, judges showed controversial preferences for Nastia Liukin from US, whose father is allegedly tycoon in international gymnastics. And this time, people associate judges' inflated score for the Brazilian athlete with their intention of pleasing the next Olympics hosting country.

It will be interesting to look into the components of International Gymnastics Association and how they pick judges for Olympics. When athletes get together for competition, they are looking for a fair play regardless of nationalities, regions, etc. which can tell them the true ranking of their strengths and skills. But there is an invisible hand, ignoring all efforts that sportsmen have made and manipulating the results. It turns out that as long as the result is determined by human beings rather than machine - like in running and swimming, it can be unfair. If we believe checks and balances in politics can work out relatively fair results with representatives from all interest groups having a say in decision-making processes, we probably need more checks and balances on sporting events too by expanding seats in international sporting associations to underrepresented countries and applying crystal clear procedure of decision making and appealing process. That's probably the best way of saving athletes from victims of filthy power games and dirty deals.

How to Become No. 1

Every country seems to be obliged to inform people of their performance in Olympics ("Naughty Korea" may be an exception though), hence medal ranking is unavoidable for media. But there is only one country that can top the list, therefore how to be that one becomes a challenge to every participator. In general there are two ways of ranking: either by the number of gold medals or total medals. China, who values gold medals much more than silver or bronze ones always go with the former. The US followed the same rule until 2008 when China won more gold medals and decided to rank by the total number of medals during Beijing Olympics.

London Olympics are somehow more interesting. China topped the list by gold medals for the first few days, but the US won more total medals. Thus most US media ranked by total medals instead of gold medals. But China soon started to collect more silver and bronze medals, while Phelps created a new history as a gold medalist. The ranking was reversed: the US surpassed China in gold medals but ranked 2nd by total medals. An interesting switch happened between US media and their Chinese counterparts with US media adopting a gold-medal ranking while China starting to use a total-medal one.

If two countries have exactly the same amount of gold medals, how will you rank them - by total medals or silver medals? Chinese newspapers and the US ones offered different answers to make their own country No.1 on the list. A more creative ranking was adopted by Yahoo which calculated the number of  "historic cumulative" medals since the first modern Olympics in 1896 to guarantee US' No.1 position.

China and the US are not alone. Other countries are also trying all sorts of means to rank higher. One way is to find allies. European countries believe that an union, though functioning poorly in addressing economic crisis, can work well on sports. So for the first time in history, we have EU on the top of the tally with 52 gold medals and 160 medals in all, leaving the US and China far behind. (See above) Unfortunately we can't find "ASEAN", "NAFTA", "CARICOM" or "SADC" on this list, which I believe should be included to make the comparison fair enough. Similarly, an Australian newspaper was amazed by their neighbor's performance in London and decided to establish an "Aus-Zealand" to squeeze Australia into Top 10. (See right) I wonder if they had asked New Zealand for the permission to do so, but I guess kiwi were probably not happy with this, that's why we soon find a new list offered by Australians who abandoned all traditional ways but ranked by silver medals. With 12 silver medals and 20 medals in all, Australia ranks No.4 on the new list. (See below)

That's not the end of the story. We soon find out there is a good reason for New Zealand to reject the free rider as they have their own way of putting Kiwi top on the list: they rank by medals per capita. With a population of less than 4.5 million and 9 medals from London, New Zealand well deserves the No.1 position on the medal tally.

There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics. (Source: Mark Twain) It is interesting to see how creative people can be when they play with numbers, which also reminds me of the headache brought by dozens of different ways to calculate carbon emissions and allocate quotas across countries. But no longer trying to rank lower on the list, now they're competing for top positions instead. London Olympics have just passed the half-way to the end, we have good reasons to expect more novels standards such as medals per GDP or number of medal winners (football, I'm talking about you), or comprehensive indicators like "weighted" medals. When we're enjoying athletes fighting for new records of their own or the human kind, we should be grateful for these rankers who brainstorm for new ways of entertaining us.

Sports for Athletes or Sports for All

Olympics provide a great opportunity to show one's passion for sports. Millions of people sit in front of TV for hours, watching athletes' performance, guessing new gold medalists and expecting the creation of new records. Every time a new record is created, audiences stand up and applaud, cheering for the breakthrough in human being's limits. But I have different opinions. When Bolt refreshed his Olympic record of men's 100m sprint by 9’63”, I know it has nothing to do with me though it may be important to human beings as a whole. He shortened his record by 0.06 second in four years, but it probably takes me even longer to finish 100m today than before due to abundant desk works and lack of exercises in recent years.

It's hoped that Olympics can encourage people to do more exercise. But Olympics is more like a stage for professional athletes to show how marvelous they are, not for ordinary people to figure out how much exercise he/she should get to be healthy. Actually many sports are almost impossible for amateurs: even if you have strong legs and a soft body, how likely can you bounce into the air and roll 720 degree before jumping into the pool? You can't just do more exercise and then become an Olympian; instead you have to choose between becoming a professional athlete or staying in your original career track. I'm one of those who very much appreciate the beauty and strengths that athletes demonstrate in their performance, and seldom miss TV relays of Olympics, but never have the slightest idea of doing it by myself.

A more direct impact on the public's health by Olympics is even negative. Olympics keep more people sitting in front of TV for longer hours by its brilliant competitions, while they usually spend the time in gyms. For people living in different time zones from London, Olympics also keep them stay up late or get up early to watch live games, thus disrupting their biological clocks. The joy of watching Olympics and the illusion of being close to sports make people less aware of the fact that they are doing nothing but laying the coach, and watching TV with popcorn and beers.

Some Olympic hosting countries had claimed that newly constructed Olympic venues and infrastructure would involve more citizens into sports, which has been falsified already (see Beijing Beijing). People are more conscious of what exercises they're willing to do, and a simple increase in the access to sports facilities don't guarantee an increase in sporting. Stadiums of unpopular sports always fell into ruins in the end.

Olympics are good at arousing people's enthusiasm, but how to transfer this enthusiasm into lasting motivations remains in doubts. In countries which offer comprehensive PEs in primary and secondary schools, people are more likely to gain regular exercises once they've developed some interests and fundamental skills in a certain sport. Commercial sporting clubs and associations also help these interested individuals explore further. But in countries with clear cut-off between athletes and amateurs, it's more challenging to transfer exciting audiences into exercisers as they may soon realize how different they're from professional athletes.

Nowadays, it lacks efficient ways of advocating sports for all instead of those designed only for athletes, partly because the latter is more exciting and lucrative. But if money is only channeled to fancy opening ceremonies and stadiums, Olympics is nothing more than a fiction movie which shows things that never happen to ordinary people. Yes, athletes are running faster, jumping further and lifting heavier barbell, but Americans are getting more obese, and more Chinese are getting sub-healthy.

Rule-makers and Players

One day has passed since the disqualification of eight female badminton players from Olympics, but the controversy over it has not died out. It is the biggest frustration for the top three powers in this field ever since badminton's adoption by Olympics. No one had ever expected the No. 1 seed double players to end their Olympics in this way.

The accusation from the Badminton World Federation (BWF) was, as I quoted, that these players were "not using one's best efforts to win a match" and "conducting oneself in a manner that is clearly abusive or detrimental to the sport". The first charge is controversial - almost no one is using his best efforts to win a match until he has to. It makes perfect sense to preserve strengths before final. If we review Olympics games, it's quite common for swimmers to have better records in finals than in semi-finals. It's also not surprising if gymnasts choose easier movements to guarantee his qualification for finals, and go for more difficult ones later for medals. It's hard to define "best". You can't blame players on not making best efforts simply because they're not sweating to exhaustion, on contrary they're doing their best to win the match by using smart strategies.

The other charge is ambiguous: at least it's NOT clearly to me whether their manners are abusive or detrimental. Well, first I don't know what their manners are. If we assume the players are under the guidance of their coaches, then it should be their coaches' manner, not theirs. I don't think the BWF is ignorant of China's sporting system, and they should have some ideas on who's the decision maker on athletes' strategy. Ironically these BWF officials abused their powers over these poor badminton players while promising not to investigate the responsibilities of coaches - if you really want to defend Olympic values, do more investigation! Badminton Players who have been preparing for years for this moment, was scapegoated and helplessly found all their efforts in vain. And the person(s) in charge, successfully got away with it.

Secondly, it's also NOT clearly to me whether these players are happy to play in this way or their original intention was twisted by the change of rules. The BWF changed rules from  knockout rounds to a mixture of round robin and knockout  in Olympics even though they were warned of the potential damage - players can pick their opponents by changing their in-group rankings. Arrogant BWF didn't take it seriously, maybe because it was eagerly in search for a new rule to suppress Asia's dominance in badminton. Loop holes in the rules were so obvious that the best strategy was passive competition. If a player's best efforts will undermine his/her possibility of winning the championship, then it must be a problem with the tournament which is rule-makers' faults, not the players'.

Indonesia and Korea appealed right after the decision was announced. But Chinese Xinhua news, a mouthpiece of the government, soon released an announcement condemning Chinese players of violating Olympics values and supporting BWF's decision. I don't know how the deal was reached between BWF and Chinese sporting team, but the statement is shameless. A country who always claims itself a rising power and the second largest economy in the world, denied its responsibilities and passed the buck to two female athletes who actually had no choice but to follow the orders from their coach or even highers.

The BWF needed someone to be responsible for its stupid tournament to comfort the angry audiences and media when its officials were too arrogant to issue any apology, and the Chinese coach and his accomplice also needed someone to blame on to maintain their positions, which jointly made badminton players victims of the intrigue. The entire farce is an unfair-play between rule-makers and players, with the former denying their mistakes, and obliging eight innocent people to pay the price as high as their Olympics medals, professional reputations, and even career lives.

The Road to Peace or War

Olympics is always associated with peace. When Olympics were held in ancient Greeks, troops at war ceased fire to the end of the game. The truce, though temporary, gave people a glimmer hope of peace. When athletes from North and South Korea entered the main stadium hand in hand in 2000, audience hailed to them, believing this is exactly what the Olympics Spirit is: expanding understanding between rivalries, and promoting the course of peace.

However, as the most important competitive sports event, perhaps Olympics is leading its way to a different direction. Competition means winners and losers: athletes from one country winning the game, and the rest losing it. With a motto of "higher faster stronger" in mind, nothing else could look better than receiving medals on the podium. Thus competition is doomed to be superior to cooperation or hypocritical friendship. Since everyone - athletes, coaches and even audience - cares about the result, all means are exhausted to change  rankings. Instead of bringing peace, Olympics are triggering wars between rivalries.

A dramatic reversal happened at the end of Men's Gymnastics Team Final, when the Japanese top seed player Uchimura fell off pommel horse and his team's ranking dropped from the 2nd to the 4th. Britain, who historically won the 2nd place in gymnastics started to celebrate their biggest victory since modern Olympics held in 1896. Ukrain ranking the 3rd in the scoreboard was about to embrace a bronze medal and perk up in gymnastics since the collapse of Soviet Union. But seven minutes later, scores for the Japanese team were recalculated after appeals from Japanese coach, which raised its ranking to the 2nd. London audiences who had just celebrated this historical silver medal had to accept the fact that their silver medal was replaced by a bronze one about $5 worth. The audiences were obviously unhappy with the result, and their catcalls lasted for several minutes until awarding ceremony. Later on, many comments were found on twitter and micro-blog joking about "declaring a war against Japan" and how they "must have bribed judges for scores." Coincidentally a few days ago, China lost to Korea in the Women's Archery Team Final by one ring after Korean coach's appeal, which also aroused resentment within Chinese audience against Korea and doubts on the justice of the game.

Almost at the same time as the Gymnastics Final, a Korean female fencer appealed to the judge panel on her rival's last attack, which knocked her out in the semi-final. The appeal lasted half an hour and she declined to leave the stage when the result was not favoring her. The whole dispute took more than an hour. Her rivalry, a fencing superstar in German thus could not take a break between her semi-final and final, and ended up with a silver medal. The Germany media got very angry with the Korean athlete who delayed the competition and blamed her for disturbing the final. Furious netizens soon started lengthy accusation of the Korean girl of stealing the gold medal away.

The tension between badminton teams in China and Indonesia also escalated this morning when the Indonesian coach denounced Chinese players for starting the tradition of throwing their matches to face easier opponents in the next round in previous competitions and described Indonesian players as "victims" after the Badminton World Federation disqualified eight female badminton players from China, Indonesia and Korea from London Olympics a few hours earlier this morning. This coach's comment evoked wide anger within Chinese audiences who referred it as "outrageous and shameless."

Most furious resentment occurred over controversial disputes, when people believed it was due to some unfair subjective factors that their players lost the game. If this happened between countries with tense relationship - Britain and France, China and Japan, or Russia and the US, things could get worse. Patriotism can be easily translated into hostility against rival countries on such exciting occasions. Thank god we don't have athletes from Iran and Iraq competing for one gold medal, otherwise we may expect a nuclear bombing soon.

It sounds ridiculous to hope for peace when encouraging players from 204 countries to fight against each other fiercely. Perhaps Olympics can bring a transitory peace during wartime, but nothing more than trivial frictions when peace already arrives.

Uncertainties

Economists laugh at risk lovers and hail risk-averse preference based on their utility models, while psychologists make fun of these meaningless curves and straight lines, arguing that people's misperception of losses and gains leads to poor decision making. Uncertainties can be so annoying in the real world as it prevents us from future planning. With certain results, a lot of things can be arranged in advance. If I know the result of my bidding, I can be better prepared for the coming projects; even if it's a rejection, at least I'd know whether to go for alternatives. If I know where I'll be in the next years, I can plan my settlement better, rather than keeping all my stuff packed. If I know my boyfriend is going to propose by the end of this year, I could start planning our lives from now on. But uncertainties impede us from doing any of this. Thus in the real world, majority still prefer certain results under the same expected outcomes. (As shown in the graph, D in superior to B in terms of expected outcomes, but the their utilities are the same.)

But uncertainties can be very enjoyable if you don't have to pay the bill. I'm one of those who like watching people doing exercises more than exercising by myself. When I watch Olympics (sorry again), I find events like swimming, gymnastics more entertaining than table tennis or diving: the medalists in former two events are always uncertain, where traditional teams and emerging powers compete fiercely, while the latter two are basically dominated by Chinese. It is relaxing to watch games when you can foresee the results, but the real excitement lies behind uncertainties. It's fun to guess whether they will surprise us - either by extraordinary performance or mistakes, and stirring to see how youngsters will challenge their predecessors. Things could change in a few seconds (depending how fast Bolt can be), but until then everything is still a mystery.

Likewise, the uncertainties in our lives may be fun to others as well. For strangers, it is sometimes interesting to see how we can finally get things done, and what results we'd be able to get in the end. But for those who really care about us, they'd enjoy the uncertainties less. And for people who have a big share in our losses or gains, they'd be very happy to reduce as many uncertainties as they can. The best we can do is to play the role of "strangers", pretending the result is irrelevant and focusing on pushing the process towards the best outcome. The worst situation that we'd easily get trapped in is to worry about others' unknown future when we couldn't be any sort of help.

No matter how hard we have tried, uncertainties never leave us. They come one after the other, like a series of blanks to fill. Have you ever listed the top 10 must-do before turning 30, and did you "check" all of them when celebrating the day after the last day of your 29-year old. Have you ever been inspired by "I have a dream" speech and proudly claimed to have your own, and did you ever reckon whether you were on the right track to this ultimate dream? Once we accomplish or fail to accomplish something, new options always follow, which may or may not be the ones we want. Then should we reduce uncertainties by choosing one from them or increase uncertainties by exploring more options? There will be only one fact in our biography, but we all had the opportunities of writing it in a different way. Now we probably aspire for stable careers and lives, but when we have got old, we may cry over the opportunities missed over the period of our life time.

So facing such a fast-changing world, a wise choice is to go easy with uncertainties. Do what we want to, and leave the outcomes to the fortune. Sometimes we may pull off what we are yearning for, sometimes we may not. But even the failures will be worthwhile if we can still surprise ourselves and surroundings occasionally, and have some unplanned sweets.

Good-looking Olympics

Jude Law, Alain Delon, Takashi Kashiwabara, Hyde...what do they have in common? Attractive appearances can be so impressive that people only remember their glamorous images on screen, but forget - intentionally or not - their mediocre acting skills, nasty personalities or messy private lives. Similar things happened 12 hours ago in London, where Japanese and Chinese teams were competing for the gold medal in Men's gymnastics team final. Sports commentators mentioned that judges seemed to favor Japanese gymnasts, and had been quite generous in grading their performance. Coincidentally, most Japanese gymnasts are very good-looking. Kato Ryohei (pictured at left), born in 1993 attracted most attention from the audience during his first play in Olympics. He only attended two of the five group competitions, and (honestly) he's probably below the average in Japan, but people soon started to talk about his movie-star like looking, not the real superstar Uchimura. There is rumor that all the Japanese gymnasts wore make-up to please audience and judges, which proved to be a quite successful strategy.

Similarly, Germany team also gathered a bunch of good-looking people. Marcel Nguyen (see the right picture) won thousands of fans in China soon after his performance. Sports events which require subjective evaluation from judges, like gymnastics, diving and skating, tend to favor good-looking athletes, who are more advanced to feast audience's eyes on their performances though athletes in the same event always have similar figures. Accessories, including their sportswear, hairstyle, etc, though not relevant to a tidy performance, are significant contributors to high grades. Other events, whose rating system is not so "soft", like weightlifting, swimming and sprint, are less picky of the appearance.

We can't really blame this as unfairness or discrimination against athletes with plain looks. Preferences for fair faces and rosy lips exist everywhere simply because beauty brings over more pleasure. Although people accolade diversity and eulogize different sorts of beauty for different ethnic groups, and claim that every one is beautiful for what he/she is, the truth is they still have unanimous aesthetic standards. It's undeniable that watching beauties is very enjoyable, and there is a price that people'd like to pay for the enjoyment. When judges watch a beautiful athlete performing on the stage, they probably gain some joy for his/her appearance, which will more or less compensate for the mistakes committed.

The world is not fair anyway. It's not surprising that you may have to give up singing if you're not beautiful enough, but disadvantaged in sports events for appearance sounds much more cruel. Endowment like a straight nose and rosy cheeks will remove some barriers in career life for sure, but people will unattractive looking can still have lovely smile and clear eyes. How much our personality can make up for the disadvantages in appearance remains in doubt, but at least worth trying - you never know when and how you will get paid back.

Olympics with Chinese Characteristics

Since the opening ceremony, I have been preoccupied by Olympic Games, tracking its schedules, marking the key events, cheering for the champions and grieving for those who missed their opportunities. Today there is some interesting news that I'd like to make a few comments on.

One story is about a weightlifting gold medalist from North Korea, who magically lifted the barbell three times of his own weight, burst into tears during the interview and attributed his accomplishment to the "love of Kim Jong Il and his successor Kim Jung En". The silver-medal winner, a Chinese athlete, cried over his failure and told the reporter that he was very sorry for "disappointing his beloved country and people." He shouldn't be sorry: among those who are not blessed by the Kims, he is still the best.

Also in the weightlifting competition, a 17-year old Chinese female athlete who was assigned to Group B failed to lift the barbell three times and ended her performance with a score of 0. This probably doesn't happen that frequently in the Olympics, but shouldn't be a big surprise: uncertainties are very common in sports events. But later Chinese reports claimed this entire event to be a "shameful event in Chinese weightlifting history", as an athlete ended with a score of 0 in a sport that Chinese teams have been good at traditionally. A long report released the inside information about the selection procedure of weightlifters, which seemed to be a compromise between local governments. The poor girl was interviewed after her performance, "I didn't know what happened, I was probably too nervous." She said with a blank look.

Zufilya, a female weightlifting athlete who won a gold-medal in women's 53-kg weightlifting final for Kazakhstan, was revealed to be a Chinese athlete. She was "arranged" to become a Kazakhstan citizen in a so-called exchange program by the General Administration of Sports, who forged her resume to be qualified for immigration. She is alleged to return to China after this Olympics, as agreed in the exchange program. When Zufilya was on the podium, singing the anthem of Kazakhstan, her colleague Ping Li, who was viewed as the most valuable athlete in women's 53-kg weightlifting, could only stay at home due to the compromise in domestic power games.

All these stories, give us a jigsaw of China and its communist comrade's state-run sports systems. Obsession with gold medal is only the start of all the tragedy. I think it's amazing for an athlete to be eligible for participating Olympics. Gold medals are precious for sure, but silver, bronze ones are beautiful too. But this is not the case for Chinese sports officials. They sent congratulatory telegrams to a gold medalist without even mentioning the name of the bronze medalist, who is also a Chinese athlete, let alone those who attended the competition but not getting a medal. Thus you will find Chinese athletes very depressed if they miss the gold medal, while athletes from UK, US, etc still happily kiss their silver or bronze medals. I couldn't constrain my anger when I saw such a hard working athlete apologize for "getting a silver medal only." This simply doesn't look right.

Behind the dream for gold medals is the cost of billions of dollars and huge wastes of human resources. Government squanders tax payers' money on training athletes to win models (and reputation in their eyes) in international sports games, the number of which determines promotion and demotion of sports bureaucrats. Kids from poor background choose to get engaged in sports for better lives, and own their livings on their rankings. When they're not able to participate competitions any more either because of their ages, wounds or other political reasons, government usually offers them paychecks based on previous achievement. Thus too much burden is laid on these communist athletes, for all their competitions are connected with national honor and pride. The quality of their future lives are largely determined by a few competitions as well. Some athletes are very successful, like Deng Yaping, a Ping-pong player who won four Olympics gold-medals, has become a senior-level government official after receiving her degree from Oxford. But most of them, who fail to make a name of themselves, suffer from sports injuries and low payment for the rest of their lives. If we do understand the harsh side of the whole story, we may find Olympics in China very different from Coubertin's original intention, but more similar to an ancient Chinese proverb: one general achieves renown over the dead bodies of ten thousand.

I noticed an interesting contrast in microblog and facebook. Most of my microblog friends, who are Chinese of course, talk about Olympics intensely and cheer for every gold medal the Chinese team earns. But my facebook friends, most of whom are Americans, don't even mention a word of Olympics, but their personal lives - party, trips and family. I like watching Olympics, but I hate the fact that it is our attention to the Olympics that is making these children fight for the vanity of nation at the cost of their childhood, youth and future. To prevent more children from suffering these unnecessary pains, maybe we should start off showing less passion for the game, and caring less about the ridiculous national pride in international sports competitions.

Process and Outcome

If an athlete were informed of the likelihood of winning Olympic gold medals, which is probably one of the most unreachable career target in the world, would she/he still be determined to take the harsh training for decades? Some of them, if really interested in the game, will still enjoy the training and find the training process quite a treatment. But if you only focus on fighting for the gold medal, taking which as a stepping stone to a better life, it's really not a good deal. Just think of spending years on an impossible gambling - not wise, seriously.

Which is more important, processes or outcomes? People kept asking this question for thousands of years. When we are working on something, sometimes painstakingly, it'd better be rewarding enough to justify our efforts. But we are always disappointed: thousands of people apply for the same college, but only one tenth of them are accepted; a hundred capable graduates apply for the same position, but only one of them is recruited. What if you are one of the unfortunate nine tenth or the ninety-nine other applicants? Majorities are facing this question. Most of them continue trying, looking for opportunities with other universities or companies until they get one. And then they will tell you that they've enjoyed the process so much that the outcome is not that important anymore.

They are not telling the truth. It is the expected outcome that drives them moving forward. They make efforts only to achieve certain objectives. Very few people choose to file application materials if they know the application will end up nothing, and even less decide to apply just for fun. When they are bothered by rejections or "thank you for application but ..." letters, it's difficult for them to tolerate their (sometimes continuous) failures all the time without wondering whether they've wasted too much time on this issue, or if there is any inherent problems with themselves. People fight to win. They can appreciate failures, but only because that will help them gain more experiences and finally lead to future successes, not the nonsense of enjoying process rather than outcomes.

Back to the question raised at the beginning of this blog. Even if I like the game so much that I don't mind undergoing all the rigorous training, I may not choose to do so: there must be better ways to enjoy it. Why don't I just keep practicing until I think I'm ready for Olympics, instead of claiming myself an Olympic athlete before I'm good enough. If a gold medal has never been the outcome I'm after, the process will be more enjoyable with less pressure, frustration and superfluous ambition. It's the same with school or job applications. Set up targets at different levels, and then go with the one you're most comfortable with. It's in this way that process can lead to the outcome you're looking for.

Most people have dreams. But dreams are different from objectives. Dreams can be illusion, imagination and fantasy, but objectives should be more practical - at least attainable through our own efforts. Processes, which provide us with knowledge, experiences and understandings of the world, will surely lead us to some outcomes - whether expected or not, which are perfect rewards to our efforts in previous years. It is from the process that we should expect some outcomes, not the reverse: setting expectations for outcomes to fill up processes.

If I overstate this topic a little bit, it's also a question on life and achievement. We can still have happy lives without achieving anything unless we believe we're predetermined to accomplish some targets. But if we do understand the importance of enjoying living, some nice outcomes may come naturally.

Olympics Uniforms

Recently all the participating countries to the 2012 London Olympics presented their Olympics kits, including a set of suits for opening ceremony and several sportswear for award ceremonies and competitions. Athletes from hundreds of countries will get together in London, which makes the Olympics a best time to show the world the differences. This explains why designers always choose colors on national flags, and try to include state plants or animals on collars, cuffs or hem, like the giant tulips brooch for Dutch athletes, and kangaroo-shaped embroideries on their Australian counterparts' suits.

The strictly-limited choice of colors differentiates Olympics uniforms from most fashion designs. This could be a very challenging job especially when the colors are not so comparable, like red and green, or purple and yellow. However, fashion masters know how to use these colors wisely, and create an unparalleled beauty by putting contrast colors together. Please take a quick look on the right side. Most people probably won't wear navy blue and bright orange together (unless you are connected to Princeton,) but the orange coat and the blue dress that the third lady from the left is wearing match so well. The bright orange and the highly saturated blue make a perfect comparison, their owner shines like a star.

If you're not comfortable with intense usage of contrast colors, instead you may choose one of them as the main color, and use others as decoration. Ralph Lauren decided to dress American athletes in this safe but a little mediocre way. When I looked at these people standing in front of the Stars and Strips, I thought it's just another Ralph Lauren show. Quite satisfactory design and typical American style, everything is nice in absence of that beret from 1960s.

This is a little bit off the topic, but dear Mr. Reid, I fully agree with you that the US Olympic Committee is out of their minds and these made-in-China uniforms should be burned in piles immediately, which is exactly the right thing to do today! No trade, no foreign-made! Though most commodities would be much more expensive than today, but US textile industry will absolutely be saved, and people will happily work in textile workshops again. In the end, just a kind reminder: the US electronic, cosmetic, luxury, auto... and shipping industry may not be happy with your new law of closing international trade and excluding the US from a market of 1.4 billion potential consumers. But I'm sure you'll find a way to deal with that.

Back to uniforms. Now I will present you the kits of the Great Britain. Designed by Stella McCartney, it breaks down the Union flag and removes the redness from the flag to make it look "modern". Some internet users criticized her design and demanded to "get the red back", but she did a good job in defending herself, and won a lot of supports later on. I came across a small piece on the union flag's evolution earlier today. It looks like the red diagonal St. Patrick's cross represents Ireland, whose color can be hardly seen in UK uniforms. I think Stella is very lucky that she's not born in China. Just imagine, if we have some cute stuff representing Tibet on our Five-star flag, which is removed by the designer for beauty concerns, how Chinese "angry youth" will scold at this poor woman! What's worse, if the big brother is not happy, she'd be in real trouble.

Thus China has a very politically right Olympics kit, which however is a strong candidate for the Annual Worst Dressed Award. Red is my favorite color, and I love yellow too. But I've never expected them to be so ugly until I saw Chinese athletes presenting their uniforms. For those familiar with Chinese cuisine, there is one popular dish in China called tomato fried eggs, yummy and easy to cook. When that dish is served, the plate is filled with bright red and yellow, as you can imagine the color of eggs and tomatoes. Random mixture of these two colors makes the dish very tempting, but not the suits. If the designer (if there is any) don't have good controls over these two colors, try a more conservative way and be safe! It's also very funny that other countries decorate their uniforms with national flowers, while we decorated them with our national dishes. Anyway, the PRC Olympics kit is nothing but a tomato fried eggs with too many tomatoes.

I read somewhere a few days ago that the buttons on these uniforms are 24K gold. I also want to express my deepest sorrow for these buttons, you guys really deserve better than this.