Argentina says adios to Russia with 91-79 win

Argentina fought off a fourth quarter surge by Russia to win 91-79 in the last game of the Men's Basketball preliminary round on Monday, August 18.

Argentina seemed to be on course for a swift victory when it closed the first quarter 27-16 and the half 45-39 without losing its lead more than once. Luis Scola and Andres Nocioni each scored 14 points in the first half, and Nocioni was on fire with 100 percent shooting including three three-pointers. Russia's Andrey Kirilenko also shot with perfect accuracy for 12 points in the first half, and he pulled five boards to help his team out-rebound Argentina 17-11.

Coming back from the break the Russian team came within five points when Sergey Bykov hit a foul shot after his made basket to bring the score 49-44, but Argentina charged forward 72-64.

In keeping with Russia's trend of opening each quarter strong, the fourth period saw a final push from Russia that even resulted in the team's second lead of the game, 73-72 after Kirilenko went to the foul line. Russia lost the lead, but J.R. Holden hit a three-pointer in response to two-points from Scola to narrow the gap 76-75 still in Argentina's favor. In the end, Russia couldn't surpass the defending Olympic champion and Argentina was able to regroup and pull out a win.

Scola racked up a staggering 37 points and eight rebounds without touching the bench once all game. Nocioni contributed 19 points and nine rebounds by the end, and Ginobili shot for 12 points with four assists. Russian captain Kirilenko led his team with 23 points, followed by Holden with 19 points and nine rebounds. Bykov and Andrey Vorontsevich tied with 10 points netted.

Argentina enters the quarterfinal as the second seed from group A, while Russia now exits the tournament.

Review: Beijing 2008

GOING FOR GOLD: Beijing 2008 is a game for Olympics fans who like their virtual events to be as challenging as the real thing.
Beijing 2008 is the official game for this year's Olympics and carries on the traditional button mashing madness that started back in the 80s with other related titles.

However, unlike the early days, Beijing 2008 is definitely aimed at being more of a serious sports simulation than a furious arcade time-waster. This game features 32 countries (unfortunately only a fraction of the 204 total competing in the Olympics) and 35 events across a range of disciplines, each with their own techniques to master.

The immediate problem with this "serious sporting" slant is that Beijing 2008 becomes a lot of hard work. Although the numerous events feature similar elements to their controls, very few gamers will be able to sit down and get a medal on their first attempt. Or even on their fourteenth attempt.

It is obvious why Sega have made this game difficult to master, as it really does portray the amazing skill and dexterity required by the athletes who take part in the Olympics. But sadly, this has also removed some of the fun from the game as well.

Although the difficulty may deter plenty of casual players, it does open the doors to those people out there looking for a detailed sporting simulator.

Plenty of events, like the 100m sprint or shot-put simply require tapping two buttons as fast as you can (the PS3 version also allows you to waggle your analogue sticks if you prefer). But the more technically complex sports demand near-perfect timing and literally hours of practice.

For example, the diving event requires you to gently move your analogue sticks to guide your player through the diving motions - twisting and turning with the right timing to avoid a nasty belly-flop. There is a similar element to the gymnastic events where you must time the pressing of various buttons with on-screen directions to try and nab that perfect score.

Other events like the long jump use the typical button tapping for speed but then a quick change of controls to use the shoulder buttons for the final jump, where your timing indicates the angle and distance you travel. Press the shoulder buttons too early or for too long and your distance will suffer dramatically. Worse yet is pressing the buttons too late, resulting in an instant disqualification as you place a foot over the jumping line.

This leads onto the other issue with Beijing 2008. The game is very non user-friendly and although each event has the option of viewing a tutorial first, they are often too quick to fully comprehend. This doesn't help the fact that most of the events have very steep learning curves and that the AI opponents seldom screw up. The end result is an extremely frustrating experience that reminds you that not only could you not do these events in real life - you now also completely suck at video games as well.

After coming dead last in judo, cycling, hurdles, 100m butterfly stroke, high jump, long jump, table tennis and gymnastics, I was beginning to lose hope. Luckily though there are some events that are easier to pick up and play and therefore more fun.

Archery featured a surprisingly natural and fluid control system that doesn't appear to feature in any other of the events. By pulling back on the right analogue stick, your player pulls back the bow and with the left stick you aim your crosshair. The longer you try and aim the shot, the smaller the target becomes to indicate strain on your archer's hand.

Flicking the right stick forwards launches the arrow, and hitting near the bullseye was satisfyingly rewarding. Especially after half an hour of clay pigeon shooting where I managed to hit a whopping 1 out of 25 targets (Sweden won gold with 24 targets).

There is only a small amount of time that any one man can continue to look like a complete muppet while playing a game by himself. This amount of time is around 53 minutes, so after nearly an hour of seeing myself come dead-last in every event I decided to get three mates around. Beijing 2008 allows for up to 4 players to compete on the same console and up to 8 players online.

Truth be told, multiplayer does make this game more entertaining. This is mainly because your shame is now shared between the four of you, all fighting to avoid being the wooden spoon champion.

Some of the highlights were the long distance running events such as the 1500m where the controls were simple and the need to pace your runners for the three laps proved to be a fun challenge. Kenya was doing brilliantly until he suffered heart failure after full-on sprinting from the starting block.

The PS3 version of the game features some excellent graphics and sound that all help immerse you into the Olympic extravagance. Despite the unusually pixilated opening menu screen, the in-game visuals are extremely life-like. The animations of the human form across all events are stunning and often it feels like you are watching the real thing on TV.

The only short-fall lies in the similarity of the models getting recycled across a few of the different nationalities. Undoubtedly though, Beijing 2008 features some very detailed athletes and this obviously helps add to the realistic presentation of the game.

One thing that's clear about Beijing 2008 though, is that the game is extremely unforgiving to both your controllers... and your hands. With all the repetitive controls and button bashing, sometimes you are in so much pain you felt like you just ran 1500m... on your thumbs. Thankfully though, the game has a great range of events so splitting the running or swimming events with slower paced ones can help reduce the strain on your thumbs.

For those players who don't want their thumbs to resemble pork sausages, we discovered an excellent method that we came to call the "no-fingered-palm technique." As many of the events allow you to waggle your analogue stick to gain speed, you can simply place your palm on top of the stick and rotate your whole hand. Trust us, you'll thank this review later when you out-run your opponents when they stop for an RSI break.

Beijing 2008 isn't an easy game to nail down into an overall score. On one hand, the people considering purchasing Beijing 2008 are likely to be serious Olympic fans wanting to get a full-on experience in the events they watch on TV.

In this case, Beijing 2008 is sure to please and the challenging learning curve is more likely to spur players on to perfect their technique and claim gold. The game even allows players to train their own team of athletes and customise their perfect team.

Even breaking virtual World and Olympic records and having them displayed online for eternal glory is possible. But for others wanting a fun arcade-like game, Beijing 2008 is likely to just end up being too much work.

NBC hails multimedia 'phenomenon' in games coverage

US broadcaster NBC has claimed "phenomenal" ratings for its multimedia coverage of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, with viewing figures bolstered by on-demand, web and mobile content.

In the first four days of the event, the official broadcaster for the Olympics across the US saw viewing peak on Sunday with Michael Phelps' second gold of the games during the 4x100 mens' relay.

NBC, which has been using a new measurement system to combine viewing figures across all media outlets, saw TV viewing peak at 107.3 million across the US that night, up from 70.1 million on Friday.

Though TV still accounts for the vast majority of Olympic viewing, its share dropped the following Monday from 95% to 92% as the volume of online viewing of NBC's Beijing coverage grew.

The NBC website saw unique user numbers increase from 4.2 million last Friday, August 8, the first day of the games, to 7.8 million on Monday, August 11, when viewers wanted to replay Phelps' US swimming victory. NBC recorded 1.7 million downloads of the final 4x100 relay final.

In the UK, BBC Sport Interactive head Ben Gallop said bbc.co.uk recorded more traffic in the first two days of the games than in the entire two weeks of the 2004 Athens games.

Commenting on the record traffic, Gallop described Beijing as "a stepping stone for London - we want try things out and see how they work to learn for four years' time".

Alan Wurtzel, research president for NBC Universal, said the ratings are well ahead of the Athens games in 2004 and confirmed that the 2008 Beijing Olympics are the most viewed ever, with 114 million US viewers compared with 110 million for Athens.

Wurtzel also said the broadcaster has been "stunned" by the popularity of mobile content. On August 8 just 210,333 people accessed the NBC service, but by Monday this had more than doubled to 476,062.

More than half these people are accessing mobile content for the first time, NBC research found.

"These Olympics are influencing how people are using new technology," Wurtzel said. "Half of the people viewing on mobile are using it for the first time. After the Olympics, it will be interesting if these habits become part of their behaviour."

On top of TV coverage, NBC is offering an unprecedented 2,200 hours of live Olympic webcasts and 700 hours of additional, exclusive content distributed through cable TV, although some commentators have criticised NBC's decision not to post any events online until they have been aired on TV.

Wurtzel also admitted that NBC had feared that online content would cannibalise the TV audience, which is the most lucrative for advertising - but said this has not been the case. NBC's research showed that just 0.2% of its audience used the web exclusively.

Olympics 2008 (BBC1 & BBC2)

By Michael Deacon

Such a colossal challenge demands deep reserves of strength, stamina and willpower. Physically and mentally you’ll be pushed to the limits of endurance. You’ll flag. You’ll curse. At times you’ll feel like giving up. But something in your psyche pushes you to struggle on to the finish.

Yes, watching an entire day of the BBC’s Olympics coverage is tough. I slogged my way through Saturday, the first day of competition, from 6.00am (the start of BBC1’s Olympic Breakfast) to 4.30pm (when Final Score blessedly took over). After a few hours I started to envy the athletes. They may have been busting their guts in punishing heat and noxious smog, but at least they couldn’t hear the commentary.

The BBC team warmed up with their finest impressions of Alan Partridge. Rob Walker, reporter for the sailing events, was interviewing the British women’s Yngling trio, all of whom were blonde. “You’re changing the perception of sailing – because you’re young, fun, and also pretty sexy!” he gurgled. “I’d like to go out with those three blondes,” sighed Adrian Chiles in the studio. “In the nicest possible way – just out for a sail.”

Great Britain’s competitors were having an erratic first day, but our commentators were going strong in a number of events. There was early success in the Mixed Metaphor: “Hang on to the coat-tails of the Romanian boat and that could give you a good springboard,” said Garry Herbert during the women’s coxless pairs. There was a fine effort in the Bizarre Neologism, when Jacqui Oatley described the captain of the North Korean women’s football team as its “taliswoman”. And there was glory in the Irresistible If Not Strictly Apposite Pun: “Checkmate to the Czech Republic!” yelped an unnamed commentator, during the women’s 10m air rifle.

But the field in which the BBC’s plucky correspondents excelled was the Repeated Cliché. This year’s most common commonplace, employed time and again in expert analysis and interviews, appears to be “under your belt”. Medals, races, experience – according to the BBC team, you can cram just about anything under there. Let’s just hope that our athletes don’t find their movement restricted by their belts, or the accumulation of objects, events and abstractions they’ve got under them.

The first day’s most intense BBC competition, though, concerned the name of one of Great Britain’s representatives in the men’s double scull, Stephen Rowbotham. Commentator Garry Herbert kept giving his surname the long “o” you get in Ian Botham, whereas presenter Sue Barker, speaking later, doggedly insisted on the short “o” you get in “broth”. The writer of BBC1’s on-screen captions tried a compromise by identifying him as Steve Rowbottom. Perhaps the next time someone interviews him they could resist asking what he’s got under his belt and instead ask him what his name is.

Surrendering hope of hearing an answer, I reached for the red button. There were six sports on offer, but the trouble is, once you’ve watched five minutes of one sport, you start to worry that you’re missing some more exciting action elsewhere. So you end up flicking between them at neurotic speed – thus missing all the excitement at once.

The best bet was to stick with the men’s swimming, specifically to gape at America’s star competitor Michael Phelps. In Athens in 2004 he won six golds. This time he’s aiming for eight. According to BBC pundit Sharron Davies, the chief factor in Phelps’s success is his physique: very long body, very short legs. Apparently this is the ideal combination for a swimmer.

If it’s true, Phelps will be unstoppable, as he is essentially a torso with feet. The footage of him taken from beneath by the underwater camera gave us the most mesmerising, and the most unsettling, sight of the Games so far. He wriggled though the pool like a gigantic eel.

It was an exhausting first day. But things only got harder for the BBC yesterday morning, when torrential rain caused the ceiling of its Beijing studio to leak, leaving the floor drenched and presenter Hazel Irvine surrounded by buckets. At one point I swear I caught a glimpse of Phelps swimming past her sofa. But everyone forgot the downpour when cyclist Nicole Cooke streaked through the sodden streets to win the women’s road race. Commentator Hugh Porter shouted himself into such a frenzy you’d have thought he’d won it himself. “Waaaargh!” he bellowed, “Cooke takes it!”

Great Britain’s first gold of the Games. Good to get it under our belts.