Journalist and blogger Thomas Crampton is now posting some of his work on Danwei.
To follow the Olympics via the participants, I have been searching for Olympic bloggers and have found a few sources, largely thanks to help from the ever-lively crowd on Twitter at #080808.
US Rowing – Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal’s China Blog has 2 Olympian Bloggers so far, both from the US Rowing Team: Jason Read and Chris Liwski. I could not readily find a blog outside of the journal for either one.
US Track and Field Vlogger
ArethaThrows is a YouTube channel of a US track and field team posting occasional videos, including this tour of the US track and field training facility in Dalian.
Team Canada blogger-athletes
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is hosting slews of athlete blogs. You can learn what Olympic Rower Adam Kreek ate for his 2 breakfasts on June 23:
First breakfast: Pint of Smoothie (blueberries, pear, banana, pineapple, yoghurt, flax seed oil, carrot juice, rice milk, powdered greens, whey protein, creatine, glutamine, Green/yerba mate tea
Second breakfast: 3 eggs with cheese and veggies (onions, broccoli, mushrooms, peppers, snow peas), 3 pieces of 12-grain bread, 2 pints of orange juice
- Adam Kreek — Rowing
- Alexandra Orlando — Rhythmic Gymnastics
- Anna Rice — Badminton
- Christine Sinclair — Soccer
- Colin Jenkins — Triathlon
- Hugh Macdonald — Archery
- Kevin Sullivan — Athletics
- Kyle Shewfelt — Gymnastics
- Mark Heese — Beach Volleyball
- Sherraine Schalm — Fencing
Lenovo aggregates Athlete-Bloggers
One of the main Olympic sponsors, Lenovo, has made a foray into social media by aggregating 100 athlete-bloggers. The site is painfully corporate, but if you struggle back to the original blogs, many are great, such as Australian sailor Ian Murray‘s improbably upbeat description of trying to sail through Qingdao’s outbreak of algae in June.
You could almost be forgiven for thinking I’d changed from a water-based sport and moved into track and field – the surface of the course in Qingdao is covered with some sort of green spongy algae!
You can see in this picture below, the surface almost looks like a bowling green…it certainly makes for interesting sailing!
Lenovo gave the bloggers equipment, but not money, David Churbuck, VP of web marketing for Lenovo, told me via a Twitter exchange.
I laud the Lenovo concept, but have a number of critiques on execution:
– The aggregation site looks way too corporate. So corporate, in fact, that I fled the site until Churbuck told me that the company does not censor the athletes.
– The site prevents direct access to the bloggers themselves. It first sends you to a pop-up page with a text summary of the blogger’s latest posting. This slows the process of getting to the source material. One the most important aspect of blogs is the self-presentation of the bloggers. I want to see how they present themselves.
– The @lenovo2008 Twitter feed accompanying the blog seems to be written by a robot that only has access to a TV and schedule of when events take place. They should highlight the best quotes, complaints, victories written by the athletes themselves, not tell me who is playing next or “Its half time, watching the Beijing Dream Girls”.
Anyone find other athlete-bloggers? What about athlete-Twitterers?