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Amidst suspicions surrounding Greek athletes skipping doping tests and shock at the U.S. basketball team getting schooled by a tiny Caribbean island’s, there are, of course, alternate Olympic stories to explore in the vast and random world of cyber-space.
Check out these Olympic sites, some more alt than others.
www.athens2004.com
The official site of the Games, including everything you’d ever want from the front lines in Athens, like event results, news reports, even weather reports from Heraklion.
www.olympics.org
The other official site offers a wider cultural context on host country Greece and the history of the Games, as well as an excellent interactive tour of the Olympic village.
http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~clscs275
A few weeks ago, a Greek historical society kicked off the “true Games” in the classical stadium of Nemea, just outside the ancient city of Mycenae. These Games are open to anybody. Winners among the barefoot competitors receive awards of palm fronds and leaves.
www.dartfish.com
The latest tool in the U.S. Olympic team’s bag of tricks is this real-time digital video analysis package. Athletes can watch their performance frame by frame or even virtually race against last year’s record holder to compare techniques.
www.olympictruce.org
The ancient games at Olympia depended on the concept of “ekecheiria,” a truce between warring Greek city states for the duration of the Games. The gadfly designers of this Web page have revived the idea, asking President Bush and everybody else to abide by the ancient law and cease their military machinations.
www.olympicvideogames.com
The IOC has commissioned an official video game for the PlayStation 2 to accompany Athens 2004. Get a taste of the 25 events and the photo-realistic images designed by sport-game gurus 989 Sports.
www.cbc.ca/sports
This unabashedly pro-Canadian site allows you to track the progress of the Games, post messages for the Canadian Olympic team, even sign up for daily updates downloaded directly to your favourite wireless gadget.
www.wada-ama.org
The game of drug use and subsequent testing is often given more media attention than the Games themselves. Go straight to the source at the World Anti-Doping Agency site and try to fathom the arcane list of rules and regulations that athletes try to dodge.
www.anti2004.net/english.htm
Three weeks before the opening of the Games this year, several groups staged a vocal protest in Athens for reasons ranging from Greek police’s trampling of human rights to the Olympics’ fostering of an archaic, nationalistic worldview.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/olympics_2004/default.stm
For the first time ever, live broadband video feeds from the Games are streaming in over the Internet to the BBC. Unfortunately, the IOC has decided to block non-UK surfers from watching the feed due to licensing issues, so you’ll have to make do with the daily online clip shows.
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5651280/
In a move that has enraged privacy advocates, a huge virtual net of security has been thrown over much of Greece courtesy of Science Applications International Corp. SAIC has incorporated cameras with voice-recognition software, patrol boats, helicopters, even a sensor-laden blimp into a system that screens e-mails, images and files leaving Athens and other Olympic sites. Read all about it here.
