The television coverage of tennis on DirecTV is excellent. The Tennis Channel has five high definition channels with simultaneous live coverage of the action on all of the courts starting at 5am EDT every day.

IBM continues to run the official web site for the slams this year, and they have the widget below available for your web site. This is a sweet little widget. It includes live scores, news, and the order of play. You can grab it from the widget below.

Update: Nice how the widget changes to display content from the next slam event as soon as the current event is completed.

The Dalai Lama is not advocating a boycott of the olympics even though he acknowledges that the Chinese government is treating Tibetans unfairly. In an interview posted on his web site his position is described as follows:

He keeps stressing how pro-Chinese he is. He has never urged a boycott of the Beijing Olympics and wants other countries to go to Beijing. He supported China’s entry into the World Trade Organisation and has consistently supported all reasonable outside engagement with China. However, he also tells the truth about China’s behaviour inside Tibet, which is frankly appalling. He believes about 200 Tibetans were killed in the crackdown following the Tibetan demonstrations in March, although even he finds accurate information incredibly difficult to come by.

So, even though I disagree strongly with the Chinese position regarding Tibet and the Dalai Lama, I am considering watching the olympics this year. I also heard a rumor that Keith Olberman is going to be there. Another good reason to follow the developments in China as the games are being held.

NBC and MSN have implemented an excellent web site, and are providing really good quality digital coverage of the US olympic trials that are in progress now, and they are advertising extensive live web coverage of the games themselves. As an avid sports fan, and dedicated user of the Internet, I am very favorably impressed by the extensive, well designed, feature rich web site. Also impressive are the widgets that are available on the site. Some are available now, like the one below, and others will be available once the games begin. Kudos to NBC and MSN for this excellent web site. If the TV coverage is as well done as the web site, we are in for a treat.

You can also get a couple of widgets from this site. Check them out.

Update: Widgets are no longer available and have been removed.

Rafa is down 5 games to 2 now in the fifth set, and it looks like Roger will prevail, but it ain’t over till the fat lady sings, as my father liked to say.

Thank you Roger and Rafael for another incredible match!