Tag Archives: Olympics

Sean Kenney’s Lucky 8 sculpture celebrates the Beijing Olympics

The 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China, started today, August 8, 2008 (8/8/08). To honor this auspicious day, Sean Kenney built this cool sculpture of the number 8 (with lots of other details):

Read more about this sculpture on Sean’s blog.

More LEGO Sport City details and behind-the-scenes photos from HKLUG

We recently highlighted HKLUG’s LEGO Sport City display, with huge models of the venues we’ll be seeing in the Beijing Olympics next month.

Thanks to LEGO Ambassador and HKLUG member Tsang Yiu Keung (better known as Chiukeung), we have lots more information on the models, including behind-the-scenes photos.

Chiukeung gives a sense of just how large the display is:

Venues recreated in LEGO include the National Stadium (nicknamed “The Bird’s Nest”), National Aquatics Center (“Swimming Cube”), and Olympic Village.

The finished display is certainly impressive, but the behind-the-scenes photos reveal the true scale and impressive techniques that went into the LEGO Sport City.

The iconic National Stadium was designed by Ming, an architect by trade. It took him over 100 hours to complete, and is 128×154 studs in size (that’s about 40″ x 48″). The outer shell includes thousands of hinge plates.

The National Aquatics Center was built by Vincent Cheung over the course of 120 hours, and has a three-tier design with a cell-like structure in the transparent blue walls.

The Swimming Cube is illuminated with a fluorescent lamp inside, and measures 148 by 148 studs, or 46″ on each side.

Chiukeung built the Olympic Village, which is 160 x 224 studs (50″ x 70″). Chiukeung spent 100 hours on the project.

There’s lots more to see (56 pictures in all) in the HKLUG LEGO Sport City photoset on Flickr, including the Equestrian stadium by Hudson, Greek temple by Wai Kee, and various Chinese and European buildings by Andy. The mosaic was built by Hot, who also coordinated the entire project.

If you’re in Hong Kong, you can see this LEGO display for yourself at Grand Century Place between now and August 31, 2008.

Thanks again to HKLUG and Chiukeung for the behind-the-scenes info and photos!

Shizuka Arakawa by Moko

The figure skating World Championships are apparently going on right now, and Moko was inspired to create 2006 Winter Olympic gold medalist Shizuka Arakawa as a LEGO minifig:

Nice skates!

Michelle Kwan, Figure Skating Legend

A good friend asked me to make a minifigure of Michelle Kwan, who recently withdrew from the 2006 Olympics. Unsatisfied with the minifig on its own, I hauled out my white bricks and whipped together this vignette — my first non-minifig creation in several months:

Those are supposed to be my friend and her husband in the background. For a better representation of skates, check out Uda-san’s Mao Asada (and for good measure, the obligatory PPB cross-link).

Japanese Figure Skater is a LEGO Fan

Japanese figure skater Mao Asada, currently in first place (Washington Post – requires registration) in the ISU Figure Skating Grand Prix Finals being held in Tokyo, is apparently a LEGO fan. According to her official Web site her hobbies include jigsaw puzzles and LEGO.

What set Japanese bloggers buzzing today was the one item she picked up off the ice after her routine — a LEGO bag.

EDIT (12/22/05): Mao Asada won the Grand Prix championship on December 17, but will likely not be allowed to go to the Olympics in Turin early next year. But wait, there’s good news! Here’s a quick translation of the first paragraph from a follow-up article in a Japanese newspaper:

Mao Asada: Reward for winning is ‘LEGO’
Mao Asada (age 15), who won the Figure Skating Grand Prix Finals for the first time, participated on the 19th in a press conference for Japanese National Championship (12/23-12/25) entrants. “I’m going to do two Triple Axels,” she said enthusiastically. In the midst of the discussion on the age limit that may prevent her from entering the Olympics in Turin, she innocently exclaimed, for winning the Grand Prix Finals “I’m going to get LEGO blocks.”

So her LEGO hobby is even showing up in sports section headlines!