Larry Probst, chairman of Electronic Arts, has been elected chairman of the U.S. Olympic Committee, the Colorado Springs Gazette reported today.

"I'm extremely honored to be chosen for this role," Probst told the paper after his election to a four-year term. "I've had a lot of sports experience as a CEO. I've had a very successful business career. I know how to work collaboratively with people. I know how to build and develop a team."

Probst replaces Peter Ueberroth, former Major League Baseball commissioner.

Probst will likely spend most of energy at the USOC trying to convince the International Olympic Committee to bring the 2016 Olympics to Chicago.

I wonder if Peter Moore is bummed?

USOC names Probst from EA Sports as its chairman [The Gazette]

US national women's team members Heather Mitts and Heather O'Reilly are two fit athletes. Or so you'd think. Hey, they're in the Olympics! Watch as they compete with each other in Wii Fit mini-games for the chance at winning a Wii. Listen to that irritating announcer. Then scratch your head when Wii Fit says Olympiads' balance ages are 47 and 43 respectively.

Pathetic. Those ladies really need to get in shape. They need to quite that goofing off they do on the women's national team (gold medal — ha, whatever!) and just do Wii Fit all day long. That's the only way these slackers will get fit.

If you have lots of free time today, there's another clip after the jump. It has the hula hoop game.

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Everything is made more legitimate when described in a British accent, even when the narrator uses phrases like "video game things." So here is British Gaming Blog's "Summer Athletics Preview" -- in which Eidos touted the release of its upcoming Summer Athletics (Sept. 30 in Europe for the Wii) with some events of its own -- Xbox Put, the Wiilay, and the Gamecube Toss. Teaser only, they'll have the full video up sometime later. But you can get a look at some Xboxes smashing on the concrete at Battersea Athletics Track. I bet they'd still work.

I just realised I have a great name for UK broadcasting. And I love impersonating the broadcasts. "GMT time is twenty-two hundred. Owen Good, Kotaku World Service". Good thing this is text only, I think Stuart would beat me senseless if I said that in his presence.

Summer Athletics Preview [British Gaming Blog]

Japanese Olympic swimmer Kosuke Kitajima took gold for the men's 100m breaststroke. He certainly trained very hard to reach the tip-top condition he's in. Sure, he practiced hard, ate right and all that other stuff. But what else helped him achieve Olympic gold? Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games, says Kitajima! No, really. The swimmer explains:

See, Mario does the breaststroke. And thus, it's perfect mental training for envisioning the actual Olympic hall.

Watch as Japanese game sales will spike and wanna-be swimmers include Mario and Sonic in their training regimen...

北島「Ｗｉｉ」で「金」予行演習 [Yomiuri Sports Thanks, Tak!] [Pic]

"Bullshots" are nothing new for gamers. Penny Arcade coined the term a few years to describe game screenshots that looked too good to be true — and are. Photoshopping and CG graphics are nothing new to the game world — hence gamers general suspicion about pretty and shiny things — but are finding use larger than game PR. Issues like governmental state PR.

Take the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. Those 29 giant firework footprints that made their way to the Bird's Nest National Stadium from Tiananmen Square were actually computer graphics. Apparently, the Beijing Organising Committee was worried it wouldn't be possible to capture the fireworks over Beijing. According to The Oregonian reporter Jon Canzano:

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As Fahey previously pointed out in his feature, Olympic athletes like video games. Many athletes like video games, it seems. As Olympic runner Tyson Gay points out:

Olympic track athletes spend a lot of free time trying to be the best in their favourite video games. So much so, our fingers sometimes get more tired then our legs do in actual races.

According to Gay, playing video games helps take his mind off pre-competition jitters. He'll be running for gold in the 100m at the Beijing Olympics. Above, he explains his development as a runner through a painting he did of a tree trunk.

Athletes play video games as Olympics go virtual [Yahoo! News] [Pic Thanks, Zhien!]

So I am playing World of Warcraft last night and my more PVP-orientated guildies start linking these Competitor's Tabards that are showing up in their mailboxes after they finish playing in the battlegrounds. No one has any idea what is going on, and then this morning I see a story over at MMO Champion explaining that the tabard is part of WoW's Olympic event, which is the only reason I know the Olympics have started.

From now until August 25th, anyone who participates in a full battleground will receive the nifty ring-themed tabard. The pet, modeled after Olympic dragon mascot Sooty the Air Pollution Dragon, who I just made up, is randomly awarded to players who are on the winning team of a battleground. Being a hordie on the Ysera server, I will never, ever get one.

Olympic Tabard & Pet, WotLK Class Changes [MMO Champion - Thanks Kurt!]

The Olympics are starting soon! And if you are a game developer working on an Olympics game, you must get your game out on time. No matter what! That could be why SEGA's Beijing Olympics 2008 is apparently so, well, crummy. Japanese game magazine Famitsu scored the game 3,4,4,3 for the PS3 version and 4,5,4,3 for the Xbox 360 version. Ouch. Comments include things like "Sports, as a collection of mini games, isn't enough" or "We like the game patched". Apparently the PS3 online rankings weren't even working correctly, so. That's a shame. Well, guess that means we'll have to watch the real Beijing Olympics then.

PS3「北京オリンピック 2008」がファミ通レビューで次世代ハード最低点を記録 [裏はちま起稿]

Sega is getting ready to launch Beijing 2008 later this month, and they've just dropped new information and screens on the various track and field events available for play in the Olympic title. Six track events and eight field events make up the T&F portion of the game, with the races benefiting from a new analogue starting block mechanic involving the controller's trigger buttons. Players will be able to either button mash or stick-waggle to work up speed, intermittently leaping hurdles where applicable.

Meanwhile, on the field side of things, players can compete in the pole vault, high jump, triple jump, long jump, or my personal favourite events, the throws, with javelin, hammer, shot put, and discus all represented. Always been a big fan of throwing things. Just ask my borderline neurotic targets cats.

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The original Olympic Games of Ancient Greece, first held around 786 B.C., were created as a celebration of human physical achievement, which apparently consisted of watching naked, well-muscled men running foot races.

Luckily for the viewing public, the Olympics have come a long way since their revival in the late 1800s. Now they recognise both non-Greek speaking males and females as humans, they've added a fair bit of clothing, which tends to put the focus back on the actual sports...themselves expanded far beyond the initial foot-racing and wrestling of the original.

Over the past several decades, however, we've seen the emergence of an entirely new type of gaming - video gaming - and while it may not be an official event, the pastime we all know and love is alive and well at the Olympic games.

Let me introduce you to just a few of the gamers that will be representing the United States at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing...if we can pry them away from their consoles long enough.

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