The 22nd Winter Olympics will be held in Sochi beginning in February 2014. The Japanese will be avidly watching the figure skating competitions—an Olympic event in which Japan always wins medals.
In the past several years, more and more excellent Japanese skaters have emerged. They vie fiercely against each other in Olympic qualifying competitions.

Figure skater Mao Asada, who won a silver medal in the most recent Winter Olympics in Vancouver, has announced that she will retire from competition at the end of this season. The 2014 Winter Olympics will be her last, which is another reason the Japanese will be watching the Games with great interest.
When Asada defeated the reigning champion at the age of 15, she was immediately propelled into the spotlight in Japan. She was a favorite to win in the Turin Olympics held the following year but was not allowed to compete due to age restrictions.

Since then, Asada has vied with rival South Korean figure skater Yuna Kim, who is the same age, in numerous international competitions for a place on the winner’s podium. In the previous Vancouver Winter Olympics, Asada stood tearfully on the podium with silver medal in hand next to gold medal winner Kim.

The Winter Olympics in Sochi will be the final stage for figure skater Asada. Will she be able to achieve her long-cherished wish to win the gold medal? Everyone is saddened by Asada’s retirement from competition because we will no longer have the enjoyment of watching her perform. But we are greatly looking forward to watching Asada give her final performance at the Olympics in Sochi.

Photos Source from: [en.wikipedia.org] [allabouttabletennis.com] [en.beijing2008.cn]

Talking about my favorite athletes at Olympics, it goes to none other than Mr. Jan Ove-Waldner, an athlete with the most appearances at Olympic Games. He compete in 5-Olympic Games started in 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000 and 2004, where he won Gold Table Tennis (Single) in Olympic Games Barcelona 1992 and Silver in Olympic Games Sydney 2000.

When comes to Olympic Singles Medal in Table Tennis – Mr. Waldner still the leader with 1 Gold and 1 Silver medal.

Mr. Waldner can be considered as one of the “non-Chinese” greatest in table tennis history – to achieve a Grand Slam in table tennis. In the year 1992 he won Olympic Gold Medal, became the World Champion and a World Cup winner.

His great-achievement spoken by itself like 5 times World Champion i.e. 2000 (Kuala Lumpur), 1997 (Manchester), 1993 (Gothenburg), 1991 (Chiba) and 1989 (Dortmund), Gold World Cup in Singles and Team event in Chiba City 1990, and 11 times Gold in European Championship.

I still remember back in the year of 2000, when the Table Tennis World Championship was held in Kuala Lumpur where I have applied for a week of annual leave just to ensure that I would not miss any single game of Jan Ove-Waldner. In the end he helped Sweden to become World Team Championship. He is really superb and almost-complete table tennis player.

Based on the above list of achievement, he is known as and/or being labeled as “the Mozart of table tennis” and is an evergreen-legend and considered to be the greatest table tennis player who has ever lived.

His love, passionate and well-attitude to master the game made him move to China, a country that “crazy” on table tennis for a training camp. His dedication toward the game made him a well-known personality in China, even some claimed that back in 1990s – Mr. Waldner was more recognized than the President of the United States, Mr. Bill Clinton. He was referred as “Chang-Qing-Shu” on “the evergreen tree” in China.

Mr. Greg Bishop of The New York Times branded him in his article “A Swedish face for China’s Beloved Sport,” as the most famous table tennis player in China, a celebrity whose face sells everything. The Chinese so adored this icon and nicknamed him “Lao-Wa” or an “Old Friend.”

With his success and achievement in table tennis, he was conferred Swedish Gold Medal – Svenska Dagbladet in 1992 – being the most significant sports achievement of the year, regarded as an athlete who has class on his own.

Mr. Jan Ove Waldner, at the age of 48-years now retired from a competitive table tennis games, but he left with a record that others difficult to challenge. He is the living-legend and the Mozart of table tennis.

Saina Nehwal is an Indian badminton player. She was born on March 17, 1990 at Hisar, Haryana. She is the first Indian woman to win the medal in an Olympic Games. Her parents were former state badminton champions in Haryana so we can say that she got the game of badminton in her genes.
She had started her badminton training very soon when she was just 8 years old with very hard training schedule; she traveled almost 50km every day for the training.

Name: Lee Lai-Shan (Nick name is San San)
Gender: Female
Place of birth: Cheung Chau, Hong Kong
Date of birth: September 5, 1970
Height: 1.7m / Weight: 58kg
Sport: Windsurfing
Personal best: 1st boardsailing in 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games

Lee Lai Shan (), the only Olympic gold medalist that Hong Kong has ever had, won the first-ever Olympic gold medal for Hong Kong in the women’s mistral boardsailing class at the 1996 Olympics and reputed as the “Windsurfing Queen.” She was born in a small island - Cheung Chau and started windsurfing since the age of 12 under the supervision from her uncle, Mr. Lai Kan. After 5-years learning and practices, she participated in windsurfing competitions and joined the Hong Kong team at nineteen years old. Over the years, she has won many international competitions.

As we all know, 1952-1995, Hong Kong had never been able to get any medals at the Olympic Games. Lee Lai-Shan's victory at the 1996 Atlanta Centennial Olympics changed all this and proved that “Hong Kong Athletes are not rubbish.” She gained the most marvelous experience in her life because the 1996 Summer Olympics was the last international sporting event that Hong Kong participated in as a British colony, making Lee's medal the first and last medal that the Hong Kong team (not Hong Kong, China) won.

After the Games she studied sports management at Australia's Canberra University. She became a recipient of “Ten Outstanding Young Persons Award” and the Bronze Bauhinia Star Award in recognition of her outstanding achievements in the international sports. Also, she was the first Hong Kong athlete to be awarded a Honorary Doctorate in social sciences from the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

For the personal life, she married with Sam Wong, who was another famous Hong Kong boardsailing athlete in 1999 and gave birth to two daughters in 2004 and 2007 respectively. In July 2008, she published a book titledto share her athlete’s life with and stimulate Hong Kong youngsters to achieve their dreams.

Diving was included in the Olympic Games for the first time at the 1904 Games in St. Louis. The springboard and platform events have been included since the 1908 Olympic Games in London. Since the Stockholm Games in 1912, women have taken part in the diving events, and Guo Jingjing is known in China as the "Princess of Diving."
She took up diving when she was six years old at the Baoding Training Base. She started training of competitive diving in 1988, and was selected to dive for the Chinese national team in 1992. Guo first competed at the Olympics in 1996. During the 2004 Summer Olympics she won a gold medal in the 3 meter women's synchronized springboard along with Wu Minxia.

After the 2004 Summer Olympics, Guo became a Chinese national sports figure in the public eye, with a contract with McDonald's, as well as multiple other endorsement contracts. She was later banned by the national team for excessive commercial activities, but was accepted to back to the team when she agreed to focus on diving and give up many promotional activities. Guo won two more gold medals at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. At the end of the Beijing Games, Guo won the gold medal in the women's 3-meter springboard with a total of 415.35 points.

The Olympic Games—held every four years on the country which succeeded with the bid for it. All of the world's top players gather together. The visual enjoyment they bring to us in the game is very wonderful.
When talking of the sport event, I have to say my favorite sport- badminton. Not only I’m good at it, but also it has been near my life; I still remember the pain when I felt down for practicing badminton. The experience made me understood how many sweat players need to pay compared with ordinary people, to beat rivals within a short five innings of the game.

Kenny Tsai of Prod. 1 Dept.

The athlete at Olympics who most attracts me is Oscar Pistorius of South Africa. He is a record holder of 100m, 200m and 400m at the world's Paralympics. With the help of a carbon fiber prosthetic, his running speed has a higher advantage, but this also has caused arguments whether it provides fair competition.

He was born in Pretoria, Gauteng, a city of South Africa with no two fibulae; in his 11 months he had his knees amputated. So he grew up wearing prostheses. But because he loves running, he didn’t give up and thanks to the gift of human technology, coupled with constant practice he put on a pair of carbon fiber prostheses and began training for the race.

He has won six Olympic gold surface disabilities, and he is the champion of 1,600m relay of the World Athletics Championship held in 2011. Pistorius is the first amputee athlete in Olympics history and attained the title of the "Blade Runner" because of wearing blade-like carbon fiber prostheses. Seeing Pistorius standing on the Olympic stage is tantamount of seeing a human filled with genuine and incredible spirit.

At Valentine’s Day of 2013, Pistorius was arrested by the police in suspicion of killing his girlfriend, Steenkamp. The case shocked the South Africa which hailed him as a hero. But his courage and ability of not giving up to overcome adversity is still worth for everyone to learn.

Sailing is originated in Holland and was introduced in England by King Charles the second, in 1660, after he returned from exile in Holland. The Harbor Club Cork was the first sailing club which was established in December 1720 and the oldest sailing club is “New York Yacht Club” of the United States, which was established in 1884.

According to legend, sailing in modern Egypt and the Roman Empire was for patrolling to battle for several centuries and the competition was just what only occasionally happened.
The first time of sailing race was held in 1851 from the U.S. to England. Members of the Sailing Club of New York have built a sailboat, with total length of 101 feet.

After that the national competitive sailing became popular in Europe and America. They started some competition such as America Cup, Canada Cup and Scandinavian Gold Cup, etc. Sailing was also added to the major sporting events such as the Peninsula (SEA) Asian Games and the Olympics.

In Thailand, people still remember the day of December 16, 1967. His Majesty The King Bhumibol Adulyadej, and Her Royal Highness Princess Ubon Ratana were stamped on the medal podium on the occasion that he became a champion of OK Sailing type competition in the Peninsula (SEA) Asian Games Sports 4th, which Thailand hosted.

This victory shown his sailing ability and was recognized and recorded in the history of world-class sports. Then Thai government has set the day of December 16 as the National Sports Day for the honor and the pride of the people of Thailand. His Majesty the King also gave the royal speech about this occasion that "Sports are extremely important for an individual's life and country." He also built his own ship which was named “Rachpatan,” “Nawa Reuk” and “Mod,” which was used in the Peninsula (SEA) Asian Games Sports 4th.

As a home of sport, Nantong has been trained many athletes for China. Also there are many Olympic Games champion from them. Recently almost in every Olympic game, you may find champions come from Nantong:

25th Barcelona women's individual medley champion: Li Lin
26th Atlanta women's badminton doubles champion: Fei Ge
27th Sydney men's gymnastics team champion: Xu Huang
27th Sydney women's table tennis doubles champion: Ju Li
27th Sydney women's badminton doubles champion: Fei Ge
29th Beijing men's gymnastics team champion: Xu Huang
29th Beijing women's ten meter synchronized platform champion: Ruolin Chen
29th Beijing men's swordplay individual champion: Man Zhong
30th London women's ten meter synchronized platform champion: Ruolin Chen

Today I would like to introduce my favorite sport (diving) and the champion, Ms. Ruolin Chen.

Diving competitors perform a series of dives and are awarded points up to 10, depending upon their elegance and skill. The points are then adjusted for the degree of difficulty, based on the number and types of maneuvers attempted, such as somersaults, pikes, tucks and twists. A reverse 1.5 somersault with 3.5 twists, for example, is among the most difficult. A panel of seven judges traditionally scores a dive, judging such elements as approach, take-off, execution and entry into the water. Nine judges assess synchronized diving. Four judge the execution of individual dives, and five assess synchronization - how the pairs mirror height, distance from the springboard or platform, speed of rotation and entry into the water.

 In 1996, Ruolin Chen started the diving profession from the Jiangsu Province Nantong Child Amateur Sports School when she was 4 years old. In 2003, she got three gold medals at the national children diving championship. In 2006 at the international grand prize contest Australia station competition, she and her partner become the champion of ten meter diving platform. After half month later in German station, they got gold medal once again. In 2006 at the World Cup diving match, they became the champion of women's ten meter synchronized platform as well. She became the youngest world champion of Chinese diving team at that time. After that she became the champion in two Olympic Games. I hope she will also win at the next Olympic game in 2016.