Posts Tagged ‘Beijing Olympics’
Barack Obama’s election to the White House has topped all major news stories in global media since 2000, according to a latest research. The analysis by Global Language Monitor (GLM) says that citations of Obama in the global print and electronic media, on the Internet, and throughout the blogosphere was more than double the other main stories of the last decade combined.
These include the Iraq War, the Beijing Olympics, the financial Tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, the death of Pope John Paul II, the 9/11 terrorist attacks and Tsunami.
“The historical confluence of events in 2008 is unprecedented. Aside from Obama’s election, we witnessed the financial tsunami, which appears to be a vast restructuring of the world economic order, and the Beijing Olympics, which can be viewed as the unofficial welcoming of China into the world community as a nation of the first rank,” says Paul JJ Payack, President and Chief word analyst of GLM.
“This lends some credence to the idea that on January 20, 2009 we are about to embark on the second decade of the second millennium,” Payack says.
Akhil
Posted on: December 10, 2008
Akhil Kumar gave India a resounding start at the inaugural AIBA boxing World Cup, out-punching Germany’s Marcel Schneider 15-6 to enter the bantam weight semi-finals and assure himself of a medal in Moscow on Wednesday (Dec 10).
The 27-year-old Indian will be up against Beijing Olympics silver medallist Yankiel Leon Alarcon of Cuba in the semi-finals on December 13. The Cuban beat Botswana’s Khumiso Ikgopoleng 7-0 in the other last eight bout.
Today’s win has not just assured Akhil of a bronze medal but also USD 2,500 in prize money. “I was slightly nervous to start with because the first bout is always crucial. He (Schneider) was not attacking and I also stuck to counter-punching. I kept my guard down, like I usually do and gained in confidence as the bout progressed,” Akhil said after the bout.
Akhil, who was a quarter-finalist in Beijing, was in rampaging mood today and didn’t allow his opponent to land a single scoring punch in the first round, at the end of which he led 4-0.
The diminutive counter-puncher built on the lead in the next two rounds, scoring seven points. Though Schneider managed to hold his own in the third and fourth rounds by landing six blows, Akhil’s first-round lead gave him a comfortable six-point cushion.
The final round belonged to the Haryana-boxer, who picked up three more points to complete the formalities.
“The coaches — GS Sandhu and Jaidev Bisht — asked me to keep moving around the ring at good pace and that did the trick for me. My fitness is nowhere near what it was during the Beijing Olympics but it is good,” said Akhil.
“My target is the gold medal. The bronze and silver medals are the ones you get by luck. Next up for me is a Cuban boxer and though he is formidable, I am ready for the challenge,” he said.
Among the other bantam weight results, world champion and local favourite Sergey Vodopyanov, whom Akhil beat in the second round of Beijing Olympics, scored a comfortable 13-7 win over Uzbek Hoorshid Tojibaev.
Vodopyanov next faces Beijing bronze medallist Veaceslav Gojan of Moldova, who defeated Azerbaijan’s Rahim Najafov.
Anti-doping authority Don Catlin and cancer detection expert Lance Liotta say they’re progressing toward a urine test for human growth hormone that could close a major drug-testing loophole.
The man described as the “guru of sports doping” and an East Coast cancer detection expert said they’re on the way to establishing a urine test for human growth hormone that could close a drug-testing loophole experts described Monday as a “widespread” problem in sports.
Don Catlin, a Los Angeles-based worldwide doping expert who oversaw blood testing for HGH at the Beijing Olympics, and Dr. Lance Liotta, a former pathology lab chief at the National Cancer Institute’s Center for Cancer Research, have launched a study to build upon Liotta’s ability to identify isolated markers of HGH in urine.
Catlin’s anti-doping research is entering the third year of work on a three-year, $450,000 grant by Major League Baseball to establish whether an HGH urine test is possible.Baseball officials who weren’t allowed to discuss the situation publicly told The Times the Catlin-Liotta partnership now is poised to be “at the front of the line” when the Partnership for Clean Competition — consisting of MLB, NFL and the U.S. Olympic Committee — begins to distribute funds from a pool of $10 million later this year.
Liotta, a professor at George Mason University, said he has arranged a study of students there that will analyze their natural HGH levels in blood and urine. The study will seek to establish a baseline standard that can be compared for instances when an abundance of synthetic HGH, prescribed mostly for AIDS patients and individuals with dwarfism, is found in the system.
Cautioning that such research is conducted “in fits and starts,” UCLA professor Gary Green, the summit director who serves as MLB’s consultant on performance-enhancing drugs, said a realistic timeline for HGH urine testing would be the 2012 Summer Games in London.The clock will tick amid abuses, summit attendees warned.
“Growth hormone promotes muscle mass and reduces fat mass . . . and is widely used by athletes,” Dr. Richard I.G. Holt of England’s University of Southampton said.World Anti-Doping Agency senior manager Osquel Barroso said that in light of the current situation, when synthetic HGH leaves the system in 36 hours or less, WADA will advise its worldwide Olympic partners to conduct increased out-of-competition testing.
Summit expert Dr. Thomas Perls, a Boston University associate professor of medicine who has worked with the Drug Enforcement Agency and Department of Justice, said the use of HGH for anti-aging purposes and athletic enhancement by a reported 200,000 in this country has emerged as “a big public health threat.” He described the public distribution of HGH as “a mafia-like drug-trafficking ring,” and said it’s “setting [users] up for cardiovascular disasters.”
But Gene Orza, the baseball union’s chief operating officer, repeated that players aren’t prepared to join the Olympians who submitted to blood tests.
“No one should have complete faith in a test that has not produced a positive result in 8,500 tests,” Orza said at the summit. “If there is a scientifically valid test for HGH, the players will get together and decide how they want to respond. My suspicion is they will adopt it. But they won’t be pushed into accepting something as scientifically valid before it is.”
Catlin admitted that although International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge said last week that he expected more positive doping results to emerge in re-testing of samples provided by Beijing athletes, he does not expect an HGH positive to occur.Green had earlier reinforced to attendees that a positive drug test isn’t confirmed until it clears arbitration.
Southland attorney Howard Jacobs, who defended cyclist Floyd Landis in his doping case after Landis was stripped of his 2006 Tour de France title, said the summit raised “a lot of questions” that he would likely explore if he ever represents an HGH-positive client. “They haven’t validated any positive athlete samples,” Jacobs said. “You have to wonder how many studies they’ve conducted, plus there’s collection and transport issues.”
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