203 Days to the Olympics: Daily Dose of News

There's a lot of important Olympics-related information to note today. First off, a ceremony was held yesterday to give the public a first look at the outfits for the torch bearers and volunteers. The red outfits are for torch bearers and blue are for volunteers. Nothing remarkable here, not sure about the untucked look, and amazingly no logo creep whatsoever, which should make Uniwatch happy. Here's a closer markup of the torch bearer getup (gotta like the headbands):
Also, something that fills me with dread, is the possibility that Celine Dion may be one of the singers during the Opening Ceremony and will come to China for concerts this spring. A press conference was held for that and Sang Lan was in attendance for some reason.

The 2008 PGA Merchandise Show opened up in Orlando and this year will include a special presentation titled, "Golf in China". Chinese media has also taken the unprecedented (I believe) step of sending reporters to cover the show. Okay, this isn't Olympics-related, but it should be, golf has forever been discussed as a test sport at the Olympics (most notably at Atlanta '96 where Augusta National was floated as a host site). I know there was some talk of making golf a test sport for the Beijing Olympics, it would definitely help the ever-growing popularity of the sport in China, but to no avail.

Finally, as part of the "Good Luck, Beijing" series of events, this weekend the Wheelchair Basketball International Invitational will be taking place (more information can be found here). The tournament, which begins on Sunday and will go until Friday at the National Indoor Stadium, will feature China, Canada, Holland, and Australia on the men's side and China, Japan, Germany, and Canada on the women's side. Tickets are cheap and attendance will be minimal, so if you want to have a look at the stadium (and have it all to yourself), consider making the trip to northern Beijing next week. The scheduling of this event is very goofy as only one weekend day will be used and the majority of games are during work hours. Not that there would be big attendance, but the times seem sort of strange. In any case, to me this will be one of the first big tests for the Olympic committee and I'm very curious how the athletes will deal with, and alternatively how the organizing committee will prepare for, Beijing's lack of accessibility. I'm hoping to have interviews with some of the athletes, but we'll have to wait and see.