Olympic Profiles of the Day

(Too many typos!!)

Lovely thoughts George, but we need more people to climb on board! I just haven't got as much time right now - the project seems to have been set up and not many have climbed onboard or done much on it! :)

I could do some but what you are suggesting would be as time consuming as the Titanic was! Anyone else want to lend a hand? - Terry Jackson (Switzer) ? Private User Malka Mysels ?
Maybe we need a plan and should delegate/volunteer? I managed to get quite a bit of Sebastian Newbold Coe done and he is on the big tree - I will look at the schedule and see what stands out as the most important events each day.

I couldn't do tree building but I could search and add "historic" Olympians to a sub project if there's a list to work from.

Erica Howton sounds like a good plan - will see what I can set up!

Erica Howton I have made a start on Famous Olympians - see http://www.geni.com/projects/Famous-Olympians/11994.

I think that Famous and Historic are synonymous - one list would embrace all?

Will expand the list tomorrow but must get to bed!

I have started adding the events with dates and venues to the project. Will finish this tomorrow. I intend adding current Gold Medalists to each discipline, and record holders where applicable. But a girl has to sleep!!

I am going to move the events to a new project - the main project Page is getting a little cumbersome! Will link it to the main project.

June, I'll give it more thought this weekend. I think I'll focus just on major Olympic figures that would make sense to build a two-week flow of Olympic figures of the day. Even if we do parallel things, no worries. in the end, we'll have a good list by putting all our brains together :-)

George - some progress is being made on the Famous Olympians and I think hopefully that is where we can draw "profile of the Day Candidates from. Maybe the find people who connect to the major events of the day? I will work some more on that over the weekend - Erica is on board there. Sadly not many people willing to work on this as yet!

Do you know if there is a way around making links work that have special characters in them - I am having to leave links out where these don't work!

I liked the idea George!
Count on me for any help.

June, I guess you're talking about parenthesis in Wikipedia pages? I have no alternative, it just doesn't work for us.
Thanks, Carla!
I think an Olympic project is a huge task. Too many living people that are hard to research ;-)
The Olympics last only 17 days. I'm sure we can find 17 very relevant profiles and document them. If we do them quickly, they'll get into the search engines, and Geni will get lots of hits. Then when Geni highlights them on the selected days, we'll get even more interest :-)
A few billion people watching the games, a few hundred million people searching the Internet for information. This could be a winner ;-)

George also thinking of the sporting event which is the 2014 World Cup, where Brazil will host, we are already working on the project http://www.geni.com/projects/Seleções-Brasileiras-de-Futebol-Brazil... -Selections/11860. Get the list of players was not difficult. Part of their biographies are on Wikipedia. The big challenge is the tree of all. Those who achieved fame is easier. The other ...

Private User I'm working on the profile of Fanny Blankers-Koen.
Or is someone else doing this? I dont want to just add her profile I want to connect her to the big tree.
When I am ready you can add her to your famous Olympics. OK?

Excellent Jennie!

Here's a first try. I've been trying to look for the most significant events for each day, looking also at the disciplines that have particular historical relevance (wrestling, discus etc).
Week one is dominated by swimming, week two by athletics.
Some of these athletes may be hard to build, genealogy-wise. But, we can try. Or, at least build great profiles and immediate families. Keep in mind that many great African athletes will always be hard to build on Geni!
So, here a first list. Perhaps we can find/need alternatives?

July 27 : Pierre de Coubertin
July 28 : 400 meters freestyle - Johnny Weissmuller
July 29 : Women's cycling road race - Jeannie Longo
July 30 : Swimming Men's 200 freestyle - Mark Spitz
July 31 : Fencing Men's Individual Foil - Edoardo Mangiarotti
August 1 : Gymnastics Men's Individual All-Around - Alexander Dityatin
August 2 : Gymnastics Women's Individual All-Around - Nadia Comăneci
August 3 : 100 Men's Butterfly - Michael Phelps
August 4 ù Men's Long Jump - Jesse Owens
August 5 : Women's Marathon - Paula Radcliffe
August 6 : Men's 120kg Greco Roman wrestling - Aleksandr Karelin
August 7 : Men's Discuss Throw - Jürgen Schult
August 8 : Women's Long Jump - Jackie Joyner-Kersee
August 9 : Men's 200 meter - Carl Lewis
August 10 : Men's Pole Vault - Sergei Bubka
August 11 : Boxing Men's heavyweight - Félix Savón
August 12: Men's Marathon - Abebe Bikila

Needed to clarify:
1. the dates reflect the gold medal match for the event
2. Each of the names have been significant winners for that event (sometimes because they also got more medals in other disciplines)
I thought Johnny Weissmuller was a nice one to add :-)
Plus, I think we have 12 countries here, too.

Private User, if we can pull this off an have a relevant Olympics series during the Olympics, I would suggest to temporarily rename it "Olympic Profile of the Day" (might get catch nicely in search engines). You might even add the Olympic rings to the blog page. :-)

Oohhh George you forget the most important Dutch Fanny Blankers-Koen! lol forgot your roots? ;-)

Fanny Blankers-Koen best known for winning four gold medals at the 1948 Summer Olympics in London. One of the finest all-round athletes in history, Fanny Blankers-Koen remains the only woman to win four Athletics gold medals at a single Olympic Games.
Here you are :-)
How can you skip her? ;-P

Fanny won gold on the 4 x 100 relay. That event is on August 10. She could be an alternative for Sergei Bubka?

no, I think WIM RUSKA deserves a favourite place in the row of profiles to be profilated extern....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wim_Ruska

sorry, ...deserves ALSO a favorite ...etc.

George - rename which project?

I also think that that list is a little "track and field" heavy? Athletics and swimming are enormous fields and should therefore have perhaps more representation

In that list we have Swimming 3; cycling1; fencing1; gymnastics 2; field and track 7; boxing 1; wrestling 1

Could we look at other disciplines - and take advantage of profiles that are already on Geni and could be developed?

Tennis - Charlotte Cooper Charlotte Reinagle Cooper (22 September 1870 – 10 October 1966) She won the tennis singles at the 1900 Summer Olympics in Paris, France where women were allowed to participate for the first time. (Medals were not awarded until the 1904 Summer Olympics).

It's a real challenge, June :-) So many disciplines.
Wrestling isn't an earth-shattering sport, I suspect, but it is an original Olympic one. The marathon is THE Olympic sport, of course.
I felt Jesse Owens was significant, for many other reasons than sport as well.
Discus throwing is, again, not earth-shattering, but an original one. If we find an alternative for that day (August 7), why not.
I mean, let's expand the list with alternatives, and then decide?

About 'renaming'... I was suggesting to Amanda that, instead of calling her series the usual 'Profile of the Day', she could temportarily rename it 'Olympic Profile of the Day' - just to reflect that this is a 'special series', reflecting the moment :-)

Rowing Matthew Pinsent was the subject of WDYTYA and should be looked at because they found a line through to Edward 1 -

Private

private profile managed by Timothy Michael Gell - I have contacted him.

Thanks George - I think that if we put forward people, expand the list and then we can decide nearer the time - a lot will depend on how well a tree/profile can be developed! maybe we will have to not stick to the daily schedule as rigidly if there are over-laps of significant people on a particular day.

Matthew Pinsent - you tube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLczfootOlY

Yes, rowing is obviously a good one. I had never heard of Matthew Pinsent (now I looked ;-) ) - but you have to be a rowing nation to know, of course ;-)
True enough, if necessary, we have to be flexible regarding the schedule. As long as the particular sport is prominent that day, it would be good.
17 is really a very small number, so we'll have to make a call.
Let's drill down on that list pretty soon, though, like that we can do whatever we can on getting those 17 trees done.

Perhaps we should have a temporary 'workshop' project where we can list the dates, and then have the alternative names under each date. Perhaps with some comment to justify the eventual choice?