Unconventional Olympic Training -- Media Watch

Brazilian web portal UOL says wrestler and "Amazon beast" Waldeci Silva is hard at work preparing for the 2015 Pan American Games and the 2016 Summer Olympics.

The Wall Street Journal'sMatthew Futterman explores anew breath-taking trend among Olympic athletes."Can learning to hold your breath for more than five minutes," Futterman asks, "and dive 100 feet under the ocean's surface really help you on a snow-covered mountain?"

New Zealand publicationThe Southland Timesfeatures cycling starPieter Bulling who ison track for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games.

"I'm going to give it everything I've got," Bulling tellsSouthland Timesauthor Logan Savory in reference to the Rio Olympics. "Then I'll reassess what I'm going to do for the rest of my life."

Past and Future Olympic Games

EuroNewsasks whether Greece hasforgotten the legacy of the 2004 Athens Olympics."While some believe the capital Athens benefited from the Games,"Euro Newssays, "images from Hellinikon seem to tell another side to the story."

Des Moines Register'sBryce Miller saysUnited States gymnast champion Ron Galimore is a pioneer in the gymnastics world, "despite his missed Olympic chance."Galimore, nowchief operation officer of USA Gymnastics,qualified to compete at the 1980 Summer Olympics. However, the United States and other countries boycotted theMoscow Games in response to the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan.

"It was like I hit a brick wall," Galimore told Miller of missing his chance to compete at the Games."You accomplish something that only six people every four years can achieve.

"Everything has to line up properly--and it did."

As Boston leaders consider how the area’s universities can contribute to the city's bid for the 2024 Games,Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Andrew W. Lo and MIT business school alum Tom Rutledge write in The Boston Globe thatleaders should focus on academia’s most valuable resource: ideas."Boston’s reputation as a center for ideas and research should distinguish it from the competition in the eyes of the decision-makers at the IOC," Lo and Rutledge affirm.

In Other News

China's Xinhua News Agency says the 20,000 "little limes," volunteers for the 2014 Youth Olympic Games,are "working long hours to keep the thousands of athletes, officials, and media smiling despite the heat."

Compiled byNicole Bennett

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