Today a whole series of events is competing to become the topic of this column. The decision was just made when Franziska´s cell phone rang. As a result, I can only briefly mention here that yesterday one of a hundred thousand volunteers presented me with the ultimate pin: A Chinese one that blinks like a disco when you push a little slider switch on the back. But now back to that ring tone.  

I know many of you are now waiting to hear about that ring tone on her cell phone. But first I have to tell you what happened last night. Franziska, two other students involved in the newspaper project and I were on the press stand in the "Bird´s Nest" watching the new Australian Christine Wolf winning gold in the broad jump. The presentation ceremony took place just 25 meters from where we were sitting. One could almost have counted Christine´s tears. After all, there were´t really that many. This was also exciting for Franziska, insofar that Christine Wolf had been the first athlete she met in person after arriving at the Otto Bock workshop.  And now this athlete is suddenly standing at the top of the rostrum right in front of us.

This was followed by the 100m qualifying rounds with US stars Marlon Shirley, Brian Frasure and Jerome Singleton, all of whom have already been introduced as workshop visitors on www.ottobock-in-beijing.com. Also running in the same classification, although unlike the others he is a bilateral transtibial amputee: Oscar Pistorius. Truly a world class field of athletes.

Media representatives in Beijing are currently scrambling for an interview with Pistorius. He can be seen on every TV channel. But the three teens from the Paralympic newspaper are anything but timid. They work out a few questions for the press conference while on the press stand and then take off. Will that work? Of course, because Oscar Pistorius is not only a great athlete but also a gentleman, graciously answering all their questions. I wonder what ring tone the South African uses.

He won his preliminary heat in clearly the best time, but Marlon Shirley ran very casually in the other qualifying run, let Brian Frasure go and merely made sure he got into the finals.  The final is this evening at 6 pm (local time): Don´t miss it, it is sure to be a track-and-field highlight in Beijing.


This is so exciting one could almost forget about the ring tone. Incidentally, my new friend Mamy also likes the music Franziska selected for her cell phone.  Mamy is the medical attendant of the sole Paralympics competitor from Madagascar: Josefa Harijaona, national champion in 50m swimming and, as of today, wearer of a modern prosthesis that replaces his old aluminum and leather model.

The world seems smaller here in the Paralympic Village. The young journalists of the Paralympics Zeitung are prepared for this. Franziska has already been to Beijing as part of a Berlin school exchange program, Berlin being Beijing?s German partner city. She speaks enough Chinese to ensure she will not have the same taxi problems I had.  This generation certainly travels the world at an early age. My younger daughter, whose name by the way is also Franziska, has just started a year in South Dakota ("Hallo Franzi, alles klar?").

This generation even handles cell phone features with ease, much better than us forebears, who in years past marveled at fax machines as though they were the pinnacle of communication technology. The Franziskas in Beijing and South Dakota even know how to set ring tones on our Finnish-designed Chinese cell phones.

Beijing-Franziska's ring tone is not just a favorite with novice guitarists, it is also contemporary history: "Smoke on the Water". This even delights Walter, our Swiss prosthetist. After all, we all know that "Smoke on the Water" was played in Montreux back then, where Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention ? well okay, I guess now I am getting too far off track. I also just spoke to Mamy Andrianaly about Franziska's ring tone. "Oh, I like it, Deep Purple, this is our generation!" But it is also Franziska´s generation. Which proves that not just cultures come closer together here in the village, but also teens and wrinklies.