Olympics Aftermath...

I miss the olympics already. I forget sometimes that I have transformed to become a great armchair sports-person... so here are my few comments and memories of the greatest show on earth (and they have been influenced by later events...) .

1. Diving - what an awesome dive from Mitcham of Australia to overtake the chinese diver for Gold, with an impossible near perfect executed dive, on the last dive. Even the armchair sportsman was impressed. A true champion... but... did you know he was gay? On google I discovered this - rather I would think, what is the big deal? But it seems that these groups highly publicise his win - lets just say they are proud of him! (Picture Credit to the site).

2. Swimming - I probably got tired of Michael Phelps after his 3rd gold. No doubt, he is one of the best olympian in history, if not the best. But what really impressed me was the emergence of the lesser nations - ie. The Korean who won the breaststroke - he broke the China-Australia-America domination!
Picture Credits to Korea Times

3. Athletics - Usain Bolt, need I say more? And the biggest screw up for US for both their mens and womens 4x100.

4. Athletics - Yelena Isinbayeva - awesome focus and mental strength. She said - "The world is my runway and I am here to perform" and perform she did, at 5.05m

5. Badminton - Lin Dan - sorry to ignore Lee Chong Wei here, but Super Dan played an awesome match in the final. I would never say Chong Wei did not perform, but Lin Dan performed exceptionally well!

6. Tennis - Rafael Nadal - congratulations to the newly crowned world number one - best match was with Novak Djokovic - this was really more the gold medal match than the other one with Fernando Gomez.

7. Weightlifting - you would not believe I would watch this, but not only myself, but countless other armchair TV addicts during the olympic season loved weightlifting. My favourite lift? The chinese lady who said she can, and shattered the world record. I cannot remember her name

8. Soccer - playing under the 42C temperature for the final - congraulations to both Nigeria and Argentina!

9. Cycling - Road racing all the way to the great wall of china. Fantastic route and challenge.

10. Marathon - And... the finale, one up for the marathon woman - Constantina Tomescu (38 years old!!!!)
Congratulations and I did watch both the men's and women's marathon. What impressed me was despite the contrast of the two events (womens was in the rain, mens was quite hot), I was humbled by these representatives who really battled themselves to the finishing line - it was inspirational to see the TV broadcast showing numbers up to 60-70 and up to the end position, despite the winner has probably already gotten tired of running their victory lap. It signifies the effort and the triumph of the marathon, and the human spirit.

With this, I hope to have the same inspiration 4 years later from London 2012.

Great show, Beijing.

Fired up over fireworks... MIFC - Spain!

To the nicely choreographed soothing music and numb knees, three precious hours of standing and the nasty rain cutting into the routine, fireworks has never been so beautiful against the Putrajaya sky.

The photographer, however, needs to improve her amateur status ...

The KL Rat Race - Master Stroke!

Euphoria could not describe my young team's first ever "medal" win of the KL Rat Race.... And how better more to do the master stroke at the crown jewel event of the corporate world!

The Rat Race this year was a lot more subdued probably due to the issues at Bursa earlier of the month for the system failure, the poor performance of the local share market, and the low sentiment of the economic impact from the US sub prime issues.

The usual suspects in the CEO race was not there, and the large RHB team in the past was eclipsed in all areas, including the podium finishes, when the CIMB team upstaged the competition this year. Even Digi, who sent in the largest contingent this year, with 10 teams were subdued in moderate white polo tees with yellow lining, and the two yellowmen and the mobile toilet Celcom PowerTools folks did not seem to really push the atmosphere.

Or maybe, in my 6 year to support the Rat Race (Ran 4 of them, and supported 2 of them, this year with the honor of "choosing" the team and being a back seat driver!), I felt a satisfaction of bringing a team and driving them to achieve a 2nd place finish, and also I finally felt a different sensation - one of a great team at work, charged, and delivering in high performance, and I no longer need to be in the active driver seat.

Congratulations to the team, if you work for it, if you dream it, you can achieve it. The "secret" is that there is no "secret" but to do the best and enjoy the journey.

Don't be surprise the competitive blood is in me that I would like to "qualify" for the Rat Race next year, as we will dream of yet another way to win. What spirit!

Photo - Candid on one of the CEO reps - This looks like a Usain Bolt action, looking behind on the last bend to see if any competitors coming

Amateur Photographer

Can you imagine, after two years and still an amateur photographer?

Dusted my camera recently over the spate of activities, and had taken it out to three separate outings as an amateur photographer, the first was company outing at Lumut which I was the lead organiser, the second the company badminton tournament and the third, the KL Rat Race.

Read on for later posts of these events.

Photo : Since I am in the photo with my camera, obviously I did not take this photo! My comment was that all "semi-pros" and "pros" photographers have a blog or facebook photo with their face partially covered by the camera. The logic was that the camera was an important identity, but most photographers shy away from the camera themselves. That started my attempt during the weekend company trip away where there were MANY DSLRs to take the opportunity for SOMEONE to take that "semi-pro" shot... so... nice or not? Now to take some good photos to post together with my "author" shot...

My parents read my blog!

I would like to welcome my mum to cyberspace, officially! She read my blog! I will need time to recover from this shock ...

Well, seriously, this short entry is specially dedicated to my parents - for which raising me to who I am now, and I feel humble and honored at the same time to be trying to be now in return teaching you about the things such as internet which the opportunity was never available to both of you back then.

With the internet, satellite TV, CNN, online newsfeeds, SMS alerts, we are in a world of information and opportunities aplenty to use or enjoy the knowledge brought about by these sources. Let us hope that we continue to use this information wisely and enable the next generation to prosper further from knowledge.

Ancora Imparo* - I am still learning ...

*latin motto of Monash University, my alma mater

Let the Games begin ... 08 08 08

Photo - from Business Week


Only China can stage the Olympics opening ceremony in the way they did on historic 08 08 08 at 8 08 pm...

Suffice to say that I am so incredibly impressed, and upset as well that I could not get to see the repeat - I was at Lumut for an offsite meeting and community office event - and sneaked off the post dinner activities to snuggle in the karaoke room on and off, and waited for the opening ceremony lighting of the Olympic torch.

And it was well worth the wait.

Li Ning, 4 times gold medalist for China, and a balding 40+ year old entrepreneur now, was hoisted up via suspension ropes to the stadium walls, after being passed the olympic flame, and proceeded to simulate a run through the stadium walls - a sight to behold - no runner could contain the delight of seeing the amazing choreography which showed the impression of Li Ning running magnificently against a spotlight on the stadium walls (when he was just being swung around and swaying his legs simulating a run) whilst a scroll unfolds, depicting the history and culture of China. And finally to the torch, which had been erected minutes before, and lighting a fireworks path which traversed to the torch and lit to flames...

Let the Games begin...

Note - I am indeed a pure sports fan surprising to some people - I was so impressed with the road race cycling (yup, I aim to own a bike by end of year), enthralled by the weightlifting (eh, how come they are so muscular and still so light in weight...), waiting always to see our badminton boys, pinpoint impressed by archery, even watched rowing skulls... (no time to blog!)