April 12th, 2008
Rising at the crack of dawn and crunching 50 sit-ups before breakfast, record-breaking Japanese Olympian Hiroshi Hoketsu bristles when asked about his age.
But the equestrian rider, who at the age of 67 will become Japan’s oldest Olympic representative at the Beijing Games in August, has grudgingly begun to accept his new-found fame.
“Initially I was a little reluctant about having my age splashed across the news,” Hoketsu told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday.
“I didn’t see why my age should be such a big thing. It wasn’t relevant. I wasn’t selected for the Olympics because I’m 67.”
Hoketsu last took part in an Olympics 44 years ago at the 1964 Tokyo Games, finishing 40th in the show jumping competition.
He switched to the less physically demanding dressage in his mid-30s and was selected for Japan’s team for the Seoul Olympics 20 years ago.
“I didn’t take part in Seoul because there were quarantine problems with my horse,” said the German-based Hoketsu. “It’s not like I disappeared for 44 years.
“At the Tokyo Olympics I was still a kid — I was 22 years old and in a dream world. Just being selected was my biggest goal then. Taking part was a bit of a fluke.”
Hoketsu is set to eclipse the previous record age for a Japanese Olympian set by fellow equestrian Kikuko Inoue, who was 63 when she rode at the Seoul Games in 1988.
The oldest Olympian was Swedish shooter Oscar Swahn, who bagged his sixth Olympic medal at the 1920 Antwerp Games at the grand age of 72 years and 280 days.
MEDIA STORM
“I was back in Germany when the Japanese media started kicking up a fuss about me so I hadn’t experienced the storm first hand until now,” said Hoketsu.
“It’s not as if I’m going to win a medal at the Olympics so obviously the reason for the interest is my age. I’m beginning to feel my age with all the fuss but I want to show that I’m actually getting better as I get older.”
Hoketsu insists he has no secret formula for appearing to have defied the ageing process, beyond waking up before sunrise and riding his horse across dew-wet fields.
“I haven’t smoked for 30 years but I used to smoke and drink so it’s not like I’m that stoic,” he smiled. “I always woke up at 5 a.m. and go for a ride before going to the office.
“After I retired, my wife let me go to Germany. Before the Athens Olympics in 2004 I went over to look for a horse and began thinking about trying to make an Olympic comeback.”
Hoketsu found his current horse ‘Whisper’ in Germany and settled in the city of Aachen, along the country’s border with Belgium and the Netherlands.
“I thought about quitting and coming back to Japan many times,” he said. “But I’m stubborn. I have improved technically, not just experience-wise, and feel I can get even better.”
MAJOR TEST
Hoketsu admitted the stifling humidity forecast for the Olympic period, as well as fears over equine influenza and bird flu, will prove a major test for both horse and rider.
“Hong Kong will more than likely be more humid than a Japanese summer — maybe 80 percent humidity and over 30 degrees celsius, which is stressful for the horse,” he said.
“We’ve been told the stables will be air-conditioned but we’ll have to take care not to over-work the horse in practice, in order to keep her fresh.”
Hoketsu is adamant he will not ride off into the sunset post-Beijing.
“In dressage my age is a plus,” he said. “I have experience but I’m also in the best form of my life. I don’t know if this is my big chance or my last chance.
“But I started riding when I was 12 and if anything I’m more passionate about it than ever.”
from: robladin.com
tags: olympics author: Robby Dream comments: No Comments
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April 1st, 2008
Agloco’s Rebirth! Agloco 2!
Well, finally we have our Agloco back again with a brand new version, new colors, new Viewbar and much more!
Accumulated Hours will finally be paid.
Well, even the domain name is brand new! Take a look at Agloco-Action.com for the new Agloco and further info!
tags: agloco, agloco scam, news author: Robby Dream comments: 1 Comment
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March 29th, 2008
Concerns over the Beijing Olympic Games 2008 include the potential for boycotts from pro-Tibetan organizations such as Students for a Free Tibet as well as from organizations such as Amnesty International upset with China’s involvement in the crisis in Darfur. China has also been battling problems with air pollution both in the city of Beijing and in neighboring areas, which the Beijing Organizing Committee (BOCOG) says it hopes to remedy before the games.
While no state has indicated a willingness to boycott the 2008 games, some groups are initiating independent campaigns to do so and other notable groups have called for protests. It has been reported that Chinese intelligence services were monitoring the activities of foreigners suspected of plotting demonstrations during the Olympics. In addition to monitoring NGOs that are concerned with domestic Chinese issues, the Chinese intelligence is also monitoring possible terrorism-related activities and anti-American demonstrations.Pro-Tibetan independence groups, such as Students for a Free Tibet, have initiated a campaign to protest the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics. The group plans to protest for Tibetan independence and objects to the Chinese government’s use of the Tibetan antelope (chiru) as one of its five mascots.[78] The Tibetan People’s Movement has also demanded representation of Tibet with its own national flag. Hollywood actor Richard Gere in his position as the chairman of the International Campaign for Tibet called for the boycott of the games to put pressure on China to make Tibet independent. There has also been plans by Tibetans to organise their own version of the Olympics in May at the headquarters of Tibetan government-in-exile, because Tibet doesn’t get representation.
The press freedom organization Reporters Without Borders has advocated a boycott expressing concerns over violations of free speech and human rights in China. It hopes that international pressure and petition can effect the release of prisoners of conscience, and hold China to promises made to the IOC, regarding improvements in human rights.
Activists working to address the ongoing violence in Darfur, Sudan, have called for pressure to be exerted on China because of their financial and diplomatic support for Omar al-Bashir, who is responsible for the Sudanese government’s proxy militias. These advocates, which include actress Mia Farrow, NBA athlete Ira Newble, and Sudan researcher Eric Reeves, have organized a global advocacy campaign called Olympic Dream for Darfur. Some have begun to refer to the Beijing Olympics as the “Genocide Olympics” as noted in The China Post as a way of connecting Beijing’s close political and economic ties to the Sudanese regime. The Chinese government, in turn, has criticised the activists for “politicizing” the Olympics and outlined its plans to help the Sudanese economy.
Calls for sustained pressure and possible boycotts of the Olympics have come from former French presidential candidate François Bayrou,actor and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Mia Farrow, Genocide Intervention Network Representative Ronan Farrow, author and Sudan scholar Eric Reeves and the The Washington Post editorial board. Filmmaker Steven Spielberg, founder of the USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education, sent a letter to Hu Jintao on April 2, 2007 to discuss and possibly end China’s involvement in the conflict. In February 2008, Spielberg announced he was stepping down from his role as an artistic advisor in protest of the Chinese government’s refusal to pressure Khartoum to stop the “continuing human suffering” in the Darfur region. He noted: “Sudan’s government bears the bulk of the responsibility for these on-going crimes, but the international community, and particularly China, should be doing more.” Additionally, a group of 106 lawmakers in the United States have circulated a letter calling for the US to boycott the coming Olympics because of China’s support of the Sudanese regime and the forced relocation of 300,000 Chinese poor to make room for the games. Congresswoman Maxine Waters introduced a similar resolution in early August 2007.
On September 28, 2007, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu urged China to intervene in the ongoing protests in Myanmar. Tutu said that if China did not take a stance against the military rulers in Myanmar he would “join a campaign to boycott the Beijing Olympics”. His call has been taken up by the U.S. Campaign for Burma.
The British Olympic Association (BOA) will require that before leaving for China, British Olympic team members sign an agreement, stating that they “are not to comment on any politically sensitive issues.” However, BOA spokesman Graham Newsom stated that the BOA didn’t intend to censor athletes, and referred to a rule in the International Olympic Committee charter which states, “No kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas.”
The Chinese government did however get a boost from US President George W. Bush, who declined to support actions taken in protest of the Chinese government, declaring: “I view the Olympics as a sporting event.”[Wikipedia]
tags: olympics author: Robby Dream comments: No Comments
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March 12th, 2008
Just launched this month BlogUpp! seems to be the next generation link/banner exchange program people will love.
BlogUpp! introduces an improved service aimed to drive traffic and discover new connections for bloggers with quality content, the easiest and more efficiently. BlogUpp! operates with the exchange ratio of 10:9.
There is no registration, no account, and no other data required, except the link to the blog.
BlogUpp! generates in return a short code, for the blogger just to copy and paste into its blog once, and which will result in driving new traffic to it for good. WordPress platform and alike are supported as well.
BlogUpp! doesn’t require the blogger to submit an ad either, as it automatically takes a snapshot of the blog, and shares it on others using the service.
Each blog’s snapshot is accompanied by the most recent article, which BlogUpp! gets by reading blog’s RSS regularly. In this way the blogger enriches its blog content, and the readers are provided with diversified and valuable information. At the same time this method ensures there are no animation and annoying ads displayed to the readers.
As the community of blogs with BlogUpp! service gets bigger, the bloggers will get interconnected through common interests. BlogUpp’s method for scanning the content of blogs and its smart technique will enable interaction between bloggers with similar topics and quality content, without requiring a weblog category being specified.
Although every blogger is invited to benefit from BlogUpp! service, each submitted blog passes an approval step, in order to ensure only those with quality content are added. There are not accepted adult, gambling, and illegal or inappropriate content websites, which aims to make BlogUpp! a family friendly service with quality content. The approval doesn’t require additional action from the blogger though. As indicator of the approval status is the color of a specific element in the banner.
Every approved blog gets bonus impressions from the start. BlogUpp! has a democratic method of displaying impressions, so that even blogs with very few readers get fair visibility on other blogs. The more blogs one shows, the bigger the number of credit impressions it gets. However that doesn’t have to encourage cheating, aimed to artificially increasing the number of blog views by constantly refreshing it. BlogUpp! handles such attempts appropriately, so that to value blog’s readers, and not displayed impressions as such.
Previously used methods for adding visibility to a blog consisted mostly in building textual static blogrolls. That implies firstly getting to know of a weblog and only after that a link is to be established manually, by crawling the HTML for each update. With BlogUpp! the bloggers have the possibility to discover new connections effortlessly, in an interactive, automated and extremely simplified way.With a one-time inserted code into the weblog, the blogger gets to be known by other fellows who share common interests, obtains a boost in the traffic, along with a vivid, fluent and evolved blogroll. In this particular manner each blogger increases its chances for the blog to be shown to a wider audience, with no complexity at all.
All the bloggers are invited to take advantage of BlogUpp! service, which makes it easier than ever getting the bloggers interconnected. Readers and traffic are the true currency for the weblogs, and BlogUpp! can give it cost free to every blogger with quality content.
I placed the snippet here at Download-Agloco.com; a banner instantly appeared. Basically, a screenshot of your Website is shown, that when moused over, show s a sentence or two from your latest RSS feed.
tags: news, site promotion author: Robby Dream comments: 1 Comment
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