McDonald’s has introduced a new game, but it doesn’t come in your Happy Meal. Since March of this year, the TOP Olympic sponsor has been the force behind the largest alternative-reality game (ARG) and website, The Lost Ring. As this is McDonald’s first venture into the world of ARG, it could make it their biggest undertaking yet. And with the culmination tied to the Summer Games and wide-reaching recognition of the brand, more and more people are being introduced to this new form of entertainment. McDonald’s global chief marketing officer, Mary Dillon, explains the goal of the programme to be “strengthening [its] bond with the global youth culture”.

 

The Lost Ring adventure calls for gamers from across the globe to join forces online and in the real world as they investigate forgotten mysteries and urban legends of the ancient Games. After nearly six months of play, the Lost Ring will culminate in Beijing near the Closing Ceremony. For the past few months players have been receiving a wave of clues both online (via YouTube and Flickr) and off (e.g. players found clues in a post box in Tokyo and a bookstore fireplace in Johannesburg). In addition, the game’s official website offers a forum where players can discuss theories and work together to solve the puzzles. 

 

The Backstory
The game began more than four months ago with 50 bloggers receiving a package containing only an Olympic poster and various clues directing them to the game’s official website. Once there, a cryptic trailer begins to play. The short film depicts a woman asleep in a deserted field who wakes to find the words “Trovu la ringon perditan” – Esperanto for “find the lost ring” – tattooed on her arm.

 

An Internet and International Sensation
Since the trailer first launched, 2.5 million players across the globe have continued to follow the stories of five characters who all awake with the same markings tattooed somewhere on their body. Players can communicate with the characters via email, but as they come from all around the world (South Africa, Korea, Japan, Argentina and England), the language barrier adds an extra twist to an already enticing plot.

 

To get in on the game, go to  www.thelostring.com.

Beijing's eyes may be "pinned" on TV broadcasts of basketball, diving and other Olympic sports, but another event is drawing attention to the city's sidewalks. “Pindemonium” has broken out. Volunteers, drivers, athletes and the public all have one passion: to get their hands on and exchange as many attractive pins as possible. To show them off they stick them to their accreditation card, bags and clothes.

 

Wanted
Beijing's most popular pins include logos from sponsors like Coca-Cola and Kodak, along with one that has a pop-out image of Beijing's National Stadium, known as the Bird’s Nest. NBC has a camera-shaped pin that lights up, and a Samsung pin features a cell phone that slides open. Chinese traders tend toward pins depicting dragons, including a set that places Beijing's five Olympic mascots against a dragon in the background.

Spreading the passion
An American from Los Angeles, Aberra Aguegnehu is a volunteer who has been to all Olympic Games since 1984 and beaten all pin records. Apart from the Olympic Games, pins are his greatest passion and he is convinced that the fever will spread around quickly: "After a slow start, interest is increasingly growing here in Beijing. You should see the Pin Centre in the Village. People are really getting excited." "The exchanging of pins has already become a sort of culture and a means of communication. In order to collect these pins, I travelled to many Olympic host cities and also made a lot of friends," said Zhang Xu, a Chinese pin collector, who was busy "bargaining" in the trading centre.

Pin trading centres
Continuing a tradition that began in 1988, Coca-Cola in Beijing again hosts the official site for Olympic pin trading - "the No. 1 spectator sport" at the Olympic Games. The Coca-Cola Official Pin Trading Centre is located in Chaoyang Park and enables pin lovers to exchange their collections as well as their experiences. Further pin trading centres set up in Beijing during the Olympic Games are located in the international zone of the Olympic Village and in the downtown area of Beijing. All the pins presented and exchanged in these trading centres will be related to the Olympic Games, both summer and winter ones. Some are officially produced by organising committees and some are made by individual delegations or media to cover the Games.

 

 

Beijingers practise sport early in the morning. But it is more than just sport - iIt's a philosophy of life. In this video provided by AFPTV, Beijing's elderly have a few words of wisdom for Olympic athletes once they retire: Practise gentle exercise to maintain good health and prolong longevity.   

 

The Olympic judo competition took place in the first week of the Games, with China and Japan the dominant forces, while wrestling will draw to a close over the next 24 hours

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Olympic history of the two sports wrestling is the senior partner, having been involved right from the start not only of the modern Olympics but the Ancient ones too. The Greco-Roman style survives to this day as recognition of the sport’s heritage and when the Games were held in Rome in 1960 the wrestling was staged in the Basilica of Maxentius, site of wrestling contests 2000 years before.

 

The early years in the modern era witnessed some marathon contests: in 1912 the light-heavyweight final was declared a draw after Anders Ahlgren of Sweden and Ivar Böhling of Finland grappled for nine hours. Success in both Greco-Roman and freestyle has been rare but in 1936 Estonia’s Kristjan Palusalu managed to win at heavyweight in both styles. In 1991 Palusalu was voted the greatest Estonian athlete in history.

 

Weight is a big issue in all forms of wrestling and in 1972 bronze medalist Chris Taylor of the United States, weighing in at 186.88kg (412 pounds) became the heaviest athlete in Olympic history. In 1996 Aleksandr Karelin of Russia became the first wrestler to win the same division three times with another victory in the Greco-Roman super-heavyweight category while at the same Games in the freestyle middleweight second round Elmadi Jabrailov of Kazakhstan beat his brother, Tucuman, representing Moldova.

While women’s wrestling was only included in the Olympic programme for the first time four years ago, women’s judo was established in 1992 in Barcelona. Four years later the unknown 16-year-old Kye Sun-hui, North Korea’s one wildcard entry to the whole 1996 Games, pulled off one of the shocks in Atlanta when she ended the four-year unbeaten run of Japan’s Ryoko Tamura in the extra-lightweight final. Kye had never heard of Tamura until she watched a couple of her matches on video prior to the final.

 

The same Games saw Japan’s Tadahiro Nomura start his run at under-60kg to become the only judoka in the world to win three Olympic gold medals in a row. Nomura was born into a family of judokas - his grandfather was a local judo instructor, and his father was the coach of Shinji Hosokawa, who won a gold medal at the 1984 Olympics. Nomura's uncle, Toyokazu Nomura, was also a gold medalist at the 1972 Olympics in the 70kg division.

 

In the age of the iPod, the digital phone and the satellite beam, how could a two-hour interview with President Rogge fit with 17 days of sports-filled television? From this reflection the “A Quote a Day” project was born, an educational programme run on www.olympic.org and made available also to all TV rights-holding broadcasters for the duration of the Beijing Olympic Games.

 

Twenty educational vignettes 

Twenty educational vignettes lasting around 45 seconds have been produced, each dealing with a specific topic. So far www.olympic.org has aired the ones of President Rogge “on Rogge”, on Olympic history, the Olympic flag and the role of the IOC President. All the clips are truly educational, and should help the younger audience to better understand the Olympic Games and the values linked to them.

Analecta 

The “A quote a day” project has been produced for the IOC by the Australia-based Carnegie Enterprises, which is preparing an overall educational programme entitled “The Heart and How of the Olympic Movement”. This is the sporting component of the Analecta, their encompassing body of material about the “how” of achievement - from global leaders from diverse sectors, namely presidents and prime ministers, CEOs, creators and artists, architects and engineers and, of course, inspiring sports men and women

“Passionate about oceans” 

President Rogge is used to interviews with questions linked to day-to-day topics. His interview with Georgina Carnegie was different, however, as the focus was put on the educational aspects of the Olympic Movement. “President Rogge is passionate about the ocean and our environment. He is deeply appalled by the increasing amounts of rubbish that are invading the clear blue seas he sailed on as a boy.  My other great moment was listening to the President describe the best and worst moments of his Olympic life – of the sailor unused to spectators in his sport entering the Olympic Stadium to the roar of a Mexican crowd, and his profound sadness when he received the news of the attack during the Munich Games”, Georgina Carnegie comments on the interview.