2010 Olympic Mascots Warm and Fuzzy

By Tom Wright

VANCOUVER,CANADA,(Hollywood Today)2/5/2010–The Opening Ceremony for the 2010 Olympic Winter Games is an event of historic importance that presents Canada with a once-in-a-generation opportunity to tell a story that inspires a world audience of three billion.

“The Government of Canada is a proud supporter of the 2010 Winter Games. We, and all Canadians, look forward to a memorable Opening Ceremony that will allow the world to see the best that Canada has to offer,” said Minister Emerson.

Canada has hosted the games before first Montreal 1976,  and now 2010 Vancouver, let hope that history doesn’t repeat itself…

Olympic Games Gold Medal Scandals and Controversies

The 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal, Canada

The 1976 Olympic Games were marred by boycotts and drug allegations. Before the Olympic Games, New Zealand’s rugby team toured South Africa (still mired in apartheid) and played against them. Because of this, much of the rest of Africa threatened the IOC to ban New Zealand from the Olympic Games or they would boycott the Games. Since the IOC had no control over the playing of rugby, the IOC tried to persuade the Africans not to use the Olympics as retaliation. In the end, 26 African countries boycotted the Games.

The Games were also a financial disaster for Quebec. Since Quebec built, and built, and built for the Games, they spent the enormous figure of $2 billion, placing them in debt for decades. Almost putting out the Olympic flame

Keeper of The Flame

1912 Summer Olympics

• American athlete Jim Thorpe was stripped of his gold medals in the decathlon and pentathlon after it was learned that he had played professional minor league baseball three years earlier.^[1] In solidarity, the decathlon silver medalist, Hugo Wieslander, refused to accept the medals when they were offered to him.^[2] The gold medals were restored to Thorpe’s children in 1983, thirty years after his death.^[1]

1932 Summer Olympics

• Nine-time Finnish Olympic gold medalist Paavo Nurmi was found to be a professional athlete and barred from running in the Games. The main conductors of the ban were Swedish officials, especially Sigfrid Edström, who claimed that Nurmi had received too much money for his travel expenses. However, Nurmi did travel to Los Angeles and kept training at the Olympic Village. Despite pleas from all the entrants of the marathon, he was not allowed to compete at the Games. This incident, in part, led to Finland refusing to participate in the traditional Finland-Sweden athletics international event until 1939.

• After winning the silver in equestrian dressage, Swedish equestrian Bertil Sandström was demoted to last for clicking to his horse to encourage it. He asserted that it was a creaking saddle making the sounds.

1936 Summer Olympics

• The I.O.C. expelled American Ernest Lee Jahnke, the son of a German immigrant, for encouraging athletes to boycott the Berlin Games. He was replaced by United States Olympic Committee president Avery Brundage, who supported the Games.

• In the cycling match sprint final, German Toni Merkens fouled Dutchman Arie van Vliet. Instead of disqualification, Merkens was fined 100 Reichsmarks and kept the gold.

1956 Summer Olympics

• The mens water polo final achieved notoriety as the Blood in the Water match, played between Hungary and the USSR, and is arguably the most famous match in water polo history. The match was played out against the background of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution and saw Hungary defeat the USSR 4–0.^[3]

1968 Summer Olympics

• 1968 Olympics Black Power salute: Black American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos performed the Power to the People salute at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City.

1972 Summer Olympics

• The Munich massacre occurred during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany, when members of the Israeli Olympic team were taken hostage by the Palestinian terrorist group Black September, a group with ties to Yasser Arafat’s Fatah organization. Eleven of them were murdered.
• In the controversial gold medal basketball game, the USA Olympic Basketball team battled for the gold medal for the last few seconds against the team from the Soviet Union. With three seconds left and the Americans leading the Soviets by one point, a Soviet attempt to run an inbounds play was aborted when their coaching staff interrupted game officials to argue that the team was due a timeout. Another play was run, which failed to score and sent the American team into jubilant celebration over their apparent victory. But the play was ruled invalid because the game clock had not been properly reset when the ball was inbounded. The clock was reset and a third play was run, on which the USSR scored a layup to win, 51-50. Infuriated by the actions of the officials, the American team refused to accept the silver medals, and, to date, has not retreated from that stance.^[4]

1976 Summer Olympics

• In protest against the New Zealand rugby union team’s tour of South Africa, Tanzania led a boycott of twenty-two African nations after the International Olympic Committee refused to bar New Zealand. Some of the teams withdrew after the first day.
• Soviet pentathlete Boris Onischenko was found to have used an épée which had a pushbutton on the pommel in the fencing portion of the pentathlon event. This button, when activated, would cause the electronic scoring system to register a hit whether or not the épée had actually connected with the target area of his opponent. As a result of this discovery, he and the entire male Soviet pentathlon team were disqualified.^[5]

1980 Summer Olympics

• Polish gold medalist pole vault jumper Władysław Kozakiewicz showed an obscene “bent elbow” gesture to the jeering Soviet public at the stadium during the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow causing an international scandal and almost losing his medal as a result.

1984 Summer Olympics

• In the finals of the 3000 metre track event, a collision involving South African Zola Budd and American Mary Decker resulted in the latter being unable to complete the race. Although Budd was leading at the time of the collision, and regained and held the lead for a while after it, she eventually finished 7th, fading in the final lap, after boos from the crowd. An IAAF jury later found Budd not responsible for the collision.

1988 Summer Olympics

• Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson was stripped of his gold medal for the 100 meters when he tested positive for stanozolol after the event.
• In a highly controversial 3-2 judge’s decision, South Korean boxer Park Si-Hun defeated American Roy Jones, Jr., despite Jones pummeling Park for three rounds, landing 86 punches to Park’s 32. Allegedly, Park himself apologized to Jones afterward. One judge shortly thereafter admitted the decision was a mistake, and all three judges voting against Jones were eventually suspended. The official IOC investigation concluding in 1997 found no wrongdoing, and the IOC still officially stands by the decision. A similarly controversial decision went against American Michael Carbajal. These incidents led Olympic organizers to establish a new scoring system for Olympic boxing.

2000 Summer Olympics

• Romanian Andreea Răducan became the first gymnast to be stripped of a medal after testing positive for pseudoephedrine, at the time a prohibited substance.^[6] Răducan, 16, took Nurofen, a common over-the-counter medicine, to help treat a fever. The Romanian team doctor who gave her the medication was expelled from the Games and suspended for four years. The gold medal was finally awarded to Răducan’s team mate Simona Amânar, who had obtained silver. Răducan was allowed to keep her other medals, a gold from the team competition and a silver from the vault.

2004 Summer Olympics

• Kenyan boxer David Munyasia tested positive for cathine and was subsequently banned from competing by the IOC.^[7]

• Greek baseball player Andrew James Brack tested positive for stanozolol and teammate Derek Nicholson tested positive for diuretics during a pre-Olympic drug test.^[8] They did not compete.^[9]

• Greek sprinters and Olympic favourites Kostas Kenteris and Ekaterini Thanou withdrew from their team and from competition because they failed to take drug tests^[10][11] the Friday before the games began.^[12]

• During a surprise pre-Olympic doping test, Spanish canoeist Jovino González was found to have erythropoietin (EPO) in his circulatory system. He was removed from the Men’s Flatwater 500 metre competition.^[13]

• Spanish cyclist Janet Puiggros Miranda became the second Spanish athlete to commit a doping offence after also testing positive for EPO during a pre-Olympic test. She was withdrawn from the Women’s Cross-Country race.^[14]

• Swiss cyclist Oscar Camenzind tested positive for EPO during another pre-Olympic test and withdrew from the Olympic Games.^[15]

• Irish distance runner Cathal Lombard tested positive for EPO while in training after the Irish Sports Council noticed suspicious improvements in his running times. He qualified in the Men’s 5000 metres and the Men’s 10000 metres, but was banned from competing for two years.

• Myanmaran weightlifter Nan Aye Khine tested positive for steroids after finishing fourth in the women’s 48 kg weightlifting event and was disqualified.

• Moroccan weightlifter Wafa Ammouri, a medal favourite in the women’s 63 kg weightlifting event, withdrew at the last minute, with team officials explaining that she had suffered a shoulder injury. It was later found she had tested positive for steroids in a pre-competition test.

• Turkish weightlifter Sule Sahbaz tested positive for steroids a day before the Women’s 75+ kg weightlifting event and was barred from competing.

• Indian weightlifter Pratima Kumari was banned from the 63-kilogram weightlifting competition after she tested positive for excess testosterone during a pre-Olympic drug test. Her teammate, Sanamacha Chanu, was disqualified and stripped of her fourth place finish in the 53-kilogram weightlifting competition after she tested positive for furosemide.

• Uzbek shot putter Olga Shchukina was barred from competing in the women’s shot put after she tested positive in an out-of-competition screening for the steroid clenbuterol.

• Ukraine was stripped of its women’s quadruple sculls bronze medal after rower Olena Olefirenko tested positive for Ethamivan.

• Belarussian high jumper Aleksey Lesnichiy was barred from competing in the men’s high jump after testing positive for the steroid clenbuterol.

• Russian weightlifter Albina Khomich, a favourite in the Women’s 75+ kg weightlifting event, tested positive for the banned steroid methandrostenalone during an IWF pre-competition test, and was banned from competing in the 2004 Olympic Games.

• Greek weightlifter Leonidas Sampanis tested positive for excess testosterone after competing in the 62 kg weightlifting event. He was stripped of his bronze medal and ejected from the Games.

• Russian shot putter Irina Korzhanenko was stripped of her gold metal in the women’s shot put event when she tested positive for stanozolol.^[16]

• Hungarian disc thrower Robert Fazekas was stripped of his gold medal and Olympic Record in the men’s discus event after failing to produce a sufficiently large urine sample, and then leaving the testing facility early.

• Adrian Annus was stripped of his gold medal in the Hammer throw event after he was caught tampering with his sample.

• Russian sprinter Anton Galkin was ejected from the Olympic Games after he tested positive for stanozolol. He had qualified for the final after finishing in 4th place in his semifinal of the Men’s 400 metres.

• Colombian cyclist María Luisa Calle lost her bronze medal after testing positive for heptaminol. The Colombian Olympic Committee successfully appealed the decision. In November 2005 she was reinstated as bronze medalist due to a testing error.

• Irish showjumper Cian O’Connor’s horse, Waterford Crystal, tested positive for fluphenazine and zuclophenthixol months after receiving a gold medal. The subsequent investigation was hampered by several suspicious events. When O’Connor requested a second test, the horse’s B urine sample was stolen enroute to a laboratory. Documents about another horse belonging to O’Connor were stolen in a break-in at the Equestrian Federation of Ireland’s headquarters. Finally, in the spring of 2005, O’Connor was stripped of his gold medal.

• The officiating in swimming and gymnastics was called into question several times. Eventually for artistic gymastics, a new point system was implemented for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China.

• Hungarian fencing official Josef Hidasi was suspended for two years by the FIE after committing several errors during an Italy-China match.

• Canadian men’s rowing pair Chris Jarvis and David Calder were disqualified in the semifinal round after they crossed into the lane belonging to the South African team of Donovan Cech and Ramon di Clemente and in doing so, according to the South Africans, interfered with their progress. The Canadians appealed unsuccessfully to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

• In the women’s 100m hurdles, Canadian sprinter Perdita Felicien stepped on the first hurdle, tumbling to the ground and taking Russian Irina Shevchenko with her. The Russian Federation filed an unsuccessful protest, pushing the medal ceremony back a day. Track officials debated for about two hours before rejecting the Russians’ arguments. The race was won by American Joanna Hayes in Olympic-record time.

• In a tournament match in men’s volleyball, the US and Greece were in the final game of the match (Game 5). When the Americans were handling the ball, a whistle was blown from the audience. As a result, the Greeks stopped their defense because in volleyball the ball is “dead” as soon as a whistle blows. To the officials however, it was a still a live ball. That let the Americans make the last spike to win by two to move to the next round. The Greek team protested, but the officials let the play count. No appeal has been made.

• Iranian judoist Arash Miresmaili was disqualified after he was found to be overweight before a judo bout against Israeli Ehud Vaks. He had gone on an eating binge the night before in a protest against the IOC’s recognition of the state of Israel. It was reported that Iranian Olympic team chairman Nassrollah Sajadi had suggested that the Iranian government should give him $115,000 (the amount he would have received if he had won the gold medal) as a reward for his actions. Then-President of Iran, Mohammad Khatami, who was reported to have said that Arash’s refusal to fight the Israeli would be “recorded in the history of Iranian glories”, stated that the nation considered him to be “the champion of the 2004 Olympic Games.”

2008 Summer Olympics

• Players for the Spanish men’s and women’s basketball teams posed for a pre-Olympic newspaper advertisement in popular Spanish daily Marca, in which they are pictured pulling back the skin on either side of their eyes, narrowing them in order to mimic the typical Asian eye.^[17]
• Spanish cyclist Maria Isabel Moreno was ejected from the Games after a pre-competition test showed the presence of EPO in her system. She was later questioned by Spanish police.^[18]
• Swedish wrestler Ara Abrahamian dropped his bronze medal onto the floor immediately after it was placed around his neck at the medal ceremony to protest the officiating in his loss to Italian Andrea Minguzzi in the semifinals of the men’s 84kg Greco-Roman wrestling event.^[19] He was subsequently disqualified by the IOC.
• North Korean shooter Kim Jong Su was stripped of his medals and ejected from the Games for use of the banned substance propranolol.^[20]
• Vietnamese gymnast Thi Ngan Thuong Do was ejected from the Games after she tested positive for the diuretic furosemide.^[20]
• Questions have been raised about the ages of two Chinese female gymnasts, He Kexin and Jiang Yuyuan. This is due partly to their overly-youthful appearance, as well as a speech in 2007 by Chinese director of general administration for sport Liu Peng.^[21]
• Ukrainian heptathlete Liudmyla Blonska was stripped of her silver medal after failing a drugs test, and was subsequently banned for life from competition; she had previously tested positive for stanozolol in 2003 and served a two year ban.^[22][23]
• Norway’s last second goal against South Korea in the semifinals of handball put it through to the Gold Medal game. According to a photograph that has surfaced on the Internet, however, the ball had failed to fully cross the goal line prior to time expiring. The South Koreans protested and requested that the game continue at the overtime point. The IHF has confirmed the results of the match.^[24]
• Cuban taekwandoist Ángel Matos was banned for life from any international taekwondo events after kicking a referee in the face. Matos attacked the referee after the referee disqualified him for violating the time limit on an injury timeout.^[25] He then punched another official.^[26]

Winter Olympics

1968 Winter Olympics

• French skiier Jean-Claude Killy achieved a clean sweep of the then-three alpine skiing medals at Grenoble, but only after what the IOC bills as the “greatest controversy in the history of the Winter Olympics.”^[27] The slalom run was held in poor visibility and Austrian skiier Karl Schranz claimed a mysterious man in black crossed his path during the slalom race, causing him to stop. Schranz was given a re-start and posted the fastest time. A Jury of Appeal then reviewed the television footage, declared that Schranz had missed a gate on the upper part of the first run, annulled his repeat run time, and gave the medal to Killy.
• Three East German competitors in the women’s luge event were disqualified for illegally heating their runners prior to each run.

1972 Winter Olympics

• Austrian skier Karl Schranz, a vocal critic of then-IOC president Avery Brundage and reportedly earning $50,000 a year at the time,^[28] was singled out for his status as a covertly professional athlete, notably for his relationship with the ski manufacturer Kneissl, and ejected from the games. Schranz’s case was particularly high-profile because of the disqualification controversy centering on Schranz and French skiier Jean-Claude Killy at the 1968 games and Schranz’s subsequent dominance of alpine skiing in the Skiing World Cups of 1969 and 1970. However, the ostensible reason was that Schranz was photographed at a soccer game wearing a T-shirt with a coffee advertisement.^[29] The incident led directly to changes in athlete sponsorship rules: Schranz reportedly said of these “It’s an emphasis on the wrong principle. I think the Olympics should be a contest of all sportsmen, with no regard for color, race or wealth.”^[28] Brundage‘s twenty-year reign as President of the IOC ended six months later and subsequent presidents have been limited to terms of eight years, renewable once for four years.

1994 Winter Olympics

• Jeff Gillooly, the ex-husband of American figure skater Tonya Harding, arranged for an attack on her closest American rival, Nancy Kerrigan, a month before the start of the Games. Both women competed, with Kerrigan winning the silver and Harding performing relatively poorly. Harding was later banned for life both from competing in USFSA-sanctioned events and from becoming a sanctioned coach.

1998 Winter Olympics

• At the 1998 Winter Games in Nagano, Japan, a judge in the ice dancing event tape-recorded another judge trying to preordain the results. Dick Pound, a prominent International Olympic Committee official, said soon afterward that ice dancing should be stripped of its status as an Olympic event unless it could clean up the perception that its judging is corrupt.^[30]

2002 Winter Olympics

• A number of I.O.C. members were forced to resign after it was uncovered that they had accepted inappropriately valuable “gifts” in return for voting for Salt Lake City to hold the Games.
  Further information: 2002 Winter Olympic bid scandal

• Dual gold medals were awarded in pairs figure skating, to Canadian pair David Pelletier and Jamie Salé and to Russian pair Yelena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze after allegations of collusion among judges.

• Three cross-country skiers, Spainard Johann Mühlegg and Russians Larissa Lazutina and Olga Danilova, were disqualified after blood tests indicated the use of darbepoetin. Following a December 2003 ruling by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), the I.O.C in February 2004 withdrew all the doped athletes’ medals from the Games, amending the result lists accordingly.

• South Korean speedskater Kim Dong-Sung was disqualified for cross-tracking (cutting off another skater) through the final turn of the men’s 1500 metre short-track speedskating final. This disqualification handed the gold to American Apolo Anton Ohno.

2006 Winter Olympics

• Members of the Austrian biathlon team had their Olympic Village residences raided by Italian authorities, who were investigating doping charges.

Hollywood Today STV Special Medal Adward

Bronze, Silver, Gold metals awarded  for sports viewing television medal.

More Things To Watch, Download, Upload, Report,Search,Write, Watch, Read,Blog,Tweet, Post, Facebook, Myspace,  all this while watching the 2010 Vancouver Olympics  thank you very much…

Super Bowl,Winter Olympics, College Basketball, Hockey,Baseball,Golf,Horse Racing,Scooter, Nascar,NBA,Women Basketball,Volleyball,Lacross,Feild Hockey,Swimming, just us your ibong to order food and other services.

2010 Olympics Gold Medal Quotes
Jeff Fenech (Australian boxer, 1984 Summer Olympics)
An Olympic medal is the greatest achievement and honor that can be received by an athlete. I would swap any World Title to have won gold at the Olympics.

Bill Toomey (American decathlete, 1968 Summer Olympics)
The Olympics have been with the world since 776 B.C., and have only been interrupted by war, especially in the modern era.

Noureddine Morceli (Algerian athlete, 1996 Summer Olympics, on breaking records)
I am still young. I have a lot of time. And if someone breaks my records in the future, I won’t cry. That’s sport.

John Walker (New Zealand athlete, 1976 Summer Olympics)
We could be looking at the greatest middle distance runner of all time.

Venuste Niyongabo (Burundi athlete, 1996 Summer Olympics)
As long as Morceli is in the race, it is always [a race for] second place.

Dawn Fraser (Australian swimmer, 3-time winner at the Olympics)
The Olympics remain the most compelling search for excellence that exists in sport, and maybe in life itself.

Noureddine Morceli (Algerian athlete, 1996 Summer Olympics)
When I race my mind is full of doubts – who will finish second, who will finish third?

Debi Thomas (African-American figure skater, 1988 Winter Olympics)
I got a bronze medal and I can’t complain about that, the only African-American to get a medal in the Winter Olympics.

Noureddine Morceli (Algerian athlete, 1996 Summer Olympics)
Perhaps I don’t give the impression that I’m hurting on the track. But that is because I am animated by an interior force which covers my suffering.

Mary Lou Retton (American gymnast, 1984 Summer Olympics)
For athletes, the Olympics are the ultimate test of their worth.