Despite being the host country, the Chinese National Team didn’t get a good draw, having to face Team USA in their first game of the Olympics. They are also in the same bracket as world champion Spain. There will be 3 other teams in their bracket for a total of six.

All 6 of these teams will play in a round-robin format, with the top 4 teams advancing to play winners from the other bracket.

You can check out more of the story by clicking here.

Here’s another story on China’s draw.

This Associated Press came out with this article today saying Yao’s injury isn’t rattling Olympic advertisers since the doctors say he’ll be fine by then. One of the marketing experts even had a positive spin on Yao’s injury when he said:

“I think media scrutiny and fan interest regarding Yao’s recovery will keep the Olympic buzz growing strong.”

Pretty cool how many Chinese have volunteered to help make sure the Games go smoothly.

We take a break during this NBA All-Star break to bring you more news about the upcoming Olympics in Beijing. It was announced yesterday that Olympic athletes will be able to blog, but the rules are so restrictive, it looks like it might be more trouble than its worth.

On a similar note, here’s an article about the issue regarding free speech at the Games.

Even though it’s about a week old, this article provides a great recap on where things stand with Olympic preparations.

Since the Beijing 2008 Olympics is only about 7 months away, I have decided I will post cool articles I see in regard to preparation for the Games. Here’s one from today’s New York Times. It requires a free membership to read the entire article.

If you see any other articles, feel free to email me at john@yaomingfanclub.com about it, and I’ll take a look and see if it should be posted on this page, and will give you props for letting me know about it. Or you can post it in a new discussion forum topic I have created to dedicated to the 2008 Beijing Olympics.