I never watched figure skate seriously, I have only watched the highlight on TV. Watching a live show confirmed my belief that figure skating is boring. The first few skaters are fun to watch, but soon the novelty wears off. The movements of all skaters are more or less the same, they are just jumps, turns, spins, throws in different sequence. Watched one pretty much watched them all. The most noticeable difference among the skaters is some of them screwed up the landing and lost their balance. Figure skating is so boring that I slept thought the second half of the show.

Sports, like figure skating, with no objective measure of winners and losers are usually boring. It relies on subjective measurements like aesthetic appeal of the judges to determine the outcome, so you don’t get any excitement out of competition. In sports with objective measure, it is easy to understand the athletes, as their action are directly related to winning the game. However in sports without objective measure, the athletes’ actions do not have obvious purpose and the sport lost its meaning, thus it is boring.

I did not welcome the Olympic Games in the beginning. I worried about the tourist flooding the city and curse the Olympics cuts my ski season shorts. I never watch much Olympic Games, not even the 2008 Beijing Olympic. Before February 16, it seems Olympics is none of my business.

It turns out the Olympic Games is a huge success and somehow I caught the Olympic fever. I was glued to TV every night watching events highlights, cheering for Canadian (and Chinese) athletes. All those winter sports seems so boring in the past to watch suddenly becomes interesting. When a Canadian is fighting for a place in the podium, tense atmosphere got me and I shared the excitement. I watched Olympics with colleagues in the cafeteria at work during lunch. For some high stake events, I slack off a bit and watched the CTV online broadcast in the afternoon using my laptop while trying to get some work done at the background. We even book a meeting room to watch preliminary hockey games together when the Canadian team is playing.

The city is full of Olympic spirit and the Games indeed brings people closer with each other. I went to downtown twice to experience the Olympic events. I lined up for 5 hours just to hold the gold medal. Everyone in the city becomes more friendly and open. Strangers whom don’t look at each other in normal days now talks to each other. The Olympic seems universal catalyst to begin a conversation. Everyone has something to say about the Games.

I watched the hockey semi-final and final at a local pub. I wanted to watch it in downtown with the crowd in front of the big TV but I am turned off by the traffic and long line up. The hockey game connects everyone in the pub together. People smile at each others’ Canada goodies and we make waves during game. When there are a full room of people cheering for the same team with me, I really feel like Canada is where I belong. The mood of the whole pub is controlled by what is happening in the TV. When Canada is leading 2-0, we are all yelling and cheering. When the US tie Canada 20 seconds before the end of game, everyone is dead silence. When Crosby score the golden goal, everyone gets loud and give high fives to anyone. It’s a weird scene that the whole pub sing O Canada after we won the game full of enjoyment.

We have spent $1.67 billion to host the Olympic Games, we won’t know whether we can will break even or not. However, Canada won 13 gold medals and 25 medals in total and we gave the world a really good show. I don’t the Economical return of the Games, but it definitely raise the morale of the country and united the Canadian identity. Regardless of your background, your colour, everyone in Canada is together with Team Canada striving to win the hockey game. This is the most watched hockey game ever in Canada history, probably in the world too.

How far is an Olympic gold medal? To the athletes, it’s thousands of hours of training and many years of hard work. To me, it’s 6 hours standing in line. In the past, normal people can only see the medal on TV or behind display cases unless you happen to know a medalist. For the first time in the Olympic history, the public are allow to touch and hold an Olympic medal. The Royal Mint of Canada pavilion is probably the best free attraction in this Olympic game and always have the longest line up. Other pavilions are either tourist show case from other countries or advertisement in disguise of the corporate sponsors. The Mint gives you a once in a life chance to hold the Olympic medals, so it is a must see.

The line up is very very long. The pavilion opens at 9:00a, but when we arrive at 8:30a the line up is already one block away. I was told the person at the head of line was waiting there since 6:00a. The line is moving very slow because they only let 20 people into the medal room every 10 minutes. Since everyone in line has the Olympic mood and start chatting with each other. For the next 5 hours, I talked with two grannies, two young guys living on the West side, a mother with 2 teenage kids, a couple from HK and a lady with her dad. It is pretty interesting to hear different perspectives about the Olympic and Vancouver. It is the longest wait I ever have. I never know I can be this patient. Luckily, we can take turns go to the washroom and get coffee from the near by Starbucks. To my surprise, all the strangers I talked to are local Vancouver folks, except one family from White Rock, which is only 2 hours drive away. I wonder where all the tourist is. Maybe they are too busy watching the games and don’t bother lining up for the free shows.

The medals definitely worth the long wait. We are allow to pick up the medals, see it up close and take as many photos as we like. They give out white gloves and can only touch it with our glove hand. But we are not allow to pose any V sign nor allow to bite the medal like the athletes. There is an engineers from the Mint today to give us a brief talk about the making of the medals and answer all the weird questions. The Olympic medal is round in shape and the Paralympic medal is slightly square. The Paralympic medal has braille dots on the back for the blind athletes. The medal is heavier than I expected, each piece weight about 0.5kg. I am not going to repeat the information about the medals here. To know more about the medal, please visit mint.ca.

Other than the Olympic medals, the Mint pavilion has other cool stuff to see. There is a $1 million dollar coin made in pure gold in display. It looks like a giant loonie except the face value has 6 more zeros after the one. We can also lift up 400oz gold bar. It is exactly like the gold bars I always see in those bank robbery movies. I can feel how much half million dollars worth of pure gold weight. It’s very heavy. I had never hold something such valuable with my hand. Too bad that the gold bar is chained and guarded by armed policemen. I really want to take it home.

My legs and back is soared when we left the Mint pavilion. Originally I planned to visit three different pavilions today, but after the Mint, I have to call it a day. I am sure I will have a sweet dream about golds in my hand tonight.

1. None of the Winter Olympic events is interesting, except Ice Hockey
2. I could not get any Olympic tickets, so it makes no difference to me whether or not it is in Vancouver. I am watching it on TV anways
3. Millions of tourists comes to town disturb my normal life. It is a lot harder to make restaurant reservations and everything cost more during the Olympic
4. The road closure in the city makes rush hour traffic across the city a nightmare.
5. The Canadian team uniform really ugly. Roots definitely have better designers than The Bay.
6. The Olympic will blow a black hole in the city’s budget. Prepare for tax raise after the Games
7. Most of the Olympic events are held during the day when I am at work. My productivity would greatly suffer during that two weeks
8. The Olympic mascots does not make sense and there are four of them. Why don’t they simply use a beaver or a Canadian moose
9. The Sea to Sky Highway only got a half-ass upgrade. It should have 4 lanes all the way from Vancouver to Whistler and bypass all the traffic lights in Squamish

and most important of all,

10. The Sea to Sky Highway is closed during the Games and no one can drive to Whistler. Olympic interrupts my ski season!

Can you imagine yourself being an Olympic athlete? I almost feel like one when I am skating on the Olympic speed skating arena. It is less than 1 year from the 2010 Winter Olympic in Vancouver The brand new $200 million Richmond Olympic Oval is open to the public starting earlier this month. A day pass costs $12.5 but Pat got some free coupons from her friend.

The Oval is the largest ice rink I have ever seen, about twice the size of a standard hockey rink. The rink has a 200m long oval shape skate race track. The center area in the rink is converted to basketball court and badminton court. The spectator area in the balcony is converted to a open gym with exercise equipments overlooking the ice. There was a big crowd tonight. I bet most people use free coupons just like I do. Although there are lots people, it is not that crowd when they are spreading out on the ice.

Skating in a speed race oval is a very different experience than in a hockey rink. In a hockey rink people skate in all direction. In the oval everyone has to go counter clockwise. In a hockey rink, I can’t go very fast or I will end up hitting the wall soon. In the oval, I can pick up lots of speed in the long race track. I can accelerate in the straight road, but I don’t have to slow down for the turns. The turns at two ends are so gentle that I can keep my speed. I never skate that fast before. I hit my speed limit of my current skill level. I feel I couldn’t go any faster without losing my balance. I don’t even know skating can be a cardio exercise. Skating in the oval make me feel like I am running in laps.

The free pass expire next week. For those who are interested, you can download it form here. Skating in a speed oval is definitely one of the must do things in your adventure check list.

The firework is pretty cool, the LCD scroll is pretty neat, but the rest is quite cheesy.  The show is quite repetitive, every chapter is more or less the same, thousands of people doing some routine act together in synchronize steps.  No dispute that those volunteers spent lots of time to practice for tonight’s show.  I admire their effort but I also laugh at their stupidity.  Routine tasks are best done by robots.  It make no sense for thousands of people wasting time to practice for a show.  It would be more efficient to build a thousand robots to perform the act.  You don’t need any practice, you just have to upload the same software to every robot and you are guarantee to have a perfect synchronize show.

但我並不認同那些報章的觀點﹐我提出相反的意見﹐我認為參加奧運會運動是目的就是要贏﹐支持的理論請容我在文章下半部才慢慢例出來。

此要贏為前題底下﹐中國在奧運上項目發展上的策略就十分正確了。世界其他國家在女子項目上的水平﹐相對的比男子項目為低﹐在男女平等為前提的低下﹐男女子的金牌是有同樣的價值。而中國作為迎頭趕上的國家﹐在有限資源的情況下﹐自然應該把資源優先投資在最高回報的項目上。因此發展女子項目是必然合理的選擇。

也說說冷門熱門之分。不同的國家對冷熱有不同的看法﹐尤其在球類運動上。歐美等國家認為﹐足球籃球棒球等項目在自家流行﹐就一廂情願的以為全世界同 樣的流行。可不知在中國﹐乒乓球羽毛球排球等﹐才是熱目的流行項目呢。中國發展其實也是在國內流行的熱門運動啊。至於一些公認的熱門冷門之分﹐如田徑游泳 相對於跳水體操等﹐在金牌數目的成本效益之下﹐也是應該把資源投入在比較相容拿金牌的項目中。

當然我上面說的這些體育發展策略﹐只有參加奧運會是為了獎牌的前題之下才成立的。現在讓我肯定的確立這個前題吧。

奧運會一向有什麼公平競技﹐體育至上﹐至在參與等奧運精神。這個奧運精神是上一世紀﹐當奧運還只是業餘運動的歷史遺物。

自八五年洛杉磯奧運大改革後﹐奧運就已進化為專業運動﹐其性質已和NBA﹐NHL﹐歐洲足球聯賽接近。專業運動就是在為群眾提供體育娛樂的賺錢機器﹐和其他形式的娛樂﹐如電視電影唱片等沒有分別。專業的體育運動員﹐不過只是另一種式形存在真人騷演員。

這個名叫運動的真人騷有指定的規則﹐過常規則大多是公平的。公平主要是從可觀性作為考慮﹐但更多的規則只純綷令賽事更加刺激好看﹐(例如﹐排球取消了發球權﹐乒乓球板規格等)。同時這個騷的演員也會名成利就﹐除了演出費(體育項目本身的津貼和獎金)外﹐還有巨額的廣告贊助。

若NBA﹐NHL﹐足總聯賽的各球隊告訴你﹐他們不在乎拿冠軍的獎杯﹐只是為了參加比賽和其他球隊增加友誼﹐球迷觀眾不高喊退錢回水才怪。同樣的也是專業運動的奧運會﹐為什麼卻以爭取金牌為恥呢﹖

有些人或會反駁﹐說奧運會不是專業運動﹐但他們如何解釋奧委會的天文數字廣告和轉播合同﹐以及大部份參加奧運的運動員也是職業運動員的這個事實呢﹖

中國在奧運這個專業運動上投資了四億元(若沒有記錯數目的話)﹐平均每個國民花費一元也不到﹐但卻為十億人民帶來超過二個星期的娛樂﹐以投資金額相對於為人民帶來的歡樂﹐今屈奧運的投資真是物超所值了。

十六天的奧運終於完結了﹐預測的金牌數目也沒有很太的出入。明顯的憑著改革開放帶來的經濟成果﹐中國成為了今屈奧運的大贏家﹐總共拿了三十二面金牌﹐除了在金牌榜上輸給全球的唯一超級大國美國外﹐已隱在三甲的位置﹐有能力和俄羅斯爭一日之雄。

中國成績優異是意料中事﹐但更加有趣的數字﹐就是十五個前蘇聯的加盟共和國的金牌數字﹐加起來有四十四面之多﹐遠遠拋離美國的三十七面。在冷戰時代﹐蘇聯和美國在奧運會上爭過焦頭爛額﹐誰也勝不了誰。在蘇聯解體後短短十數年間﹐在體育成績的上就已經拋離美國。在經濟學上有一個說法﹐一個國家的主權是不可以有效率地無限擴大﹐當國家主權超過了某一個限度時﹐再擴張就會違反經濟成本。從前蘇聯的例子看來﹐把超大的統一國家進行和平分裂﹐把權力下放至地方政府﹐成為技術性獨立但緊密關係的次大國﹐更合乎經濟發展的利益。

反觀統一後的德國的金牌數目﹐就比統一前的東西德遜色很多了。可見大型國家的合併﹐和在市場上大型公司的合併一樣﹐失敗遠遠超出成功的例子。

看畢這些數據後我不禁想﹐若中國自願分拆為三四個大國的聯盟﹐會否更有利經濟發展﹖中國的經濟發展也快到了瓶頸的位置了﹐政治的改革中央把權力下放是唯一的出路﹐但中央有沒有決心把權力下放貫撤到底﹐成立類似前蘇聯共和國或歐盟般超越國家的上層架構呢﹖

想不到奧運金牌榜中﹐竟然會為台灣獨立﹐找到在經濟學上的支持。