Hong Kong - Three of China's Olympic gold medallists have fainted or fallen ill during an exhausting tour of Hong Kong and Macau to celebrate their victories, a news report said Monday.

Women's rowing gold medallist Zhang Yangyang passed out Sunday during a toast at a reception hosted by Hong Kong chief executive Donald Tsang, the South China Morning Post reported.

Trampolinist He Wenna and diver Wu Minxia later fell ill in Macau and had to miss some of their official engagements on the hectic whirlwind tour of the former British and Portuguese colonies.  Read more »

Taipei - After a poor showing at the Beijing Olympics Taiwan plans to spend at least 1 billion Taiwan dollars (32 million US dollars) to prepare for the 2012 London Olympics, a newspaper said Thursday.  Read more »

Hong Kong - Hong Kong's Olympic team returned home empty-handed from Beijing Wednesday with its president calling on the government of the former British colony to invest more in athletics.  Read more »

New Delhi, August 25: Chinese weather officials have said that they used airplanes and rockets to disperse rain at the Beijing Olympics closing ceremony on August 24.  Read more »

Beijing - China failed to win any medals in the human rights department during the Beijing Olympics, a rights watchdog said Monday.

The Chinese government "blatantly and successfully" used the Games to realize its political goals, Hong Kong-based Human Rights in China (HRIC) said.

"Yet the carefully orchestrated facade could not conceal a police state that tramples on human rights," HRIC executive director Sharon Hom said.  Read more »

Beijing - China has deported all 10 of the pro-Tibet activists it arrested for protesting or helping to organize protests during the Beijing Olympics, releasing them before the end of their 10-day detention following pressure from the US embassy in Beijing, a US-based Tibet rights group said Monday.

"All 10 have been deported. They were deported at 9:20 am Sunday New York time (Sunday evening in Beijing) right before the end of the closing ceremony," said Heather Reddick, an international operations director for the New York-based Students for a Free Tibet.  Read more »

Beijing - Ask any person who they consider the superstars of the Beijing Olympics that ended on Sunday and you will - in all probability - get just two names: Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt.  Read more »

Beijing - China finishes the 2008 Beijing Games sitting proudly on top of the medals table with a final tally of 51 gold, 21 silver and 28 bronze.

While China's 100-medal total is surpassed by the United States, which won 110, of which 36 were gold, the host nation can rightly look back on an Olympic Games in which it met its sporting expectations.  Read more »

Beijing - David Beckham kicked a football and three-time Beijing gold medallist Chris Hoy rode a bicycle past a double-decker bus as London became the centre of Olympic attention on Sunday.

The next Olympics may be the winter edition in Vancouver 2010, but London hosts the next Summer Games in 2012 and presented itself to the world in the traditional handover ceremony, at the closing ceremony of the Beijing Games.  Read more »

Beijing - The Beijing Olympic Games ended just as they had began Sunday, with a glittering extravaganza as China made full use of one final opportunity to showcase itself to a world audience.

"The Olympic flame is not extinguished, instead, it will burn in the heart of each of us," was the message of the performance, according to Zhang Yimou, artistic director of the opening and closing ceremony, and the final event was certainly one that will live long in the memory.  Read more »