Watching the Olympics from Asia

We had to come to Maldives to watch the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics live. We were one of the few Americans who got to do this because back at home only NBC has the rights and they air it on tape delay. However getting to see it was not easy. The Olympic committee requires that the national broadcaster( in this case TVM) get the live feed of the Olympics. The problem with this is that we did not get TVM in our hotel, because the cable provider wouldn't put it on. In Maldives it is illegal to not have TVM, so we had to go down to the lobby and threaten to get the hotel's cable license revoked by the ministry of information, unless we got TVM in our room. By the time we took the elevator back up it was on.

Despite the fact that Maldives was about the 5th nation to enter into the stadium, they are a non qualifying member and are only allowed to send four athletes. Two of them compete in track and field and the others in swimming. The problem is that there are no places for them to train. The swimmers were training in the ocean, and had to be taken to the airport island hotel pool so they would know what to do when they got in one at the Olympics. Suffice it to say I am not expecting them to win anything, but am happy that they are represented.