Olympic Opening

TVM is showing the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympics courtesy of a special feed provided by IOC to the state broadcasters of developing countries. Viewers here get a better deal than those in the United States, where the audience has to wait for NBC to edit the footage and show it in prime time hours later with commercial interruptions. In Maldives, they only interrupted the ceremony for Muslim prayer time! No commercials.
There are only four athletes competing from Maldives, which is a "non-qualifying" country. The swimmers have to practice in the resort pool a the airport hotel because last time, when they only practiced in the ocean, they weren't prepared to compete.

They aren't likely to contend for any medals, but there was a lot of pride when Maldives was among the first teams to enter the Bird's Nest, because of its position in the alphabetical order of Mandarin.