North Korea And Australia Are Now At War: Foreign Olympics News NBC Didn't Like Enough To Tape-Delay [Zooming In]

Deadspin and Gelf Magazine bring you the best (or at least the most interesting) foreign-produced journalism about the London Olympics.

The contest may not be formally recognized by the IOC, but North Korea and Australia are going for gold in the event of childish name calling.

On Wednesday the tiny Australian paper mX published an Olympic infographic in which they listed South Korea as "Nice Korea," and North Korea as "Naughty Korea." North Korea, which does not take kindly to derision, responded this morning with an English dispatch from North Korea's Central News Agency.

"This is a bullying act little short of insulting the Olympic spirit of solidarity, friendship and progress, and politicizing sports," Norh Korea began, before sinking to the Aussie paper's level. The KCNA continued that the "naughty paper" will remain as "a symbol of a rogue paper" for its "misdeed to be cursed long in Olympic history."

mX's Sydney-based editor Craig Herbert told Wall Street Journal Asia, "The two teams (South Korea and North Korea) were sitting in fourth and fifth spot respectively on the medal ladder and we thought it would be a humorous, but harmless way of differentiating between the two, and a reflection on how much of the western world views the two countries."

Today mX published KCNA's response with a front-page headline that reads, "N. Korea launches missive. (...That's missive)."

Here's something you might not know about Usain Bolt's 100m gold medal: it's not simply a Jamaican honor. "A piece of this medal goes to Germany," said the world's fastest man, explaining that the Bavarian doctor who successfully treated his ailing back this year deserves part of the credit.

According to The Local, Bolt took time out from his various lightning poses to heap praise on the good doctor Hans-Wilhelm Müller-Wohlfahrt whom Bolt has nicknamed "Mull". (With so many tantalizing syllables to work with, we can think of several better nicknames for the man, but no matter.)

"He's the best doctor in the world," Bolt added. "The doctor is a great, great man. Thanks, doctor!"

Müller-Wohlfahrt has made waves by using controversial techniques to treat a variety of celebrities, including Bono and Ronaldo. Among the tools in his arsenal: a substance called Hyalart, extracted from the crest of cockerels, that he uses to lubricate joints.

One athlete he didn't treat is Kobe Bryant, who went to a different German doc for his knee treatment. That therapy, called Regenokine, was performed by Dr. Peter Wehling, who centrifuged Kobe's blood and then reinjected it into him in what appears to be a successful attempt to stave off the arthritic pain that was plaguing the five-time NBA champ.

Germany may not have the athletes to seriously compete for sprinting or basketball medals, but at least its countrymen can take pride in the fact that their scientists are helping to extend the careers of those athletes who can.

Israel's sense of national shame over their failure at this Olympiad is splashed all over their sports pages. Yesterday brought an editorial titled, "Don't forget to tell them off, Lee," which argued that, though Lee Korzits seemed likely to medal in women's windsurfing, she ought not to forget to use her moment in the sun to speak her mind to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres.

Hareetz's Eyal Gil argues, "A medal today would whitewash years of neglect and hostility toward sports, failed management and disgraceful budgets. For 20 years, select branches of sport have overcome these incredible obstacles and pitfalls and against all odds won honor for Israel where it was undeserved … Israel's Olympic athletes train in intolerable conditions. They survive on minimal stipends. They either have to subsidize costs out of pocket or find a generous patron. Along the way, the State of Israel-its government, Sports Ministry and sports associations-spends its time undermining and humiliating them."

Haaretz may have been gratified to see that Korzits finished sixth in her event. (The Jerusalem Post went with the sub-head, "Nightmarish 9th in decisive medal race leaves last Israeli hope with 6th-place finish.")

Today, there's another editorial: "Faster, higher, stronger? Not for Israel." Uzi Dann writes, "The Israeli failure is comprehensive … If success in sports really matters to Israel, we need a revolution. Not only in budgets, but first and foremost in education. Israel can't boast about its sports education. The old Hapoel slogan-a pun in Hebrew-was "from thousands to champions." This expressed the belief that if a sport was practiced by the masses, champions would emerge. Nowadays, we invest in those precious few who have already made it to the top. Maybe Israel should invest in thousands of children instead of a few dozen prodigies." Both pieces profess a desire for a revolution in sports training.

Seven Olympic athletes from the African nation of Cameroon have vanished from the Olympic village. Their disappearance was confirmed yesterday by the country's Ministry of Sports and Physical Education.

According to Vanguard, mission head David Ojon sent the following message to the ministry: "What began as rumour has finally turned out to be true. Seven Cameroonian athletes who participated at the 2012 London Olympic Games have disappeared from the Olympic Village."

The athletes who have gone missing are five members of the Olympic boxing team, a swimmer, and the goalie for the women's soccer team. Drusille Ngako, the soccer player, was the first to vanish, leaving her team just before a pre-Olympic match against New Zealand. The swimmer, Paul Ekane Edingue, left his team a few days later. The five boxers disappeared more recently, leaving the Olympic village after having all been eliminated from competition.

According to Vanguard, the most likely explanation for these athletes' disappearance is economic reasons. They are hoping to stay in Europe and find a better life for themselves rather than returning to Cameroon. This is not the first time that Cameroonian athletes have defected in such a way. Competitors have disappeared without warning before at past Francophine and Commonwealth games, as well as junior soccer tournaments.

On top of competing for their country, Canadian siblings Hughes and Emilie Fournel are kayaking in honor of their late father Jean, a kayaker at the 1976 Games, who died of leukemia at age 40.

"We paddle on emotions," Emilie told the Globe and Mail. "That's the kind of paddlers we are. We paddle from the heart. That's why I like racing the 500 metres because it's a gutsy race and it's power, power, power and at the end it's all guts. I just think it's part of us. It's the way we grew up. For us it's a way of living, I guess."

Emilie and Hughes didn't record very good times in Monday and Tuesday's preliminaries, so a medal might be a longshot, but the experience of competing together is enough of a reward.

"I was telling my brother, it's like we're creating a memory with him without him being here, which is pretty special," Emilie said. "Not many people get to experience something like that. That's why we appreciate this moment. We know he's up there somewhere, looking down."

Kate Bennert, Isaac Rauch, Dan Gartland, David Goldenberg and Tom Ley contributed to this article.

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.

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A Ugandan Hero Is Trapped In London: Foreign Olympics News That Wasn't Big Enough For Bob Costas [Zooming In]

Deadspin and Gelf Magazine bring you the best (or at least the most interesting) foreign-produced journalism about the London Olympics.

Davis Kamoga is one of Uganda's most famous Olympic athletes, having won the silver medal in the 400-meter footrace at the 1996 Games. He's such a national hero that Uganda decided to fly him to London so that he could inspire and motivate the Ugandan track-and-field team.

The only problem is that the Ugandan Olympic officials forgot to give him any money.

Kamoga recently spoke to the Ugandan-government-owned newspaper New Vision by phone, and he told the paper that he was already out of money, and needed to be flown back home immediately. According to the article, Kamoga was given an allowance of 30 pounds per day, but was not made an official of the Ugandan Olympic team. Without such accreditation, Kamoga has had a very difficult time getting into the Olympic village or even seeing the athletes that he is supposed to be motivating.

"There is a lot I can do to help the athletes. I see a lot of weaknesses especially in attitude," a tearful Kamoga said on the phone. "Tell the officials I want to come back home," he added.

While he remains in London, he's often seen around the Games village, waiting for officials to take him inside, where he has a soda for lunch.

If you think you can help, or if you just want Ugandan motivation, the article's postscript reads: "Kamoga can be reached on a borrowed line +447424755107."

Lesson learned: Be sure to enjoy your fame while it lasts, Olympic athletes. One day you may find yourself abandoned by your home country in a strange land, having to call a local newspaper in order to beg that you be allowed to return home.

The Kazakhs are having a great Olympics—three gold medals as of this morning, ahead of host Great Britain—and they're looking forward to their favored events of boxing and wrestling. But for all their success, the mood of the national team is downcast, according to a deputy from the delegation that spoke to the Sydney Morning Herald: They just can't escape Borat.

The official, Aslan Amanov, said, "In the village there is absolutely no problem. The sports world knows Kazakhstan, our good side. It is when we go outside it is very disappointing. When you walk around the city sometimes they shout things at you which are not OK. Some were drunk and they were shouting all sorts of words."

The Herald takes the opportunity to remind us of the time that organizers of a shooting championship in Kuwait played the parody Kazakh national anthem (sample lyric: "Come grasp the mighty penis of our leader") instead of the real one.

Kuwaiti organizers messing up and drunken Brits making old jokes notwithstanding, Kazakhstan's investment in athletics appears to be paying off. The central-Asian republic is one of many embattled or traditionally peripheral countries using international athletic competitions to raise their profile, and new training programs and incentives have helped to cultivate a strong delegation.

The Herald details the cash prizes instituted for medal winners from the Kazakh delegation: In US dollars, gold medalists receive a $250,000, silver medalists get $125,000, and bronze medalists win $75,000. Money also is being invested in new infrastructure and equipment.

With a dedication to athletic excellence like that, soon enough Kazakhs will be able to high-five one another without someone yelling "HIGH FIIIIIVE!"

It's an election year in Quebec, and as always, there's a small but vocal contingent pushing for the province to declare independence. According to the Canadian Press wire service, one politician is using the Olympic success of Quebecers to argue for her province's sovereignty.

Pauline Marois, candidate for premier and leader of the pro-independence Parti Quebecois, was so elated with Canada's four bronze medals that she said, "This means, among other things, that it's another example of how Quebec could shine among the brightest … as an independent country. We could continue to win our medals, I'm sure of that."

Another Canadian publication was quick to argue that Marois is delusional. "With a leap of arithmetic worthy of Einstein, Marois determined that the four bronzes indicated Quebec could take its place among the nations of the world," David Newman wrote in Maclean's.
"Never mind whether any of the athletes are sovereigntists or separatists or share any of Marois' views whatsoever. Never mind what proportion of their funding was federal, provincial, municipal, personal, or private. The conclusion was obvious for Marois: four bronze equals independence for Quebec."

Right or wrong, if Marois wants to continue with tenuous correlations, she need only look south of her border as the US has earned more total medals (2,549) than Great Britain (737) since declaring its independence in 1776.

On Monday, Deadspin covered South Korean fencer Shin A Lam's tearful sit-in after losing a semifinal match to German Britta Heidemann on a controversial call in the final seconds. The last sentence of the piece informed us that Shin will be "denied a medal" after losing the bronze-medal match.

As it turns out, Shin won't score a medal-because she doesn't want one. The medal in question, however, is not Olympic gold, or even bronze. It is an International Fencing Federation (FIE) medal recognizing her "aspiration to win and respect for the rules," reports Agence France-Presse. An FIE spokeswoman told the French newswire that the medal was given because the group "understands the frustration and feelings of the athlete."

Whether or not FIE understands Shin's frustrations and feelings, the fencer has declined to accept what AFP called her "consolation medal." The UK's Guardian newspaper reports that she has opted not to accept the medal, as "it does not make me feel better because it's not an Olympic medal. I don't accept the result because I believe it was a mistake." So much for peace, love and understanding.

China's 16-year-old phenom swimmer Ye Shiwen has been hit hard with doping rumors after her two record-breaking gold-medal swims, yet the Chinese media claims this is nothing more than Western partiality.

"Negative comments about her and Chinese athletes come from deep bias and reluctance from the Western press to see Chinese people making breakthroughs," the Global Times opines. "If Ye were an American, the tone would be different in Western media. Michael Phelps won eight gold medals in the 2008 Games. Nobody seems to question the authenticity of his results, most probably because he is American."

Yet as Deadspin pointed out Tuesday, Phelps wasn't smashing records when he was a teenager and the US swim team hasn't had as many doping problems as China has had.

The Global Times believes it's all just a passing phase as China continues to grow, and in the future, once the country's athletes routinely compete with the West, it won't be "a big deal. Doubts will go away eventually."

Let's not count on it.

Kate Bennert, Isaac Rauch, Dan Gartland, Vincent Valk and Tom Ley contributed to this article.

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.

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U.S. Gymnastics Favorite Jordyn Wieber Outscored Nearly Everyone Else In Preliminaries. That Wasn't Enough To Qualify Her For The All-Around Final. [Gymnastics]

As expected, in the women's gymnastics preliminaries, the United States topped the field. Less expectedly, the margin was only 1.4 points.

And completely unexpectedly, world champion Jordyn Wieber failed to qualify for the individual all-around final, to compete for the most coveted title in gymnastics.

Wieber didn't have a meltdown or fall off the equipment. She had a very good meet with a few minor errors, breaking 60 points. Her 60.032 was the fourth-highest score in the whole preliminary field, 0.6 points behind the leader, Russia's Victoria Komova.

But the rules stipulate that only two gymnasts per country advance to the all-around final. And two of Wieber's teammates, Aly Raisman and Gabby Douglas, edged her out for second and third.

This means that a whole pack of gymnasts who did worse than Wieber will be competing for the all-around medal, while she sits out. Wieber even outscored the second-ranked Russian, 2010 world champion Aliya Mustafina, who is in fine form after tearing her ACL last year.

Yet while the 28th-ranked gymnast (Australia's Ashleigh Brennan, with a 54.232) gets a shot at all-around title, the fourth-ranked one is out.

The former Soviet Union used to get around this rule by faking an injury to one of the qualified athletes. Back in 1992—when the top three per country advanced to the all-around final—pre-meet favorite Tatiana Gutsu fell off the beam and failed to make the top three on the powerful Unified Team. So the team simply claimed that Roza Galieva had a knee injury and subbed in Gutsu, who ended up winning the whole competition. It was only a few years later that Galieva herself revealed that she in fact had not been injured.

But the American team isn't working up any orthopedic fictions to save Wieber's spot. Though most of the media hype had surrounded Wieber and Gabrielle Douglas, it's Alexandra Raisman who enters the all around final as the top-ranked American gymnast. She, like the rest of the Americans, did great on vault and she more than survived bars, her worst event. After that, it was smooth sailing on beam and floor exercise ahead of Douglas, who had a significant stumble on the floor.

While Wieber's elimination was shocking and weakened the all-around field, Raisman's ascension is not all that surprising to viewers who've been paying attention all season. Though she will never be a strong bar worker, she has steadily improved at it, and she has the highest difficulty scores on beam and floor of the Americans. And she rarely ever misses in competition.

(Kyla Ross, the youngest member of the U.S. team, was fantastic too, despite having very little international experience. If not for the two-per-country rule, she would have made the beam final, and she was close on the bars.)

Raisman placed second overall, right behind a reinvigorated Komova, who competed with new elements on all of the events except floor exercise. With Wieber out, Komova looks like the favorite to win the all-around gold.

The rest of the Russians competed with the same energy and ease that Komova displayed. They also beefed up their vault rotation, which is key if they're to top the U.S. in the team finals. Komova landed a nice Amanar, and Maria Paseka, who was named to the team purely for her ability to do that vault, also stood hers up, albeit very sloppily. While the U.S. remain the favorites, they will have to fight harder than they previously thought for the team title.

There was quite a big dropoff after the top two. The Chinese gymnasts landed in third on the strength of their bars, but the had very weak vault and floor rotations. And Romania, which had competed so assuredly against an injured Russian squad at the European Championships, didn't have a good outing either. Their all-around favorite, Larisa Iordache, fell on floor and had lackluster efforts on the other events, failing to qualify to a single apparatus final. Still, she placed ninth overall, 2.5 points behind Wieber. And none of her teammates beat her out—so, unlike Wieber, Iordache will be going to the all-around final.

For a handy master schedule of every Olympic event, click here.

Dvora Meyers is a freelance writer based in Brooklyn. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Slate, Tablet and elsewhere. She writes about gymnastics and Judaism at Unorthodox Gymnastics, and she is the author of Heresy on the High Beam: Confessions of an Unbalanced Jewess. She blogs about woman-y stuff over at The Anti-Girlfriend.

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