Dodi Fayed – Executive Producer of Chariots of Fire – Died August 31, 1997

He died in one of the most famous car accidents in the 20th century.

Dodi Fayed and his friend, Diana, Princess of Wales, were in the back seat of a Mercedes-Benz W140 departing a hotel in Paris. Followed by camera-wielding men on motorcycles, the car lost control in the Pond de L’Alma tunnel, and tragically, on this day in 1997, both Dodi and Diana lost their lives.

Dodi Fayed was the eldest son of the Egyptian magnate, Mohamed Al-Fayed, who owned at the time the Harrods Department Store, the Fulham Football Club, and the Hotel Ritz in Paris, where Dodi and Diana stayed just before their demise.

Dodi was the executive producer of Chariots of Fire, the story of Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams competing for glory at the 1924 Olympics in Paris. If you don’t recall the movie, you probably would recall the movie’s theme by Vangelis. The film won four Oscars at the 1981 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Screenplay and Best Original Score.

On the re-release of Chariots of Fire during the 2012 London Games, quite a lot was written about the producer of the film, David Puttnam, and his money man, Dodi Fayed. For some

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Ashton Eaton breaks decathlon world record, wins World Championship

The amazing Ashton Eaton – the world’s greatest athlete.

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In the Presence of Awesome, We Watch in Awe (Even Olympians)

Mekhi Gerrard giving up an enormous home run in the Little League World Series.

Red Land Little League from Lewisberry, Pennsylvania beat Webb City, Missouri 18-0 in an opening game of the Little League World Series that took place in August.

Cole Wagner smashed a grand slam in an 8-run third inning to get his team up by 18 runs, which if you know baseball, is a lot! What’s even better – the reaction of the pitcher who surrendered the massive hit by Wagner. Watch the video below from the 45 second mark and see the absolute amazement of the pitcher, Mekhi Gerrard, who forgot he was a competitor, enjoying the moment.

Even at the Olympic level, athletes can find themselves in awe.

Bob Hayes was the man in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Everybody seems to have a story about him, and how awesome he was.

The 1992 US Men’s basketball team, aka The Dream Team, had ten of the 50 greatest players in NBA history at the Barcelona Games. According to Olympic.org, “So overwhelmed and star-struck were America’s basketball opponents they even requested photograph and autograph-signing sessions before playing them.”

And by the time

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These photos show why you never want your city to host the Olympics

Abandoned ski jump in Sarajevo_Reuters_Dado Ruvic

Very sad.

Source: These photos show why you never want your city to host the Olympics

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The Elusive Nature of Time – When is a Tie a Tie and Not a Tie

Kanako Watanabe is one of the up-and-coming swimmers from Japan, who won gold in the 200-meter breaststroke at the world championships in Kazan, Russia in early August.

More interestingly, in that same competition, the bronze medal went to three swimmers as they all finished with the identical time of 2 minutes and 22.76 seconds.

In the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, the regulations set by the international swimming body FINA dictated that times were measured in tenths of seconds, and the first arbiter of times were human judges. In fact, judges would line up at the end of the pool where the race would finish. Not only did they time the swimmers with hand-held stopwatches, they also used their eyes to determine when the swimmer in their lane touched the wall, presumably seeing finishers with their peripheral vision to determine whether they finished ahead or behind swimmers in neighboring lanes.

In the men’s 100 meter freestyle competition, Don Schollander took gold in an Olympic record time of 53.4 seconds. Brit Robert McGregor took silver with a time of 53.5 seconds. However, two men ended up with identical third-place times. Both Hans-Joachim Klein of Germany and Gary Illman of the USA were determined by the judges to have touched the wall at 54 seconds flat. But using the unofficial electronic time available at the Tokyo Games, Klein finished one one-thousandth of a second faster, and was awarded bronze.

So remember, even today, every one one-thousandth of a second counts.

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Japan dominating at judo worlds | The Japan Times

Japan continued to dominate and Tina Trstenjak won Slovenia’s first-ever world title at the World Judo Championships in Kazakhstan on Thursday.

Source: Japan dominating at judo worlds | The Japan Times

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This is Horrible, No Funny, No Horrible…

Very grateful Usain Bolt was not injured. For those who think it’s funny, it’s worth turning on the sound to hear the Italian commentator’s “Mama mia!”

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“Hey Taxi – Leve-me para o Estádio Olímpico, I think”

It’s not just Japan where taxi drivers are challenged by English. Brazil, which will be hosting the international sporting lovefest known as the Olympics in the summer of 2016, will also have to figure out how to communicate with the non-Portuguese speaking hordes who will descend on Rio de Janeiro next August.

It’s such an issue that a Brazilian newspaper saw fit to do an article on a company marketing a language program called “Hey Taxi”, a course designed to teach taxi drivers how to effectively communicate with foreigners in English.

The project is run by a company called Meritus Partners, and as one of the company partners explains, the Brazilian taxi driver needs help. “Since May, when I started conducting research with the cab drivers in Rio, I have learned that they have very limited understanding and awareness of their role in the hospitality sector yet they are the host of the city, the first impression of a foreign tourist.”

Fortunately, not all taxi drivers in Brazil need help. This fellow not only gets the passenger to his destination in time, he does a fantastic rendition of Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean.

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Detroit Loses to Tokyo for 1964 Games

Before Detroit became the 21st century poster child for urban decay as well as the largest American city to go bankrupt, it was once the shining city on the hill.

After World War II, the American economy transitioned from a war footing to a consumer footing, and continued to boom, while most other advanced economies dug itself out of the rubble. As Detroit coalesced into the heart of the American auto industry, with Chrysler on the east side of Detroit, with Ford and GM on the west side. While cities like NY and Chicago crammed people into buildings in narrow plots of land, Detroit expanded horizontally as middle class American built row after row of middle class houses on the back of a booming automobile culture.

With a huge influx of migrants attracted to work opportunities, particularly from the South, Detroit was not only becoming more affluent, it was becoming more diverse – the bouncy beat of Motown in the 1960s, originated in Detroit by producer Berry Gordy.

So it would have been no surprise for Detroit, arguably at the heart of the American economy, with the soul of American music, to have the ambition to host an Olympic Games. Unfortunately for Hockeytown (as the home of the Detroit Redwings

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Gholamreza Takhti and Shunichi Kawano: The Chivalrous and the Shamed

What did Shunichi Kawano do? What behavior was so shameful that this Japanese wrestler was banished from the Olympic Village by his coach because it would “adversely affect the morale of other athletes.” It was reported that Kawano “lacked fighting spirit”, an accusation that was amplified as he lost in the presence of Crown Prince Akihito and Princess Michiko at the Komazawa Gymnasium.

Two days later, Kawano appeared before the press with his head shaved, an apparent act of

contrition. But instead of playing the role of the shamed and contrite, he told the press that he didn’t feel he lacked the so-called “Olympian fighting spirit”. And it appears that the public sided with him, because Kawano was allowed back into the Olympic Village after the sensationalist coverage of this story by the press in Japan shamed the Japanese authorities to reverse themselves.

Whatever happened, it is in contrast to the reputation of the wrestler who beat Kawano in that light heavyweight freestyle match, the Iranian wrestler, Gholamreza Takhti. He was not the most decorated athlete in Iran in the 20th century, but he was a hero to Iranians, primarily for his honorable behavior.

As is stated in this article remembering the “Gentle Giant”, he was often described with such words as “chivalry, humility, kindness and gentleness”. Takhti was known to apologize to opponents after defeating them, apparently once apologizing to the mother of a Russian opponent who was looking sad upon her son’s defeat.

Takhti won gold in

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The Olympians

Month: August 2015

Dodi Fayed – Executive Producer of Chariots of Fire – Died August 31, 1997

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Ashton Eaton breaks decathlon world record, wins World Championship

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In the Presence of Awesome, We Watch in Awe (Even Olympians)

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These photos show why you never want your city to host the Olympics

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The Elusive Nature of Time – When is a Tie a Tie and Not a Tie

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Japan dominating at judo worlds | The Japan Times

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This is Horrible, No Funny, No Horrible…

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“Hey Taxi – Leve-me para o Estádio Olímpico, I think”

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Detroit Loses to Tokyo for 1964 Games

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Gholamreza Takhti and Shunichi Kawano: The Chivalrous and the Shamed

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