With Zooming In, Deadspin and Gelf Magazine bring you the best (or at least the most interesting) foreign-produced journalism about the London Olympics.
Throughout the Games, we're reading through hundreds of international news publications for stories and local perspectives that can't be found stateside. Each day, we'll post the five best pieces, giving you the chance to be as globally cultured as foreign-government-controlled papers permit.
1. Getting To Graceland Via London | Canada
Few of us know what it's like to push our bodies to a point of transcendent exhaustion. Canada's Clara Hughes knows that feeling quite well. When she gets there, she sees Elvis, according to Montreal's The Gazette.
With a training mandate of, "Ride until you see Elvis," Hughes is one of those rare athletes to not only compete in both the summer and winter Olympics, but actually win medals in each. She won two bronzes in road cycling in 1996, and scored four more medals in speed skating. After winning bronze in the 5,000 meters at the Vancouver Games in 2010, Hughes announced her retirement, but she decided to give it one last try at these Olympics.
While she didn't place in Sunday's women's cycling road race, the 39-year-old Hughes has one more shot to win her seventh Olympic medal in a cycling time trial this week. In other words, "It's now or never."
— Dan Gartland
2. "A Nice Jewish Girl From Massachusetts" | Israel
That's how Israeli newspaper Haaretz describes Aly Raisman (sign-up req'd, but free), the US gymnast that stole the show yesterday by qualifying for one of the two spots reserved for the American squad in the all-around individual finals.
Jewish sports fans have a long history of living vicariously through prominent Jewish athletes, and prior to the era in which a little Googling could turn up a site which claims authority on the subject, it was a popular pastime to debate the all-around Jewishness of athletes whose religious affilitations were ambiguous (David Cone, anybody?). Well, on the off-chance that video of Aly Raisman's parents watching her bar routine left any doubt, Haaretz clears it up: they're claiming Raisman for the tribe. [Haaretz actually notes that Gawker posted the video—"mocked on the website Gawker," is how they put it—and describes the scene as "a classic illustration of what any nervous Jewish parents look like when their kid competes in the Olympics."]
The Israelis had reason to gravitate toward an American in this year's games: during the first weekend of competition, their sole gymnastic competitor, Valeria Maksyuta, turned in "one of the worst performances of an Israeli gymnast since Limor Fridman at the 1984 Los Angeles Games."
Raisman proved to be a good alternative for Israeli gymnastics fans. She did her floor routine to "Hava Nagila," and, like a proud grandparent, Haaretz kvelled over Raisman's many laurels, including the "Pearl D. Mazor Outstanding Female Jewish High School Scholar-Athlete of the Year Award given out by the Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in New York."
— Isaac Rauch
3. Nigerians Are Super Bummed That The Olympics Feature No Nigerian Soccer | Nigeria
Nobody in Nigeria wants to watch the Olympics because the national soccer team failed to qualify for the games, says the Nigerian newspaper, Vanguard.
Americans aren't the only people who often prefer the safe cocoon offered by their favorite sports over the pageantry and spirit of the Olympic games. In Nigeria, passion for the summer Olympics is running low due to the fact that the country is not being represented in the Olympic soccer tournament.
Instead, many Nigerians are choosing to take in pre-season soccer than the are the Olympics. So says Chidi Mbah, a soccer viewing center operator (you know your country is crazy about soccer when you have soccer viewing centers), who told Vanguard that soccer fans preferred to watch European friendlies over Olympic soccer matches.
Nigerian newspapers are suffering as well, as they had hoped for a boost in sales during the Olympics, as people would be eager for updates on the Nigerian soccer team's exploits. With the team not qualifying, though, the papers have been unable to sell much of their coverage featuring other teams in the Olympics.
So, the next time you want to turn your nose up at your friend Hank for being a "typical American" because he says he'd prefer to watch a pre-season Cowboys game than an Olympic event, remember that people in Nigeria can be just as chauvinistic.
— Tom Ley
4. A Buddhist Monk Seeks Enlightenment Through Olympic Gold
| Japan
Four years ago, most current Olympians were practicing their craft. Japan's current equestrian show-jumper, Kenki Sato, though, spent 2008 secluded in a Buddhist temple, forced to secretly follow the Beijing Games as Monks are not supposed to interact with the outside world.
China Daily reports that Sato, 28, is on extended leave from his temple to compete in the London Games, where he hopes to win Japan its first equestrian medal after an 80-year drought.
The 460-year-old temple and the equestrian club are more related than you might think, though. In fact, they're next door to each other and Sato's father, Shodo, heads both of them. Shodo was also a show jumper; his Olympic dreams were dashed in 1980 when Japan boycotted the Olympics to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
Kenki said that his father's past motivated his efforts to be an Olympian, but unlike most stars seeking endorsement deals and the covers of Wheaties boxes, Sato is pursuing a higher path.
"I may learn something as a human being when I encounter various people with different religions and languages abroad," Sato said. "I want to feed it back into my path to Buddhist enlightenment."
— Kate Bennert
5. Spanish Olive-Pit-Spitting Medals: 2, Other Spanish Medals: 0 | Spain
Reasons Spain should not care that they were eliminated from the Olympic soccer tournament: 1) It's Olympic soccer 2) Spain won the 2010 World Cup and 2008 & 2012 Euro Cups 3) The Spaniards are olive-pit-spitting champions.
Barcelona's La Vanguardia (thanks to ThinkSpain for the English version) reports that Spain's Ricardo Legidos and Daniel Lozano took home gold and silver, respectively, in Sunday's olive pit spitting competition, which took place off Olympic grounds in London's Notting Hill. Britain's Gabriel Buttimore earned his homeland the bronze medal.
On top of dominating the event with a spit of 13.15 meters (43.143 feet), Legidos is covering the Games for the EFE (the Spanish equivalent to the Associated Press). According to the event organizer, the world record for olive pit spitting is 21.43 meters (70.308 feet).
In 2007 the Asociación Amigos de las Oliveras de Cieza (Association of Friends of Olive-Growers of Cieza) began petitioning the IOC to recognize olive pit spitting as an Olympic Sport. They argued that the practice dated back to the Stone Age, it's environmentally friendly, and the sport doesn't discriminate in terms of gender, race, nationality, age, ideology.
The IOC still refuses to credit the sport, which is reason 4,296 why nobody likes the IOC.
— Justin Adler
Gelf Magazine, the purveyor of fine NYC-based events including the Varsity Letters speaking series, has been looking over the overlooked since 2005.
For a handy master schedule of every Olympic event, click here.