The real XXX Olympic Games – sexy sports women

Video of Beautiful Vancouver British Columbia, home of the 2010 Winter Olympics. This is Vancouver, an amazing travel and vacation destination that boasts incredible scenery from the Mountains to the Ocean to Whistler and Blackcombe, the Sea to Sky Highway, the local snowboarding and ski mountains of Grouse, Cypress and Seymour, Stanley Park, long stretches of beaches and a funky urban city centre. The eye of the world will be on Vancouver for the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Female ski jumpers continue to fight an uphill battle in their quest to compete in the Winter Olympic Games.
In an attempt to advance their cause, two elite jumpers — Katie Willis of Calgary and 2009 world champion Lindsey Van of Park City, Utah — appeared at a Wednesday media conference in Denver to urge International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge to meet with them.
“It was definitely frustrating,” Van said. “We didn’t get to meet with Rogge, but we got our idea across to the media that we want to meet and don’t really want to go ahead with a lawsuit, but that’s where we’re headed.”
Van and Willis are among 15 plaintiffs in a lawsuit that is to be heard April 20 in B.C. Supreme Court. The lawsuit was filed in May by female ski jumpers who maintain that they should be able to compete at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver. Male ski jumpers have been in the Olympics since the inaugural winter Games in 1924.
Rogge is in Denver for IOC executive board meetings, which began Wednesday and are to continue until Friday. The plaintiffs sent Rogge a registered letter last week, but he did not respond to their request for a meeting.
“That’s just how they work,” Van said. “The top guy in IOC is not going to make an appearance for some athletes that he doesn’t want to be in his Games, anyway.”
The International Ski Federation gave a resounding endorsement of female ski jumpers in 2006, voting 114-1 in favor of their inclusion in the 2010 Olympics. The IOC was not swayed, however, maintaining that ski jumping at the women’s level had not developed to the point where it was of Olympic caliber.
The lawsuit has been filed against the Vancouver Olympic Games Organizing Committee. The suit contends that the exclusion of women is discriminatory and in opposition to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
“The reason it’s not (filed against) the IOC is very simple: Nobody has any authority over the IOC,” Women’s Ski Jumping USA president Deedee Corradini said Wednesday. “They can do whatever they want, so we had to look for another way to get this done.
“As our lawyers took a look at what our options were, VANOC, we feel, is the right place.
Our belief is VANOC can control whether the women jump or not. If this goes our way, VANOC is just going to have to tell the IOC, ‘The women have to jump. You can’t break the laws of Canada and we are subject to those laws.’ ”
Vancouver organizing officials contend they should not be the defendant because the IOC dictates the composition of the Winter Olympics. The IOC has not budged.
“If you have three medals, with 80 athletes competing on a regular basis internationally, the percentage of medal winners is extremely high,” Rogge told reporters on Feb. 28, 2008. “In any other sport, you are speaking about hundreds of thousands, if not tens of millions, of athletes at a very high level, competing for one single medal.
“We do not want the medals to be diluted and watered down. That is the bottom line.”
Corradini said there are close to 100 women from 18 countries competing at the elite level. A total of 166 women are registered as active jumpers with the International Ski Federation.
Since 1991 the IOC has demanded gender equity from any sport it adds.
However, ski jumping has been grandfathered, or “grandmothered” in this case. Ski jumping and Nordic combined (which includes ski jumping and cross-country skiing) are the only male-exclusive sports in the Winter Olympics.
“It doesn’t make sense,” said Willis, 17. “We’re doing whatever we can. We’ve gone through all the steps. This is the last step so hopefully this will be the thing we want.”
The first women’s ski jumping world championship was held Feb. 20 in Liberec, Czech Republic, with Van winning the gold medal.
The IOC has said it is amenable to adding women’s ski jumping for the 2014 Winter Olympics, earmarked for Sochi, Russia, providing its criteria can be met. Van is not prepared to wait that long.
“I need to get out and move on with my life if this isn’t going to happen,” the 24-year-old Van said. “I’m not going to wait for a bunch of old guys to decide my future when I can take it into my own hands and move on from ski jumping if it doesn’t happen now.”
For 2010, the women are asking for one event to be held on the normal hill in Whistler, B.C. The men’s event includes competition on the normal hill and large hill, as well as a team event.
Corradini — a former mayor of Salt Lake City — cannot understand why the IOC members are not open to that request.
“They would be heroes,” she said. “Everybody would shine. The lawsuit goes away. Why don’t they do something so simple?”

source: vancouversun.com

Amy Lyn Acuff (born July 14, 1975, Port Arthur, Texas) is an athlete from the United States. An aggressive high jump competitor, Acuff competed in the 2004 Summer Olympics as a member of USA Track and Field and is a three-time Olympian. Her personal best is 2.01 m, which she achieved in Zürich on 2003-08-15.
Acuff is also known for her career as a model, including multiple cover appearances.

The Omni Lie Millennium Calender of Champions 2000

One the most sexy Olympic Beauty is Olympic champion Wu Minxia.
Wu represented China at the 2004 Summer Olympics, earning a gold medal in the 3 meter women’s synchronized springboard along with Guo Jingjing before winning a silver medal in the 3 meter women’s synchronized springboard, coming in second place behind Guo Jingjing.

China’s Olympic champions Wu Minxia (near the camera) and Guo Jingjing dive during the women’s three-meter springboard synchronized preliminary at the “Good Luck Beijing” FINA Diving World Cup. [Xinhua]

Ana Ivanovic is born November 6, 1987, in Belgrade, Serbia, then Yugoslavia) is a former World No.1 Serbian tennis player. She is the current World No.5 in the WTA Tour and the reigning French Open champion. She was also the runner-up in singles at the 2007 French Open and the 2008 Australian Open.
Ivanovic’s mother, Dragana who is a lawyer, attends all of her daughter’s matches. Her father, Miroslav, a self-employed businessman, attends as many events as he possibly can. Ana has a younger brother, Miloš, with whom she loves to play basketball. Other hobbies include shopping, watching movies and playing Sudoku. She chooses not to have a permanent coach. Aside from her tennis career, Ivanovic also studies finance at a university in Belgrade, and Spanish in her spare time. Her inspiration to begin playing was Monica Seles, and she also admires Roger Federer.

On September 8, 2007, Ivanovic became a UNICEF National Ambassador for Serbia, alongside Aleksandar Dordevic and Emir Kusturica. She takes a special interest in the fields of education and child protection. Ivanovi? visited a primary school in Serbia during her inauguration and said: “I’m also looking forward to going into the classroom and meeting many kids.”

Ivanovic is a fan of all sport clubs competing under the name of Partizan Belgrade.

Ivanovic is friends with former doubles partner Maria Kirilenko, as well as other professional tennis players Daniela Hantuchová, Svetlana Kuznetsova, Sanja Ancic, Rafael Nadal, Tatiana Golovin and fellow Serbians Jelena Jankovic and Novak Djokovic (whom she has known since the age of 5) and Janko Tipsarevic.

Ana Ivanovic confirmed in November 2008 that she is currenty dating Spanish tennis player Fernando Verdasco.

The Oscars will offer up their own version of March Madness next year.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences has set Sunday, March 7, as the date for the 82nd Annual Academy Awards, moving into March in order to avoid colliding with the closing ceremony of the Winter Olympics.
That shifts the Oscar broadcast, held at Hollywood’s Kodak Theater, to a spot two weeks later on the calendar than the one it occupied this year.
Since 2004, the Academy Awards — previously staged in late March — have generally been held on the last Sunday in February. This year, that Sunday was Feb. 22, but because of how the calendar falls, it would have moved next year to Feb. 28.
That, however, would have put ABC’s broadcast of the Oscars up against NBC’s airing of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics finale. So, as it did in 2006, the Academy is moving the Oscars to the first Sunday in March to avoid facing off against the Olympics extravaganza.
Although a few commentators had floated the idea that the Academy should move into January in order to pre-empt awards season fatigue, the Academy didn’t adopt that gambit given the difficulty of compressing its awards schedule into just one month.
Next year’s schedule should have Oscar campaigners both applauding and groaning. There will be more time to promote Oscar contenders, but the grueling awards season process will run two weeks longer than it did this year.
The Academy’s expanded 2010 calendar will allow Academy members 11 more days to sample potential nominees since the nomination polls won’t close until Jan. 23; this year, nominations ballots were due Jan. 12.
Once the nominees are announced on Tuesday, Feb. 2, at 5:30 a.m. PST, the Academy voters won’t have to submit their ballots until March 2. There will be two more days between the nomination announcement and the close of the polls.
Other key dates in the Academy’s 2010 calendar: Screen credits will be due Dec. 1; nomination ballots will be mailed Dec. 28 and are due Jan. 23; nominations will be announced Feb. 2; final ballots will be mailed Feb. 10 and will be due back March 2. The Nominees Luncheon will be held Feb. 15, while the Scientific and Technical Awards will take place Feb. 20.

source: hollywoodreporter.com

Pressure on the United States Olympic Committee to renegotiate its existing revenue-sharing agreement with the International Olympic Committee rose to another level when an angry group of Olympic leaders voted to terminate the contract and renegotiate a new one.
The Association of Summer Olympic International Federations passed a non-binding resolution on Tuesday to end the U.S.O.C.’s current open-ended contract that agreement gives the United States 20 percent of the I.O.C.’s global sponsorship revenue — the same amount as all the other Olympic committees, combined — and 12.75 percent of the television revenue.
“The greed of this organization is unlimited. Totally unlimited,” Hein Verbruggen, the former chief of the International Cycling Union and an honorary I.O.C. member, said to The Associated Press. “It infuriates everybody and especially me.”
The international federations are meeting this week in Denver at a gathering called Sportaccord. Verbruggen is its chairman.
“The way they treat us, there’s no respect, no respect at all,” Verbruggen said. “It’s infuriating. I have no other words.”
The U.S.O.C., however, has emphasized that the United States generates a big chunk of the I.O.C. revenues and that U.S.-based companies provide most of the sponsorship money. The United States television contract is also far more lucrative than in any other country. To televise last year’s Beijing Games, NBC paid about $894 million. The European Broadcasting Union paid about $443.5 million. Chinese television networks paid about $7 million.
“We’re looking for a long-term solution, and it’s probably not best to do it in an emotional or pressure environment,” Bob Ctvrtlik, the U.S.O.C.’s vice chairman for international relations, told The Associated Press. “It’s not easy. It is complicated. I think we need to do that in a nice, calm manner.”
The impassioned debate comes at a delicate time for the U.S.O.C., with the bid to bring the Olympics to Chicago in 2016 ramping up. The vote on which city will host those Games is scheduled for October.
An I.O.C. evaluation commission will visit Chicago in early April. It will also visit the other three cities vying for the Games, Madrid, Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo.
Both sides in the revenue-sharing tiff deny that the Chicago bid would be affected by the revenue disagreement, which is not expected to be resolved this week.
Chicago 2016 chairman Pat Ryan said that the disagreement has nothing to do with the bid.
Even so, Verbruggen said: “I like the guys in Chicago. I really like Pat Ryan. I’d think they might be embarrassed with this whole thing.”

Female Ski Jumpers Ask to Meet With I.O.C. President
A group of international female ski jumpers have asked the I.O.C. president, Jacques Rogge, to meet with their representatives in Denver this week, in hopes of convincing the committee to allow female ski jumpers into the 2010 Games. In a 2006 decision, the I.O.C. barred women from participating in the sport at the Vancouver Olympics.
The athletes said that participation in their sport was growing quickly, outpacing several other Winter Games sports.
“We’re ready,” Lindsey Van, a world champion and American national team member, said in a statement. “Our sport has developed incredibly in the three years since that decision, and we would really appreciate the opportunity to tell our story to him personally.”
Fifteen female ski jumpers, including Van, have brought a lawsuit against the Vancouver Olympics organizing committee, citing gender discrimination. A hearing is scheduled for April 20 in British Columbia Supreme Court.

source: nytimes.com