I Love China

WoAi at the Masters Cup just after Davydenko defeated Andy Murray.

Those long term loyal readers will know I went to the Masters Cup last year and saw Roger Federer play Rafael Nadal.  Last Saturday I once again went to watch the semi finals of the Masters Cup, held this year for the very last time in Shanghai (it will be held at the 02 arena in London from 2009).  I was looking forward to watching Briton Andy Murray – world number 4 – play, having beaten and knocked out world number two, Roger Federer the day before. Read the rest of this entry »

What else is there to say.  The youngest ever Formula One drivers champion, the first ever black champion, and he’s been doing it for 2 years (and ALMOST won it in his very first year), oh and he’s British!

We saw him at the penultimate race at the Chinese Grand Prix two weeks ago where he led from start to finish.  All he needed was 5th place in the final race of the season in Brazil and of course, he got it, in dramatic style (moving up to 5th on the last turn!).

Well done Lewis, you did us proud.

Spectators wait for the 2008 Chinese Grand Prix to begin.

I went to the Chinese Grand Prix yesterday which is has been held in Shanghai every year since 2004. The state of the art Shanghai track is the world’s most expensive track built for formula one and cost around 240 million dollars to build. Shanghai means “above the sea” and the track is shaped to look like the Chinese character “shang” which means “above”.

WoAi with Lewis Hamilton (in the car in the background!)

Ferrari was by far the most popular constructor with the crowds. Half the spectators were dressed in red shirts, caps and other apparel and lots of vendors selling Ferrari caps, flags, jackets etc outside, despite the fact that it’s a McClaren driver that is leading and who is most likely to win the (drivers) title.

John lost interest when he realised there weren’t any Americans racing.

This was my first time at the grand prix and I suppose the most unexpected thing is the noise level. I thought I could do without the earplugs that vendors kept trying to get me to buy and luckily Dingle had a spare pair in his man mag that he kindly gave to me.

Dingle was very impressed with John’s long white one and just had to give it a stroke. I felt somewhat inadequate, so there won’t be any photos of me with my pathetic, averaged sized one. Anyway, isn’t it how you use it that counts John?

Lewis Hamilton comfortably won the race, leading all the way, which means he only needs 5th place or better in Brazil in two weeks to take the drivers’ championship and become the youngest ever champion as well as the first black F1 champion – good luck Lewis.

WIth all this talk of cheating, I thought everyone would be interested to see what the 2008 Olympic medals table looked like after adjusting for population. The good news is the two big quarreling rivals USA and China are nowhere to be seen at the top of this table.

China came top with 51 golds of course, but has a population almost 500 times larger than say, Jamaica. So if we look at medals won per 10 million citizens, China comes 47th and has a lot of catching up to do. Per 10 million it didn’t even manage HALF a gold medal while Jamaica tops the table with 22 golds per 10 million.

USA didn’t do much better, coming in at 45th in the rankings.

If we use the total medals won not just golds (the American method), then Bahamas retains its crown at the top of the table in Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008.

So, congratulations Jamaica and Bahamas on an amazing Olympics!

Some of you will remember that I was in Beijing a few weeks ago to ensure that the preparations for the 2008 Beijing Olympics are going well and I was happy to report it’s all under control.

Yesterday, I flew home to London – also home of the 2012 Olympic Games – to see how well the preparations are coming along. I suppose this is a good opportunity to show (again) the London 2012 official logo, which controversially cost 1.2 million pounds (seriously, 1.2 million pounds!) to design. It is supposed to represent the numbers 2012 with the 5 Olympic rings embedded in the zero, but some people claim looks like cartoon character Lisa Simpson on her knees performing ….. oh never mind, I personally can’t see it myself!

Tonight I’ll be heading to Marbella in southern Spain, for a 3 day work conference, after which I’ll spend 3 nights in Barcelona followed by a week in London catching up with family and friends. So you can expect some on-the-road blogging over the next few weeks, but I expect China will still come up in many of the posts.

This is the plane I took, a British Airways Boeing 777 which they use exclusively on their Shanghai to London route, which runs 5 days per week since the service was launched in 2005.

I checked in online the night before, which relieves some of the stress and means my chosen seat is already reserved and I only need to drop off my bags at the airport and not worry that I’ll be sandwiched between two fat guys for 12 hours.

The sharp eyed among you will notice that written on the side of the plane are the words:

“Official Airline England Football Team”.

That’s all very nice, especially with the UEFA European Championships about to start next Saturday in Austria and Switzerland (it’s like the world cup, but only for European countries). Sadly though, England failed to qualify, so we won’t really be needing an official airline this summer – thanks Mr McClaren!