Canadians show apathy about 2010 Winter Olympics

One in three Canadians do not know the Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games will be held in Vancouver, Canada in 2010, said a poll released on Thursday.

The poll, which was conducted by Decima Research for the federal government, revealed that in Ontario, only 60 percent of people correctly identified the location, and in Quebec 43 percent, Alberta 68 percent and British Columbia, 97 percent.

The poll came out on the same day when Vancouver mayor Sam Sullivan was in Toronto promoting the Games.

However, Sullivan said he is confident the games will be a boost for Canada and that they will bring "us together as a country."

Chinese shooters continue gold spree with record breaking shows

After a warming-up on Wednesday when China wrapped up all the four gold medals, Chinese sharpshooters continued sweeping the shooting ranges here on Thursday with their record breaking and equaling shows to bag nine of the ten golds.

Markswomen grabbed the gold of 10-meter air rifle team event with a record-smashing 1,196 points, two points ahead of the previous world record set by Chinese team as well in the 2002 Busan Asian Games.

The team was composed of Olympic gold medalist, world record holder of women's 10-meter air rifle Du Li, champion of the World Cup Bangkok and Guangzhou forts Zhao Yinghui and gold medalist of the 50-meter rifle three positions at the 2005 World Cup Finals WuLiuxi.

Du and Zhao both scored 399 points in the qualification round and Wu collected 398.

In the ten-shot final, the 25-year-old Du, who is ranked world No. 1 of the discipline, stunned the audiences by hitting the bulls eyes with all of the first nine shots above 10 points, including six above 10.6.

Although, after a failure of the electronic screen which begot a small fuss, she finished her performance with a 9.3 point, her 1st position seemed unshakable.

Du said she was regretful at the result.

"I thought I was going to break the world record and suddenly felt nervous," said Du with low voice as her head drooped, "I had been aiming too long before making the shot."

The girl from east China's Shandong Province, who created the world record at the 2003 Croatia World Cup with a staggering 104.9points, was always the last of the eight finalists to open fire.

In the last shot, she needed only a 10.6 point, a score seemed easy to her, to renew the record.

Du's teammate Zhang Yi might have renewed the world record as well, had the record still been renewable.

Zhang, 21, who carved out in the 2006 World Championships by pocketing junior gold of women's 10-meter air rifle, equaled junior world record with 400 points, or the full points, in the qualification round.

The junior record, set by South Korean shooter Seo Sun Hwa in World Cup Sydney Fort, was the same as the world record shared by Chinese markswomen Du Li, Zhao Yinghui and Wu Liuxi together with some others from South Korea, Australia, Germany, Russia and India.

Chinese teenage shooter Li Peijing clinched a silver with 497.8points.

In men's events, Xu Kun added another gold of men's 50-meter pistol with 662.3 points, and teenage shooters Yan Hang and Mai Jiajie split gold and silver in the junior competition of the event.

Thanks to their performances, all five team golds were pocketed by Chinese team.

The only gold medal Chinese lost today was the one for women's trap, in which China's Chen Li, champion of the Doha Asian Games last year, marched into the final with a leading 65 hits, but yielded to Kazakhstan markswoman Elena Struchaeva to finish the sixth.

Good or bad, the scores "only belonged to a single event," said Wang Yifu, head coach of the Chinese national shooting team, "they should maintain the sharpness in the following competitions."

FINA says Hungarian Olympic swimmer not guilty of doping

The world swimming governing body FINA said on Wednesday that it believes Hungarian Olympic champion swimmer Agnes Kovacs was not guilty of doping, according to news agency MTI.

FINA officially informed the Hungarian Swimming Association that it agreed with the Hungarian Swimming Association's opinion on this matter and would not appeal it.

Kovacs was implicated after providing an insufficient sample on October 30. She said she had been unable to complete the unscheduled test because she had to leave to attend a previous engagement with UNICEF goodwill ambassador Sir Roger Moore. Another test taken on November 8 was found negative.

The disciplinary committee of the Hungarian Swimming Association ruled that Kovacs had had a valid reason for leaving and that she had not violated doping regulations.

It criticized the Hungarian anti-doping authority for not appointing someone to accompany Kovacs and remaining with her until such time as she could provide a sufficient sample, as international sampling rules dictate.

FINA called on the Hungarian Swimming Association to relay its concerns to the anti-doping authority and warned that it was not setting a precedent with the ruling.

FINA only will accept a temporary interruption of a sample-taking session under very special circumstances, it underlined.

Unlicensed radio devices barred from entering Olympic

Radio devices will among the objects that security personnel at the venues for the Olympic Games will specifically be on the lookout for, according to an official of the Ministry of Information Industry.

Equipment without a special license tag will not be allowed into the venues, the Beijing Olympic Radio Management Joint Committee stressed at a meeting on Wednesday.

Zhang Shengli, director of the ministry's Bureau of Radio Regulations said that only the following would be allowed into the Olympic venues: roaming terminals that access public mobile telecommunication networks in China's mainland (mobile phones in particular); embedded wireless network cards in portable PCs; vehicular radio remote control keys with transmission power below 1mW; and radio remote control accessories for cameras, which either do not need approvals to operate in China's mainland or do not require a special "Radio Equipment License" tag.

Low power or short range radio devices, including wireless microphones, cordless phones, wireless remote control toys, public radios, walkie-talkie systems, handheld mobile radio services, satellite news gathering devices, microwave mobile links, fixed links, interpretation service systems, in-ear monitoring systems, cordless cameras, telemetry and telecommand systems, and wireless LANs, cannot be operated inside any Olympic venue or special control zone without the permission of the relevant radio management departments and without a "Radio Equipment License" tag during Beijing Olympic Games and its preparation period, in accordance with the provisional regulations jointly published by the Ministry of Information Industry and BOCOG.

China-made satellite navigation system to serve Olympics

A leading engineer for China's indigenous satellite navigation system said the new system would be used in guiding traffic and monitoring sports venues during the Beijing Olympics in summer 2008.

Ran Chengqi, deputy director of China Satellite Navigation Engineering Center, said the Compass Navigation Satellite System, which consists of five positioning satellites orbiting the Earth, will help alleviate traffic problems during the Olympics by providing detailed positioning information to individual drivers.

The home-grown navigation system, coded as Beidou in the Chinese pronunciation for the compass, can not only pinpoint precise locations of moving vehicles, but also tell drivers real-time traffic on routes to their destinations, Ran said at an international navigation industry forum in Shanghai.

In working for the Olympics, Ran said, the Beidou system would be compatible to the prevailing global positioning system (GPS), which was developed by the U.S. military and is now in pervasive civilian use worldwide.

China had primarily constructed the experimental satellite navigation web by May 2003, via launching three Beidou satellites into space. In February and April 2007, another two satellites were separately sent into orbit. The cluster of five Beidou satellites are comprised of the main infrastructure of the Chinese satellite navigation network.

China is going to launch more navigation satellites in 2008, the Shanghai-based Wenhui Daily quoted Ran as saying.

Besides the specific employment for the Beijing Olympics, Ran said, the Beidou system would also benefit wider applications from transportation, fishery, mining, to wildfire surveillance, Ran said.

In addition to the GPS and GLONASS, which was funded and constructed by the Russian military, the European Union invested in 2003 roughly 3.6 billion euros in developing an ambitious project, Galileo, which is planned to group 30 navigation satellites. The Galileo project does not run smoothly because of fund shortage.

Chen Zhonghe: New faces may appear at winter training

The Chinese Women's Volleyball Team will start its last intensive training season before the 2008 Olympic Games beginning January 1, 2008, in Zhangzhou. The team's coach, Chen Zhonghe, revealed that new faces may appear for training.

Young athletes like Zhang Xian and Wei Qiuyue, who were selected for last year's winter training, proved to be excellent.

Now, Chen is guiding the four veterans -- Zhao Ruirui, Feng Kun, Yang Hao, and Zhou Suhong -- in doing recovery exercises. Chen explained that he would select some new athletes to train for the national team.

"It depends on their capabilities," said Chen. Since Wei and Zhang had good performance in last year's competition, Chen decided to give more opportunities to freshmen.

Who will be chosen to join in winter training is to be decided through interviews in Beijing.

The winter training season will be the most important training before the Olympic Games. It will last four months. During that period, the Chinese girls would still participate in a series of warm-up competitions to adjust and improve.