Alibaba Introduces Cloud Olympic Pin Technology

Olympic pin collecting is enjoying closer proximity to the digital age thanks to Alibaba.

The official cloud technology and e-commerce services partner introduced the Alibaba Cloud Pin -- a cloud-based digital Olympic pin -- to working media at the Tokyo 2020 Main Press Center and International Broadcast Center last week. 

About the size and shape of a Reese's peanut butter cup replacing grooved edges with a smooth and sturdy plastic casing, each cloud Olympic pin includes a liquid crystal display and is app-enabled so its owner may create a pin-specific profile. 

Wearable on fabrics like traditional Olympic pins, the cloud pins glow and double as a name badge for the bearer. For social distancing and convenience, two cloud pin holders can simply tap their pins at arm's length, and the collectibles electronically exchange user info. 

The pin also functions as a step counter to log one's journeys on foot between pin exchanges. It's not clear how the pins maintain a charge, but one of the launch videos hints at a storage or charging case for this purpose. The other launch video shows more about the tapping and step counting tools. 

I suspect these modest media gifts are only a test run for introducing Cloud Pins to athletes at Beijing 2022's Olympic Village, but only time and user feedback from Tokyo 2020 will tell. No matter when cloud pins make it to consumers, I'll be ready with my designated pseudonym for trading: Pinhead. 

A Little Theory About Simone Biles' Mental Health

As a wannabe Olympic reporter accredited for but not in Tokyo, I've been percolating on an Olympic gymnastics theory -- specific to Simone Biles -- since the Olympic champion's decision to exit the team all-around competition. 

After running this notion by friends for a pre-post sniff test, I'm now interested in additional perspectives. Please read then share yours with a comment.  

It's not as "out there" as The Onion's hilarious initial take.

Biles obviously captivated the media along her road to Tokyo. I lost count of the cover stories predicting her competitive dominance. 

Some articles mentioned she also captivated the attention of her boyfriend, NFL player Jonathan Owens, just before and since the start to the pandemic. The couple earned a Good Housekeeping "Seal of Approval" of sorts in this fresh story since Biles' Tuesday announcement.

So, think about it. Biles and Owens, obviously in love, but facing a few weeks apart as she travelled solo to Tokyo. How would many couples spend their last private hours together after a nice meal or some Netflix and chill?

See where this is going?

My theory: Simon Biles could be pregnant. 

Team USA celebration in 2016. Photo: N. Wolaver

The theory explained further: She got the news only hours before competing but after qualifying for the team all-around final. What other life-changing news might send anyone into an array of strong emotions or mental considerations?

Further still: Biles does not want to share this private news with the world. She may not even be ready to share it with Owens. 

And Team USA doctors are working -- one day and training session at a time -- to be sure its safe both mentally and physically for Biles (with baby on board?) to leap, tumble, jump and do all those other things Biles does to further affirm her GOAT status in her sport. 

Biles would not be the first pregnant Olympian. According to Olympedia, 22 women competed with child, some knowingly with others oblivious to the bundles of joy witnessing their mother's five-ringed feats with an insider perspective. 

My theory is rooted in a prior interaction with a pregnant Team USA Olympian. A few days before the London 2012 Opening Ceremonies, I helped some colleagues at a 24 Hour Fitness press event in East London to open a private training center for Team USA, and Kerri Walsh Jennings was a paid spokesperson at the event. A broadcast outlet asked her to "show us your abs" and I was standing beside the reporter and Walsh Jennings for the flash of her belly, inspiring a premonition and question in my mind, "Has anyone competed in Olympic beach volleyball while pregnant?" 

Pregnant? Yes. Five weeks.

No one questioned Walsh Jennings on this topic in the moment, but weeks after she won gold in London she disclosed her five-weeks pregnant status from the previous ab flash photo opp.

Four years later, anyone listening closely to the 2016 ESPN documentary can clearly hear me asking Walsh Jennings about her London 2012 pregnancy during her Q&A session at the Team USA Media Summit. These combined experiences for me as an Olympic writer are the foundation of my Biles pregnancy theory. 

How say you, Olympic, gymnastics and Biles fans? 

Whether right or wrong about this theory, wishing Biles and her teammates all the best for continued success in Tokyo! And there's no theorizing to concur: Biles is GOAT in her sport. 

Image credits: Leaping photo by Danielle Parhizkaran-USA Today Network; Sports Illustrated cover photo by Kate Powers; photo of 2016 gymnasts at Team USA celebration in Washington, D.C., by Nicholas Wolaver; cheering Biles photo via The Onion; Walsh Jennings photo via this page.  

Citius Altius Fortius ... Simultaneous

The Olympic Motto Citius Altius Fortius always had a nice ring to it.  I like Friday night's addition: Simultaneous.

Faster Higher Stronger Together was just one of several takeaways inspiring reflection since Tokyo's moving if muted Olympic opening ceremony. 

Like most of the world sidelined by the pandemic-enforced spectator ban, my "attendance" this time was via home viewing both through NBC's live morning broadcast and the heavily-editing evening rerun. 

There are many elements of the ceremony this five-ring-inspired writer loved (in no particular order):

• Olympic rings constructed of wood harvested from trees planted when athletes of the Tokyo 1964 Olympics brought seeds to the Games 57 years ago. The portable "Olympic Village" structures also provided a great surface for tap dancing

• 
  An original and marvelously elaborate dress by fashion designer Tomo Koizumi worn during the Japan national anthem performance by Misia, a nod to LGBQT inclusion (see photo below)

• Olympic drones -- more than 1,800 of them -- provided by Intel as announced in their June 2017 Worldwide Partnership press event. Loved what they achieved over Tokyo Olympic Stadium (a giant leap from the weather-sidelined debut in PyeongChang)

• Minimally-intrusive narration and commentary by NBC hosts Savannah Guthrie and Mike Tirico (this was my first time watching a live opening on TV since 1992, and they did a great job sharing facts while knowing when to let moments unfurl on their own)

• Kinetic pictograms from Tokyo 1964 to the brilliant live performance of their 2020 edition

• Another innovative and original Olympic cauldron design (see video at base of this post)

• 
  Jazz-scored comedic video of a control room operator illuminating Tokyo Olympic venues before casting a spotlight on live performers including a knockout piano solo by Hiromi Uehara

• Parade of nations camera work that generally placed athletes much closer to viewers (close enough to count Olympic pins on their lanyards and lapels or see the smiles in their eyes on their mask-covered faces)

• Release of digital projection and paper doves set to a new-to-my-ears version of "Wings To Fly" in a recorded performance by Susan Boyle, who affirmed via Twitter "it was a true honour to be asked by the #TokyoOlympics to use by song ... during the dove release."

There were also a few head-scratchers:

• Final torchbearers entered the stadium accompanied by Maurice Ravel's "Bolero," perhaps foreshadowing the matching hairstyles of Naomi Osaka and Bo Derek as seen in the comedy "10" (which famously relied on the same music for a memorable effect)

• Yet another Olympic ceremony (the third or fourth) featuring John Lennon's "Imagine" -- I like the song, and it was certainly appropriate (maybe more now than in past ceremonies), but it's getting overplayed (would have welcomed/preferred an original song to inspire togetherness)

• While NBC aptly cut much of IOC President Thomas Bach's long-winded speech for their evening broadcast, WTF was that weird and unnecessary promo reel featuring "The Rock" Johnson (other than another delay to Team USA entering the stadium)? The promo added more time and had no messages worthy of viewer attention. Ridiculous!

A couple of hours after the live broadcast, the IOC press office distributed the full text of Bach's remarks. While the speech would have benefited from many edits for brevity, his positive messages resonated with me. 

As armchair quarterback, I'd have substituted "solidarity" with "togetherness" to strengthen the point. We still needed Bach not The Rock!

And while no breaths were held waiting for Bach to do so, I was secretly hoping he might drop in a stern message to anyone in the world with vaccine access not choosing to get vaccinated. 

"Get vaccinated, dummies!" would have had a nice ring to it. 

Photos via Reuters, Getty Images, AFP/Getty Images and China News. Video via Reuters.

Out - Not Down - About Dashed Tokyo Olympiad

July 15 turned out better than anticipated, but not as hoped. 

Woke up to find one client in the news in Atlanta, and another on live TV in Orlando. Great news!

Before breakfast, also learned a third client's July 6 appearance in The New York Times got picked up by a statewide Texas outlet for a nice bonus hit. And a longtime friend met at the Atlanta Olympics of 1996 sent word of his safe arrival in Japan, where he's assisting Team Australia as a driver. More great news!

Even lunch provided surprises at Midtown Atlanta's reimagined Colony Square, where it was fun to discover the re-installed mural by Alexander Calder (a neighborhood personal favorite) and explore the new food court, where sake but not sushi was spotted. 

But throughout the day I was prepped to manage moodiness. For Thursday was supposed to be the date of departure for my twelfth Olympics. 

Cue a favorite Kevin Kline line from "A Fish Called Wanda" -- DISAPPOINTED!

Sadly, I didn't fly to Japan as envisioned for nearly three months. Given the tragedy of the global pandemic, getting to Tokyo was always a long shot still worth a shot. 

The first rising sun ray of hope arrived from the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee press office team in April when, after organizers in Japan announced no international spectators could attend, a show-stopping email revealed that a friend at another Olympic-centric news outlet returned a coveted accreditation spot, creating a last minute/last day option for my renewed application. 

And just like that, I was credentialed as media for Tokyo! When the accreditation arrived by mail ... that was an exceptionally good day. 

A couple weeks later, on my birthday, another email arrived with detailed instructions, checklists and the latest Tokyo 2020 "Playbook" for media. Everything seemed to be shaping up better than hoped. Optimism was in abundance -- just needed to closely study that Playbook!

This is where things got messy because, in the last two weeks of May, an extraordinary volume of client work arrived, daily filling my schedule and depleting mental bandwidth for Olympic tasks. 

Though my corrected hotel reservation and airfare purchases got checked off the list after work hours, I naively told myself there'd be time to tackle detailed Tokyo 2020 planning -- specifically, the minutiae on the extensive checklist required to board a plane booked for July 15 -- during Memorial Day. 

It was only on that designated three-day weekend that a fatal mistake came to light in that I missed a critical May deadline to register for a specific Tokyo 2020 COVID-related website. The needed link provided tools for DIY management of all required approvals needed later in the month. I was effectively locked out of the Tokyo 2020 travel approval process, with only myself to blame. 

For the first two weeks of June, optimism returned with each deployed email seeking assistance. And some messages earned timely and helpful or encouraging responses. I thought a key contact with "the magic link" might share it. For reasons still unknown, that didn't happen. 

By June 20: Panic. June 30: Sleeplessness. And when Independence Day rolled around, my girlfriend, family members, longtime confidants and Olympic circle friends were equally exhausted hearing my worries. 

Around July 10 -- having attempted every option I could conceive, or acting on well-intentioned suggestions or referrals of others -- denial was converting to disappointed (and drained, albeit reluctant) acceptance of the inevitable. On July 15, the plug was pulled.

And as Murphy's Law would dictate, on what date did some of the previously "ghosting" approval players emerge like the cicada's of 2021 (Olympic cicadas?). 

Hint: July 16-17!

DISAPPOINTED!

Perhaps it's time to change the adage to Nick Wolaver's Law. Very disappointed. 

In spite of the rip saw of mixed emotions, I do look forward to a few things about to take place. 

First, it is delightful that perseverance and persistence kept Tokyo 2020 on track. Olympians are in the athlete village. Performers are rehearsing for amazing Opening Ceremony reveals. The successful and inspiring Torch Relay is winding down. It's going to be a remarkable Olympiad. 

Second, both of the Olympic media pins designed for this blog should arrive at my doorstep tomorrow, and I can hardly wait to start trading them. One badge features Tokyo's Olympic mascot, while the other reveals my pop culture icon pick for the final Olympic torchbearer to light the cauldron next week.

Third, CoSport informed me of Olympic ticket refunds issued to my address. First time "the check is in the mail" had a five-ringed resonance. 

Fourth, the aforementioned five-ringed friend who landed in Japan yesterday will be visiting the Main Press Center at Tokyo Big Sight on Saturday to seek assistance for my final (and ever-hopeful) ace up my sleeve to get to the Games of the XXXIInd Olympiad during the second week of competition. Turns out those infuriatingly overdue July 16-17 emails DID give me what was needed to renew paperwork to attain travel approval. Fingers crossed.

Finally, if this one-last-shot for Tokyo still fails to materialize, with the ticket refund cash, I have some tours de magie conceived to deliver an experience magnifique des Jeux Olympique by August 8. 

Stay tuned!

For those who've supported the Tokyo journey described above, thank you. And thanks also for reading and sharing this site in the days ahead. It's going to be an inspiring Games. 

Photo of Tokyo Big Sight via Xinhua News of China; Haneda Airport photo via Indian Express; Olympic accreditation photo by Nicholas Wolaver; airline photo via JAL; Team Australia softball players' arrival image by Issei Kato POOL/AFP via Getty Images; torch relay photo via InsideTheGames.biz. Maraitowa image via Olympics.org.