Seven Ausi Record Breaker Swimmers in Oympic

Australia will send one of its strongest ever Olympic swimming teams to this year's Beijing Games with seven individual long-course world record holders named in a 42-strong squad here Saturday.

The traditional swimming power finalised its team after the national trials which netted eight world records, headed by the sport's current fastest male and female swimmers, Eamon Sullivan and Libby Trickett.

Sullivan and Trickett broke 50-metre freestyle world records during the trials to underline Australia's sprinting strength.

Australia's other current long-course world record holders are Grant Hackett, Leisel Jones, Jessicah Schipper, Stephanie Rice and Sophie Edington.

Australian Olympic Committee chief John Coates believes the swim team is on track to improve on their record medal haul from Athens at Beijing.

Pre-trials rankings had the Australian swim team bringing home 18 medals from Beijing, and Coates said those expectations were still just as high considering their phenomenal form four months out from the Games.

"We've shown the performances of our sports last year and it calculated around 45 (medals) and they were predicated with the case of swimming on 18," Coates said.
"Nothing here has concerned me about not getting those numbers."

Australia with 15 medals, seven of them gold, finished second to the United States (28/12) in Athens and were runners-up behind the USA at last year's world championships in Melbourne, 36 medals to 21.

Australian head coach Alan Thompson said he is expecting the upcoming trials for other nations, notably USA in late June, to seriously challenge some of the recent performances by his team but says the ultimate judgement will be made in China.

"How good we are will be decided on the 18th of August (last day of swimming)," he said.

"As of now we have put a good performance on the board."

Hackett, bidding for a record three Olympic 1500m gold medals in Beijing, will be joined by fellow triple Olympians Jones, Adam Pine and Ashley Callus.

Twelve other swimmers are off to their second Olympics and there are 26 Olympic rookies, with backstroker Emily Seebohm the youngest member of the team aged 15.
The team announcement came after the conclusion of what has been rated one of the fastest national Olympic trials staged in the country.

There were eight world records, a further 13 Commonwealth records and another four Australian records established during the eight days' competition.

The Olympic team announcement at the Sydney Olympic pool was made in front of a gathering of Olympic gold medallists including Dawn Fraser, Shane Gould, John Devitt, Murray Rose, John Konrads, Michelle Ford and Jon Seiben.

Source : AFP

WC out Toilet in at Beijing China

Beijing's battle to standardize and correct English-language signs ahead of the 2008 Olympics has claimed another head -- "W.C.."

By the end of the year, all public conveniences in the city will be called "toilets" instead of the venerable, Victorian-era sounding abbreviation for "water closet," state media reported on Wednesday.

"In many Western countries they don't use the term W.C. at all," the Beijing Morning Post said.
"Because in English, it's equivalent to what we would call in China an outhouse, and is a rather crude slang term," it added, without explaining how it had got this impression.

Also on the list are road signs. Use of the romanized form of Chinese, known as "pinyin," will be replaced by the actual English word, except for proper names, the newspaper added. Out will go Dong Changan Jie and in will come East Changan Avenue.

But a rather more vexing question has been what to do about menus to help the hundreds of thousands of tourists, athletes and reporters expected to flood the city, many of whom will not speak a word of Chinese, let alone understand Chinese characters.

An initial list had been formulated and sent to experts for approval, the Beijing News said.
All restaurants and hotels rated three star and above will have to use the standard names once they come out, it added.

Linguists are struggling about the best way to translate popular dishes like "ants climbing the tree" -- spicy fried vermicelli with finely chopped pork -- into English accurately yet preserving the original meaning, officials have said.

They are hoping to avoid confusing visitors with the mish-mash of translations now on offer. One well-known Beijing restaurant chain has dishes called "It is small to fry the chicken miscellaneous" and "mixed elbow with garlic mud."