Things are pretty quiet here at the Bureau now that the Olympics have (mercifully) ended. Media organizations around the world have been closing their foreign bureaus and Deadspin is not immune to the epidemic; this will be our final post. We’ll be giving up the glamorous blogging life and returning to our janitorial day jobs.

A rained-out baseball game against the Netherlands notwithstanding, we didn’t get to see many Olympics events in Beijing… but that was never really our intention. Lingering around outside media hotels under the watchful eyes of soldiers from the People’s Liberation Army was probably more fun — we heard the Olympic Green was boring anyway.

The palpable national mood - a weird combination of proud excitement and totalitarian nervousness and micromanaging – and the general strange happenings around here sort of drove our coverage. It was often rather heavy stuff – those Tibetan monk riots, the nationalism and the tumultuous torch relay that followed, racism, re-education camps for the elderly, etc…

The run-up to the Games and the frantic 16 days in which they occurred was a weird time here. Most Beijingers we met were extremely proud of their hometown, from the smiley volunteers to the elderly neighborhood watch patrols — one of the London Organizing Committee’s biggest drawbacks is that they won’t have a pool of thousands of eager volunteers (or potential hostesses, for that matter) from which to draw free labor. To some, the Olympics presented an opportunity to shed light on their causes, from the duped protest applicants to the permanent petitioners and political dissidents under house arrest in Beijing. To the people who organized this thing, BOCOG & the Chinese government, we bet they’re glad the thing is over, and that it passed without major incident. For the most part, we encountered little ambivalence about the Games.

These Olympics felt a bit like a climax here, having been reminded of the huge event for so long by advertisements and banners and security lockdowns. But the end of the Games doesn’t mean China as a news item is going away anytime soon; the microscope is going to stay. That’s for the better, we think. Life will keep rapidly changing in China and weird, fascinating things will continue to happen. The rest of the world will go on scrutinizing the government... and the government will probably change, gradually. We’re interested to see the coming response to the permanent attention.

We want to thank Will & AJ for letting us write, and especially you all for reading our ramblings – we had fun writing them. We’ll be sticking around for a while, so if you’re in town, look us up (deadspin.china@gmail.com). Take it easy, Spinheads; 慢 走.

The day after the Olympics officially ended, the Bureau found ourselves at Silk Street Market off of Jianguomen Wai in Beijing’s CBD. Silk Street is a massive 6-floor market filled with stalls of hawkers selling everything from baby clothes to fake Panerai watches to tailored suits.

We figured it would be a fun place to visit today; there were many people leaving the city, and they must need souvenirs, we thought. We were right. We saw Brazilian tourists haggling for teacups, Belarusian Rhythmic Gymnasts buying pearls; we got our picture taken with the women’s head basketball coach of Mali, of all places. In fact, we saw people from just about every country, from Croatia to Eritrea, all bemusedly bargaining for their last minute gifts at Silk Street. Because nothing says “Beijing: 2008” like a fake Paul Smith button-down.

We thought the scene going on inside Silk Street was a cool microcosm of an integral aspect of China’s relationship with the world: Foreigners from every continent colliding here to haggle for and buy cheap (often fake) goods.

But yeah, the Olympics are over. The ubiquitous, yellow accreditation-clad visitors begin their sweaty shuffle home, returning with new suits and stuffed Fuwas, all with stories to tell about how wonderfully exotic the last three weeks were. Soon, migrant workers and prostitutes will begin to poke their heads out of their suburban hiding spots and slowly return to the city center. Maggie’s will probably re-open. Our DVD store will restock (pirated) new releases; for some reason the only DVD’s available during the Olympics - in tourist areas, at least - were pre-1960 classics like Greta Garbo flicks, "Poseidon Adventure" and "Killer’s Kiss." We expect the normal pollution to return, like a warm, poisonous blanket you just can’t get to sleep without. Hopefully Beijing takes down the temporary walls it erected to (partially) conceal the city’s “grittier” neighborhoods.

We’re interested to see what happens to Beijing over the next few months. There are no more stadiums being built or anything, but skyscrapers and super-malls are still going up all over the place. Beijing, as opposed to, say, Athens or Sydney, is actually going to grow into the shell it’s built for itself during the Olympics. (Over the next four years, they’ll finish building four more subway lines.) The city will probably continue to have a use for the Bird’s Nest, Wukesong Arena, & the Water Cube (supposedly being turned into a mall) and that mysterious plaza of buildings near the Olympic Green. And by the time the Olympics roll around in 2016 (when the statute of limitations runs out on He Kexin, by the way), it’s not much of a stretch to think Beijing will have 25 million residents.

In a NY Times article about the handing over of the torch to London mayor Boris Johnson, we can begin to see the more relaxed approach to the next Olympics:

“Guo and Rogge were thin, erect and serious, encased in creased dark suits. Johnson shambled out, his middle button undone, a hand in his pocket. He waved, pointed, pumped his fist and grinned: a naughty schoolboy out with the grown-ups.”

We had a great time, but we’re ready to settle back into our normal, China-hued lives. And we’ll be happy to watch the next Games’ as outsiders, to see an Olympics that won’t take itself too seriously. One that won’t be a, gulp, “coming out party” but just… a party.

On the next post from the Deadspin Beijing Bureau: the Bureau searches for a new job as the Paralympics roll into town.

Actually, that question has been on the mind of sports writers and bloggers across the country for the past couple of weeks, as Team USA steamrolled their competition en route to the gold medal game: China (101-70), Angola (97-76), Greece (92-69), Spain (119-82), Germany (106-57), Australia (116-85), and Argentina (101-81). Although rarely offensively overwhelming, the Redeem Team used depth, superior athleticism and a swarming, smothering defense to crush their foes, both physically and psychologically. And just like that, it was no longer a question of whether they could bring home the gold, it was whether they were as good as - or, unbelievably, even greater - than the vaunted Dream Team of 1992.

The question is as natural as it is unfair. After all, the only way to truly understand something is to judge it in relation to similar things that have come before it. But the Dream Team was the first of its kind. It included ten of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History. And while two or maybe three of the Redeem Teamers have earned the right to stand among that pantheon — Kobe Bryant, Jason Kidd and perhaps LeBron James — the rest have not, or have not yet. Moreover, and I swear I'm not trying to sound like Chuck Klosterman here, the Dream Team was a cultural phenomenon that transcended the framework of its own sport. Some people, and Larry Bird is among them, even believe that the Dream Team was partially responsible for the rapid ascension of the overseas game. Which would be particularly ironic, that Team USA's utter mastery of international competition may have, in fact, ushered its fall from dominance.

Fortunately or unfortunately, the gold medal game probably ended the "who's better" debate. Despite the fact that they had already beaten Spain by 37 points earlier in the competition, they struggled mightily against them in the final game. Team USA won 118-107, and the game really was that close. A Rudy Fernandez three cut the Americans’ lead to only two with eight minutes left. That lead was still only four points with two and a half minutes to go when Dwyane Wade - who led all scorers with 27 points on 9-for-12 shooting - hit a huge trey to give the Redeemers a little sighing room.

And while the close call against Spain cost them significantly in the discussion of all-time greatness, it only served to justify everything that led up to the golden moment. The three-year commitment. The fact that Mike Krzyzewski had the respect of his players and knew what plays to call. The leadership of Kobe Bryant and Dwyane Wade. And the movement, the passing, the teamwork down the stretch. As team director Jerry Colangelo said: "Had we not been together for three years, we might have cracked. Individuals might have gone one-on-one. That would've been the tendency. The continuity paid off."

It really did. The American players, who for so long have been accused of overbearing pride and uncoachable arrogance, truly and completely put the team first. Not just in that final game, but over the course of the entire tournament and their three-year commitment. And, frankly, many people still didn't think that was possible as recently as three weeks ago, despite the fact that Team USA clearly had the best individual players in the Olympics.

We'll never know whether the Redeem Team could beat the Dream Team on the court. However, we do know that they'll never beat Dreamers in peoples' minds. The Dream Team was a fairy tale story of unsurpassed dominance. Unless something truly unforeseen happens, they will be The Best Olympic Basketball Team forever and ever. The Redeem Team, though, is a close second, both in terms of talent and meaning. And I don’t know about you, but I think that's a pretty sweet place to be.

Everyone told us the camp would be full of bugs and we wouldn't like any of the food. We got by, though, and we even got to see the sights. Repeatedly. We're all sighted out.

Still, we mean it about those good times. We'll look back on camp later on when we're buried with responsibilities and drudgery and wish we could visit again. We know we can't, but we'll wish we could stay up all night like we did during camp, just talking.

And we're triple-pinky swearing that we're not telling our steadys what we did over the summer. We learned that ping-pong trick from the Internet, we swear.

And now our own personal closing ceremony...

Closing Ceremonies [NBC Olympics]

Not that the Olympic boxing matches haven't had enough trouble with the judging, but an IOC official not attached to AIBA observed the gold-medal matches after extraordinarily odd judging decisions have yet again struck the same organization. Did we mention the rumors of bribes? Well, now we have.

We're sticking to judged Olympic sports with integrity, like taekwondo.

Judging scandal rocks Olympic boxing competition [Yahoo! Eurosport UK]

Ed. Note: Transplendent image via Ring Report.

Rogge claimed certain IOC delegates took Bud Selig's crusade against performance enhancing drugs as a blight upon the sport and that softball got caught in a bad PR halo effect. He was careful to name Barry Bonds specifically. It was unfortunate, of course, but that might be what happened, in Rogge's words. You know, that Barry Bonds killed Olympic softball as well as baseball. And love. Barry Bonds killed love.

By the way, they're building a velodrome in Great Britain for 2012. Jus' sayin'.

(P.S. The video doesn't seem to be up on the NBC Olympics Web site or elsewhere. Let us know if you spot their arrival to the Nets.)

Tuffy: So where are you now?  We assume ESPN didn't send you to Beijing because you haven't become the 1,000th journalist to do a piece on the Great Wall.

Dolich: I'm at home with my eyes glued to a 32" inch TV rigged to DVR the women's soccer final. But usually, you'll find me at my desk located in the ESPN The Magazine offices in Manhattan. I have a TV there too, but it's about 7 cm by 7 cm—and I figured I should probably watch on a screen bigger than a soccer ball.
 
Tuffy: How have you been covering the events?  Are you trying to analyze formations and strategy from a tiny computer window?

Dolich: I've been watching tons of NBCOlympics.com video, live and rewinds of the women's tournament matches (and in this case, yes, I'm analyzing teams from a tiny window that tends to freeze every 15 minutes), lots of surfing on USSoccer.com, FIFA.com, womensprosoccer.com and other Olympic related websites. I've also been pretty reliant on email communication, up until a week ago, with the U.S. team's PR representative in China for advanced quotes and inside information. But since everyone crashed the party after the women advanced to the quarterfinals, I've in blackout mode since.
 
For an interesting side-note: ESPN.com's U.S. men's national team beat reporter Jeff Carlisle was over in Beijing. After the men bowed out early in group play, Jeff switched over to women's coverage and was able to snag a few quotes for me along the way.

Tuffy: We like to think your coverage has been so spot-on because you have a
little experience with traveling to a distant foreign land with a women's soccer team for a tournament with "lympian" in the title to win a gold medal.

In 2005, you traveled to Melbourne to play with the U.S. deaf women's soccer team and bring home the gold.  What did you learn from that trip that you have applied to your coverage of these Olympics?  (You know, besides that no one in Australia drinks Foster's.)
 
Dolich: I can empathize with the U.S women's grueling schedule, and how hard it is to play in heat and humidity. What you saw these women do is more than just a physical feat, it's a mental triumph. When you travel thousands of miles away from home for an extended period of time, the team becomes your family. It's an exceptional time for team dynamics.

I also learned that drug testing sucks. A lot. (I was the Carli Lloyd of the women's deaf soccer team.) (Ed. note: Carli Lloyd got one more chance to hit the target after the medal ceremony.)

Tuffy: The Deaflympics soccer tournament is run by FIFA.  Is there a pickup
soccer game anywhere in the world that isn't owned in part or whole by Sepp
Blatter?  Does he require soccer players genuflect five times daily in the
direction of Switzerland?  We like to think he does.
 
Dolich: That's not entirely true, the Deaflympics soccer tournament abides by FIFA soccer rules, but the IOC is largely responsible for overseeing the Games. The Deaflympics has been around for almost 90 years, and it's a legitimate, global tournament with an opening ceremony, medals and drug testing. The only genuflecting I saw was from my Japanese fan club.

Tuffy: Yeah, no. What? Japanese fan club in Melbourne?

Dolich: I played the somewhat thankless position of right midfielder, which is one of the most exhausting and unglamorous jobs in soccer because you basically run suicides all game long.

It wasn't until we got to the final, which was played in Melbourne's Olympic Park stadium, that I realized how popular our team was with the fans—not only were we good, but we were also the best looking team in the tournament (which may or may not be saying much). One of my teammates pointed out to me after the gold medal match that I had a fan club, which I completely dismissed as a blatant fabrication. But she insisted on pointing out in the stands a small group of fans waving a  #7 (my number) banner. I thought it was hilarious. Later, before I boarded the team bus, a group of five of them swarmed me outside the stadium to get autographs and pictures, and insisted on finding me again at the closing ceremonies.

I don't think it was so much my playing they were a fan of as my blonde hair and blue eyes.

Tuffy: Has any of your in-depth coverage of the Olympic women's soccer tournament been able to explain what the hell was going on with that Japanese player with the afro?  Is she unaware of the lack of success traditionally in international competition with the hidden ball trick?

Dolich: Uh, no. If Eriko Arakawa (owner of the disco 'fro) had more of an impact in the U.S. games (even though she did score against us in the quarters), I would have considered doing a profile piece on her hair—y'know, give David Beckham a run for his money. Strikers tend to be a bit more flamboyant in soccer. Look at Natasha Kai, she's a perfect example with 19 tats, a couple facial piercings, multi-colored shoes and various colored sweatbands. I think we'll have to let "Unsolved Mysteries" take a stab at that one. (Ed. note: We didn't have the heart to tell her that Robert Stack is dead.)

Tuffy: How do you feel about the IOC and FIFA attempting to make new fans in China feel more comfortable by allowing people that have never watched soccer before officiate Olympic games? (We assume this is the case after watching the men's Argentina-Brasil contest.)
 
Dolich: No comment.

Tuffy: You've been critical (yet fair, we should point out) of the U.S. women's efforts in China this month, but you have been relatively effervescent about Hope Solo's success.  Every columnist covering the Games not currently taking a bike ride and fussing about the drivers there has parlayed the U.S.'s success in the tourney into a Hope Solo redemption tour.  (The New York Times starkly painted Solo as a pariah last spring after the World Cup debacle.)

Now, our question: is this notion of athletic redemption utter nonsense and, if not, which states will accept her for cash redemption?
 
Dolich: Absolutely not. I think professional athletes have opportunities to redeem themselves at every step of their career, that's what makes sports so special. Who isn't going to pounce on the story of Hope Solo actually making good on "I would've made those saves"? I don't know what else to call it but kismet. Solo went through hell after 2007, personally and professionally, and she deserves major credit for moving past her mistakes. Yes, her comments were inappropriate and poorly timed, but there needs to be a double standard in women's sports. These are competitive, elite athletes—of course there's going to be a little fire and ego that goes into their reactions. When it comes down to it, pure and simple, Solo played a phenomenal game against Brazil. I think its time now for fans and media alike to move on from what happened in 2007.
 
Tuffy: The U.S. women have been scoring from all manner of sources this tournament with the absence of Abby Wambach.  (Hell, we're just waiting for the ink to dry on our Lori Chalupny Fan Club application.)  Has the team been shaken from their desire to stand around and watch Abby do her athletic thing or is there a fair amount of luck involved here?
 
Dolich: I think as impressive as Abby Wambach is as a player and leader for this team, her injury was a blessing in disguise. Abby was the team's safety net. When you take away the safety net, interesting things happen, as we saw with this team—scoring became more evenly distributed, the players like Angela Hucles and Heather O'Reilly got the opportunity to step up, and the field opened up in ways we hadn't seen before. Abby is this team's greatest fan. On a conference call following her injury, she basically gave the media a lecture not to underestimate the U.S. women in her absence. There was genuine belief the team would be fine without her. Perhaps there was a bit of luck involved against Brazil, but the team rightfully earned a place in the gold medal match.
 
Tuffy: By our rough and rather prying calculations, you graduated from college
and became a writer for ESPN at a tender age.  (Or, as we call it around here, "bloggin' age".)  How did you land that gig?  Outside of Todd Jones and Boom Tho, we don't get a lot of athletes-cum-journalists around these parts.  (You are welcome to argue the notion that Todd Jones is an athlete. You are not welcome to argue the notion that Boom Tho is a journalist.  Our mancrush is strong.)  Did you always plan to be a sportswriter?
 
Dolich: Well, when my current boss found out I played college soccer, he recruited me for the sake of our co-ed ESPN intramural soccer team (which was about 0-4 and on its way to breaking the Dolphins 2007 winless record). (Ed. note: we should point out, for full disclosure, that we got the Weekend Daddy gig because we agreed to join the Gawker Competitive Eating team.) Otherwise, there was a bit of luck, hard work and resourcefulness involved in cracking ESPN's ranks.
 
I come from a sports family, I think it was always in my blood. Sportswriting was something I'd entertained since I interned for Soccer America Magazine in college. My dad, brother and sister are all on the sports business side— ultimately, I wanted to be the one to write the family memoir 30 years down the line.

Tuffy: Also, our mathematical pursuits suggest you're roughly the same age as most of the women you cover.  How do you approach interviewing them?  Fellow athlete?  Staid journalist?  Drinking buddy?
 
Dolich: Shhh... A real woman never discloses her age.
 
I think a little bit of all of the above minus the drinking buddy part—some of the players aren't quite drinking age yet.  I like to think my age gives me a bit of an advantage in the sense I can relate more to the players, and speak to them on a level they're comfortable with. When Leslie Osborne came into our office, we talked about her recent trip to Italy, boyfriends and some off the record stuff. I think it's important to crack a couple jokes during an interview, presuming you stick to your agenda.
 
Tuffy: Who do you read now?  Do you read blogs?  Do you read Deadspin?  Do you think we're pretty?  Please say you think we're pretty.

Dolich: I'll read anything and everything I can get my hands on. I'm a fan of authors like Paul Auster, Tom Robbins, and some old school stuff. One of my favorite sportswriters is Steve Wulf, who still writes for the Magazine on the rare occasion.
 
It's my job to read blogs!  Yes, of course I read Deadspin. I think it's kind of a given in the blog-eat-blog world we're in today. Aside from reading ESPN.com's and espnthemag.com's blog (just because), I'll check out thisisamericansoccer.com, the WNT soccer blog, and I'm kind of obsessed with NY Magazine's mixing pot of content online (it's the sexy Walmart of blogs).
 
Tuffy: Did you ever consider blogging before tWWL came knocking?
 
Dolich: Sure, why not? I wanted to write a food blog using sports metaphors.

Tuffy: And, finally: where can we expect to see you in two years?  Will you be sporting a 2009 Deaflympics gold medal at all your WPS post-game press conference?
 
Dolich: You'll laugh at the sheer shock and absurdity of this, but I'll be entering my second year of Stanford's doctorate program for English. I might be able to resurface from my stack of books on the occasion women's soccer calls, but really, I refuse to give up my byline. Otherwise, I have a plan to red-shirt for the Stanford women's soccer team for the next six years (that or maybe I'll apply for equipment manager).

In all seriousness, I'll actually be in a better place to cover women's soccer, with WPS's league offices located in San Francisco, and the Home Depot Center only a 1.5 hour plane ride away. I plan to do a little bit of freelancing for various ESPN entities, like the Mag, .com and our new high school sports group, ESPN Rise—assuming I'm not writing about the Derrida's theory of deconstruction and phenomenology. I might be the first female jock-professor to come out of the starting blocks, so we'll have to see how that works out for me.

Thanks to Lindsey for the interview and thanks to tWWL for being good sports.

As always, someone in public relations is there to ruin the mood:

"A spokeswoman for the British Olympic Authority said: 'There is going to be the opportunity to celebrate the success through different media. There is a party on The Mall tomorrow [Sunday] which will reflect on the successes and look ahead to 2012.'"

Oh, can we? Can we select the most appropriate media through which to celebrate the success of the Official Athletes of Great Britain and Associated Territories? That shall be so grand! We'll form a series of subcommittees to handle the reception. Dibs on Logistics!

Also, does this mean we'll need to find a new parking spot for our bus?

Athletes' airport welcome cancelled over safety fears [The Guardian]

This gold-medal final had a dress code: defense optional. The U.S. couldn't quite seem to remember that floating jumpers and second shots defined the Spanish offensive arsenal, allowing Marisa Gasol's womb to score 31. Spain... well, we're not sure there's an equivalent word in Spanish to "defense". The U.S. hit 60% of their shots; Spain 50%.

If anyone fusses at you that the United States failed in any capacity in this contest... well, that pick-and-roll matter is up for discussion. Otherwise, know that Spain reached up to the best and not the other way 'round.

In Nike's USA Basketball commercial for these Games, Marvin Gaye's brilliant 1983 NBA All-Star Game rendition of the National Anthem has been trimmed for space considerations and to emphasize the unity (through clapping) at the end. Most people forget the boos at the beginning of his version, though. By the end, though, those that cast stones were drowned out by those that loved it.

Here, those that felt the need to absolve these multimillionaires of perceived sins can no longer be heard over the beauty of the game played and those that love them for it.

Also of note: David Beckham can find cheerleaders anywhere in the world. He managed to make it to the game and the Chinese cheerleaders managed to entertain him at halftime. It's a symbiotic relationship.

Finally, If you want to know who's the top in the NBC-IOC alphabet soup love affair, Doug Collins (noted medal ditcher) is allowed to attend Olympic events in an official capacity.

Regardless, we'll be up for the gold-medal match between the US and Spain because NBC has finally deemed us worthy of a live event shown at roughly the same time the event occurs. (We had assumed this was a core tenet of the phrase "live television", but The More You Know, we guess.) Therefore, we will stay up to see it out here in the Western hinterlands at 11:30 pm. (Yes, 2:30 am in the East.)

After all, it sounds like we've got as good a chance of getting lucky in the middle of the night with the team as just about anyone. (Except José Calderón. He's not even playing.)

NBC to Show Gold Medal Game Live Across the Country [Awful Announcing]
Nike asks Chinese government to identify Yahoo blogger [Technically Incorrect]

She's fine, according to the Japanese Olympic team:

"That kind of thing has happened to her before. She is a very nervous athlete. She is good. Don't worry, she's not in serious condition."

So we shouldn't worry about a swimmer that keeps passing out while swimming? Life must be very different in an island nation.

So what the hell happened to her?

"The team leader told me what happened to her was too much breathing."

Oh, in that case, leave her at the bottom of the pool for a few minutes until the situation equalizes.

By the way, Japan was penalized two points by the judges for touching the bottom of the pool, though no word if these two events are related. If they are, may we recommend a roundhouse kick?

Japanese swimmer stretchered out [Reuters]
Japanese swimmer collapses at Water Cube pool [AP]

While we empathize with AJ’s angst about the pitfalls of access, we’re starting to wish we had a press pass out here if only to attend the IOC/BOCOG press conference (they’re back!).

Earlier today, BOCOG’s Wang Wei and IOC’s Giselle Davies were again grilled about Tibet, press freedom, and of course, the real age of Chinese gymnast He Kexin. In the tumultuous days since the humble hacker Stryde Hax re-exposed the documents in question (which the NY Times seemed to have actually uncovered back in July), the story has taken off, and a pair seems to finally be descending from the smooth pasty underbelly of the IOC.

Before yesterday, the IOC had been pathetically silent on the issue of China’s tween gymnasts. We mean, there is strong circumstantial and, if you count the cached Baidu pages, hard evidence that the host nation seriously cheated in arguably the marquee event of the Olympics. It didn’t seem like the IOC had the moxie or desire to pursue any recourse or conduct any type of investigation… and they still don’t, really.

Davies passively said today that the IOC has asked the international gymnastic federation (F.I.G.) “to look into it” and bring “full clarification to the topic”. When pressed by a reporter from NBC regarding “the IOC investigating an increasing body of evidence suggesting that Chinese gymnasts are under age and were ineligible to compete,” Davies reassured us that we “shouldn't regard this as some kind of formal investigation.” Have they asked the team to pinky swear?

While we at the Bureau think it’s actually more impressive that Lil’ He won her golds at such a young age – this isn’t a hairy-lipped 14 year-old playing Little League, after all – we understand the American team’s gripes about losing to a 5th grader, and it’s beginning to look like this forgery goes pretty high up the Communist Party totem pole. If these documents are real it means that He Kexin is holding a fake passport, residence card, and current ID card, all given to her by someone with the authority to give official documents. This could be huge.

Another possibility that a few Chinese bloggers are beginning to throw around is that He’s age was actually lowered in the past in order to participate in certain age classes in local competitions. That could explain the shady documents found by Stryde Hax. Translated from a Chinese forum:

A greater possibility is, the local athletic bureau changed her age to younger, so she could participate in the Inter-City Competition. In truth, nearly all age-related alterations have happened in competitions internal to China. The goal is for the local sports officials, various levels of athletic schools, and parents to conspire and “rationally” exploit regulations to win more resources, honor, and — the biggest motivator of all — political achievements for the local sports officials and connected entities in the bureaucratic resource allocation game of the sports system.

So she is 16 but lied and said she was younger to compete in local competitions so her (original) fake document is what has everyone confused and appears on those cached Baidu docs and why she is having such a bitch of time getting her license at the Beijing DMV and why she can’t drive the team to Yang Helin’s Sweet Sixteen party.

We’re beginning to think that the IOC is just giving China face right now. Like, in private Jacques Rogge & Giselles Davies are actually mortified about everything that has gone on but understand that it would be monumentally embarrassing to BOCOG if the IOC demanded some sort of accountability for their many foibles during the Games. Understandable, if reprehensible.

The real question for us is: What will they do after the Games? Will they launch a “formal” investigation into the gymnastics scandal? Is their some sort of feisty review they publish down the road that will discuss the human rights, pollution, and censorship promises China made and disregarded? Or will the IOC just fade out and reappear in 4 years in London?

It took Jacques Rogge about 3 hours to complain about Usain Bolt not shaking enough hands and making playful poses after his race. How long will it take him to say anything critical about his hosts? Unfortunately, today was the last IOC/BOCOG press conference of the games – meaning Wang Wei and Giselle Davies will finally be allowed outside - but Rogge is scheduled to preside over a closing press conference this weekend. That event might be harder to get into than the Opening Ceremony.

While we hope someone, we’re not sure whom exactly, holds the IOC accountable for their brazen, bitch-like behavior during these Olympics, it may be more likely that the real repercussions end up being felt by the organizing committees of future applicants from developing countries. In 2012 the Olympics move to happily democratic and developed London, with Tokyo, Chicago and Madrid in the mix for 2016. Sorry Delhi, Istanbul and Baku, Azerbaijan and other budding megacities; Beijing may have stifled your coming out party.

In the next post from the Deadspin Beijing Bureau, the handsome trio uncovers cached documents suggesting Will Leitch is a 16-year old gymnast.

The fellow with the upraised foot is Angel Valodia Matos, a Cuban Olympian in the art of taekwondo. The fellow with the recently upraised face is the referee that called a disqualification on Matos for taking a few seconds too long to recover from an injury. He seems plenty healed in this photo, so we assume Matos got caught with his pajamas down for milking injury time.

Not pictured: Matos chasing another referee in a blue blazer, spitting on the floor, and being helped from the building.

Pictured: The scientific result of having a foot full of tape and fury placed against a middle-aged man's face with some velocity.

Matos rage overshadows Cha gold [BBC News]
Taekwondo Loser Disagrees, Kicks Judge's Ass [The Sporting Blog]

Both sides showed flashes of brilliance, but Argentina's stylish passing made all the difference after 90 minutes in of China's 90 degree weather. At one point midway through the first half the referee actually halted play to give players a two-minute respite from the searing midday sun. Di Maria seemed to be one of the few players unaffected by the temperature, and his non-stop movement eventually paid off for Argentina.

Benefica's "Little Angel" was already expected to draw significant interest from Europe's larger clubs, but his potential transfer will likely cost quite a bit more (as the NBC commentators noted) on the heels of this impressive performance.

Nigeria equipped acquitted themselves quite well in the loss, their second to Argentina in a major competition after 2005's runner-up finish in the international under-20 competition. Their stellar run in the Olympic tournament lends further credence to the belief that the Nigerian national team will be a force to be reckoned with in the years to come.

In other news, I am incredibly tired (drunk on gin) so I'm going to get some sleep before the weekend's Premier League action kicks off. Stay tuned to Deadspin Weekends for the stylings of Tuffy, who will be getting things started at a much more reasonable hour.

Image via Yahoo! Sports

We're sure ESPN didn't mean anything by it. Maybe the thought the headline was just an "affectionate gesture."

Anyway, stories:

• White Men: Runnin'

• Beijing: Smuttin'

• Drew Magary: Tittin'

• Ladies: Phelpsin'

• Tiki: Cuntin'

• Clay: Kige'n

• ESPN: Croissantin'

• Leitch: Hall of Famin'

That's it for this week. Tomorrow, Tuffy (pronounced "TOO-Fay" I believe) gets to be a solider boy, made of clay in the KOGOD Weekend Army and round out the Olympics for us.

BACK TO THE FRONT, TOO-FAY.

Plus, more Beijing bureau stuff that will most likely have 90% less skin.

Tonight: get yourself a plate of cheese, a sack full of kittens and go have some fun.

Thank you for your continued support of J.E. Skeets.

And then there's this:

Barcelona was, for many of us Olympic virgins, as much about sex as it was about sport. There were the gorgeous hostesses - there to assist the athletes - in their bright yellow shirts and black skirts; there were the indigenous lovelies who came to watch the competitions. And then there were the female athletes - literally thousands of them - strutting, shimmying, sashaying and jogging around the village, clad in Lycra and exposing yard upon yard of shiny, toned, rippling and unimaginably exotic flesh. Women from all the countries of the world: muscular, virile, athletic and oozing oestrogen. I spent so much time in a state of lust that I could have passed out. Indeed, for all I knew I did pass out - in a place like that how was one to tell the difference between dreamland and reality?

The two page article goes on and on and on in that snooty-sounding tone and basically tattles on athlete mating habits (female swimmers — total nymphos, apparently) and even their smoking habits (Greek ping-pong players love to light up) which makes it a little less enjoyable than it would be if he had just stuck to his own Olympic Village conquests.

But his final takeaway is this: there's a reason why so many condoms were distributed to the athletes prior to the games.

In fact,the final Beijing weekend is in full-swing right now and the last bouts of reckless banging are probably well underway. Wonder if Steinberg is gettin' any?

Sex And The Olympic City [Times Online]

We check a number of Chinese publications and blogs each day from which we steal stories receive inspiration. China Daily is the official English-language publication in China and we usually flip through it each morning over breakfast. It’s a rather conservative rag, as far as they go here, but they’ve let their hair down a bit in their online coverage of the Games. In fact, we’re thinking about applying there after our Deadspin gig is up. We’re not sure who is the online editor of CD right now, but we’re pretty sure we met him at a Theta Ki party at Michigan.

Ah, the Chaoyang Park beach volleyball girls. A third of the bureau got up early today to watch the gold medal match between the US & Brazil and to bid farewell to the graceful maidens of the sand (and get horribly sunburned).

Interestingly, they seemed to be split up into two squads; one of Chinese girls and one of bubbly foreign heartbreakers.

We seriously doubt the foreign team was made up of international relations students studying in Beijing for the summer; that is to say, we don’t imagine the girls speak much Chinese. As fake journalists and amateur linguists, we would be interested in learning about the, um, nonverbal communication that must have gone on backstage.

A purty Paraguyan named Leryn Franco captured hearts and the silver medal at the 2006 Miss Paraguay competition (lasciviously linked to Wednesday on With Leather) though finished an out of the money 52nd place in the Javelin Throwing competition this week in Beijing. We don’t know much about throwing javelins, nor do we care to, but regardless we salute CD for their gallery Hot! A Sexy Javelin Thrower.

We mentioned in an earlier post that the eastern port of Qingdao would be holding the sailing events of this year’s Olympics. We haven’t yet made it to Qingdao, the capital of Shandong province, though it’s certainly on our list of destinations. We’re not quite sure how one would watch Olympic sailing events, but luckily CD put together a nice photo essay, a behind-the-scenes look, if you will, at the wild world of competitive sailing, thoughtfully entitled Sailing Girls Know How to Work It.

But amidst the bikinied cheerleaders and hot athletes, is there any room in Beijing for an elegant, old-fashioned girl? You know, the ones who are forced to go “charm boot camp”? China Daily addresses this very issue in “Perfect Hostesses Outclass Sexy Cheerleaders”, where they give the true heroes – the official Olympic hosts, who escort athletes during the medal ceremonies — their due.:

Not just anyone can be an Olympic hostess. Although the role looks simple these hostesses have been meticulously chosen and trained.

Hostess candidates have to be university educated, aged 18 to 24, between 1.68 and 1.78 metres in height (5 ft 5 ins and 5 ft 8 ins), with a "ruddy and shiny complexion", "elastic skin" and "a plump but not fat body".

Their faces needed to meet standards including the ratio between the "width of the nose and the length of the face" and "width of the mouth and width between the pupils", with eyes three-tenths the length of the face.

From about 5,000 applications, 297 candidates were chosen from a dozen Beijing colleges and 40 students from Shanghai to be "Olympic victory ceremony volunteers".

And you can bet that they weren’t born with their impeccable style and subtle elegance; they are the products of weeks of standing still and smiling:

The women have been through thorough training at a kind of charm boot camp, learning to stand for hours in high-heels and honing the perfect smile exposing eight teeth by spending hours before a mirror with a chopstick between their teeth.

"In the standing sessions, we have to stand still and smile for half an hour or more. We also run about a 1,000 metres every day for physical conditioning," one of the hostesses, Ma Sha, 20, told reporters ahead of the Games.

And finally, as Michael Phelps hookup speculation isn’t our forte, we’ll leave it again to the fine folks at China Daily:

American swimmer Michael Phelps, who has won seven golds in Beijing, became the most decorated athlete in Olympic history and received lots of love from female fans. But who is Phelps' girl?

Media reporters so far have pinpointed two girls as swimming prodigy Phelps' girlfriend. The first is Phelps' hot teammate Amanda Beard and the second is charming British model Lily Donaldson.

Together with Phelps, swimmer Amanda Beard also represented US participating in the Olympic Games held in Beijing, though so far this hot swimmer pocketed no gold.

21-year-old Lily Donaldson is even hotter and ranked as one of the top 8 models in the fashion world. Lily Donaldson even replaced British supermodel Kate Moss as the "younger face" speaking for Burberry in 2007.

Yup, that's our morning post.

The Deadspin Beijing Bureau can be reached at deadspin.china@gmail.com

Still spooked by the scary ramifications of uncovering an embarrassing scandal, the IOC said it had officially completed its age investigation of the Chinese gymnastics team. The verdict: totally legit.

“We believe the matter will be put to rest and there’s no question … on the eligibility,” [IOC spokeswoman] Giselle Davies said. “The information we have received seems satisfactory in terms of the correct documentation—including birth certificates.”

Really. Hmm. Of course many parents of the Chinese gymnasts are "indignant" about the suggestion that their kids are not as old as typed on (some of) the special government issued pieces of paper they have in their possession. The coach of China's team, Lu Shanzan, is also a little annoyed by the nosiness. He can't see what the problem is. Doesn't everybody know that Asian people are traditionally tiny?

"At this competition, the Japanese gymnasts were just as small as the Chinese,” he said. “Chinese competitors have for years all been small. It is not just this time. It is a question of race. European and American athletes are all powerful, very robust. But Chinese athletes cannot be like that. They are by nature that small.”

The documents presented to the IOC on Thursday night — which included a passport issued by the Chinese Foreign Ministry and an identity card stamped by China’s Ministry of Public Security — were enough evidence for the IOC to back off. Never mind those "other" papers floating around.

“If you trust every Web site but not a government…,” he [Lanzan] said. “There are so many Web sites, so much hearsay. These are not official. It is possible that all news on the Internet is accurate?”

Lanzan, frothing at the mouth by now, then told the AP that this whole investigation " really pisses the shit out of him."

But! Then later this morning...it's being reported that the investigation is indeed back on. Late Friday night the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG!) giving the once over to some of these "documents" China's pumping out. However, don't rejoice too much about the possibility of adding gold to our country's significant "total medal c—t" just yet for this investigation could very well be over by the time this story is posted.

China's age controversy continues with request for still more documents [USA Today]
Just Stop Watching The Olympics Now [Fan IQ]
IOC's Gymnastic Probe Falls Well Short [Yahoo]
Gymnasts parents indignant over age question [Yahoo]

Thanks to blogger Dwight Jaynes ( who is apparently just watching the world float by) we are directed to this fawning, reflective blog post about Stricklen's individual impressions of some of the players. It appears she is, in fact, open for business:

Kobe is articulate and thoughtful. And, since this has no business in a news story, I can share it here— his skin is so flawless the dude looks like someone airbrushed on makeup. He also told me he is one of the "short" guys as I stood next to him and got a crick in my neck looking up at him.

Jason Kidd has this sense of maturity about him. He strikes me as the kind of guy you will quickly learn to respect. He takes practice seriously and is business-minded. He also has very kind eyes. And LeBron? Well, LeBron is nothing but pure entertainment. He had Dwight Howard in stitches (notice the makeshift cape in the photo slideshow?). LeBron was making fun of himself.. making fun of us.. making fun of his teammates.. breakdancing (poorly), hollering, rapping, and generally living life huge.

As one guy pointed out to me.. LeBron is young. He has energy. Yeah, I'd say so.

Oh my. I hope none of the Redeem Players slipped on that puddle Stephanie Stricklen left on the court.

******

Spend some time with old people. They love your company. Also? Go empty the dishes from the sink. Fruit flies are everywhere.

But... relax tonight. Pop yourself open a Genny Cream Ale and have yourself a fried bologna sandwich. It is Thursday.

Be back tomorrow and we'll close out the week — together.

Thank you for your continued support of this internet location and some of its affiliates.

It's all about Kidd's kind eyes, Lebron's energy, and Kobe's flawless skin [Dwight Jaynes]