As the 2012 Summer Olympic Games begins on Friday in London, there have been many articles written about this upcoming international event. There are several great articles that are geographically interesting that I'd like to share.
- An article from newgeography.com, Let The Games End, discusses the tremendous economic cost of the Olympic Games on the host city and country.
- An article from Mental Floss discusses the "continent" origin of the Olympic rings.
- On Atlantic Cities, I found an article that writes about prohibited items at the Olympic Games - which seems to include any flags from non-participating countries (i.e., flags from the Vatican City are effectively outlawed at the Olympic Games).
- Other big news for the XXX Olympiad is that every international entity participating in the games will have females on their Olympic team (once Saudi Arabia joined in the fun).
- While the two Koreas marched together during the opening ceremonies in 2000 and 2004, they will not be doing so in London.
- Finally, even though South Sudan just became a country a year ago and has not had time to create a recognized National Olympic Committee, South Sudanese marathoner Guor Marial will be participating in the Summer Games as an independent athlete. This article also talks about the three independent athletes from the former Netherland Antilles, which no longer exists with its own National Olympic Committee.
Don't miss, of course, my article about the countries and non-countries participating in the Summer Games.
Comments
We see more frequent mention of South Sudan on Matt’s Blog than most of the 200 or so nations of the world. Among its important people we find ___ and ___ . Among its cities we can list ___ and ___ . It is known for producing ___ and ___ . Unlike about 200 other countries or pseudo countries it has no Olympic structure whatsoever.
Yet we learn South Sudan is proudly sending an athlete to compete in the Olympics. Well, not exactly. He is an independent and so does not represent South Sudan And he lives in Flagstaff, Arizona, not Sourh Sudan..
I left myself quite vulnerable to all manner of responses. There were none.
Seems there are only two explanations: very few who read coments, very few log on. You?