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Last Friday (September 17th), the Micronational Olympics 2004, an event co-organized by Shireroth and Mahina, were closed by the posting of Scott Siskind's final speech. This was a bit of surprise, since some people knew that an Olympic event was under discussion and only a select few knew where and when it was held, or even that it was held in the first place.
In his speech, Scott spoke about the unifying power of sports in general and the Olympics in particular. The event had brought some nations (that we otherwise might never have heard about, such as Natopia and Mahina) closer to the micronational community, even if the major part of this community was absent from the Olympics.
The primary goal of the Olympics is not politics, though, but sport. The original plans contained both physical sports and mind sports - the first everyone could hold in their own backyards (if it they were large enough for a 3,000m parcours), the mind games such as Reversi and Chess were to be held online. Since there are no results shown for these, it is doubtful these events ever took place. The physical sports (frisbee throwing, tennisball throwing, 3000m running and 100m running) did take place, and according to the true Olympic spirit no-one cheated on the times or misjudged the distances. The non-running events were a clear victory for the Natopians, who also had the largest number of participants. Further details of the results can be found in the preceding article.
The lack of publicity surrounding this event is a pity, even more so since it was good opportunity for micronationalists to get some physical exercise instead of sitting in front of a computer all day. Apparently one journal was intended to be the official news publisher for the Games, but in the end this never materialised, while the Olympic Committee forum in Shireroth gave the impression that the Games just fizzled out. Let us hope, though, that this event will continue in the future, because it is an excellent initiative.
Wednesday, September 22, 2004
The Olympic Report
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3 comments:
I read the announcements of an olympic tournament to be held in yahoo games, that is true. But after that, the was only silence on this subject, so the Inquisitor editors presumed that the event never took place, until we stumbled upon your speech. I never heard that the event actually had started, and I hadn't heard anything before that it had finished.
Um, if Lachlan had written the story, why on earth would it say "Posted by Trevon" at the bottom of it?
Details, details...
ANYWAY, to examine the facts behind the stories: in Micronational Eye there were two announcements - yours, Scott, posted on August 5th, which was a general one advertising the events, and linking to the IOC forum, and presumably was the one you posted in all the other places that you mentioned, and Lachlan's on the 14th about how Aerlig was celebrating the Olympics.
In the IOC forum you posted a link to the official website on the 15th, which was actually a link to an introductory page which said that "Please take time to visit the new forum donated by our co-host Shireroth. Event times and news will be posted there." I therefore personally assumed the "more" link linked to the forum, as it would not make sense if it linked to anywhere else. I did discover a lot later (see below) that there was a hidden link to the actual site via the Olympic logo, but at the time, the page and the URL looked as though that was all there was to the site, apart from the forum.
Contrary to what was stated on that page, the IOC forum only had internal organisational discussion regarding planning, and sending scores. There were never any formal announcements of any events, nor was anything posted there as an "event", for example the opening and closing ceremonies.
I remember seeing something somewhere about Tiegismo Hoy being the official news source, but that never materialised, and seemingly no-one else published anything, until I decided to check on the Molossian news on a whim, and discovered a story about the Olympics opening on the 13th, and which had a direct link to the official website proper, to which I immediately went, and discovered, purely by co-incidence, that your closing speech had been posted there, two weeks late, on that very day. (And a very nice speech it was too, I must add).
And all of that is basically is what set the tone of both our Olympic stories.
And as an addendum, if you still think there was loads of publicity, can someone explain why not even Ardashir knew they had actually taken place when I asked him about it last night??
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