Whether you’re gearing up to watch today’s Opening Ceremony, getting married, waiting for a prophecy to materialize, or taking photos for Flickr 888, the 8th day of August in 2008 is a most auspicious day. If you’re feeling lucky, too, check out how we prospered this week:

• Shortcut to Beijing: It’s Olympic fever time. Want to keep up with Michael Phelps’ medal collection? Or find out who’s been disqualified for doping? Or keep tabs on whether Ronaldinho can bring victory to Brazil? Yahoo! Search just launched a shortcut module that gives you all the relevant news in one little tidy box above your search results. If you want a medal count update, just type “Olympics medal count” (and add “Macedonia” to that if you just want medals in that country). Enter “water polo Olympics” if you just want a recap of results and upcoming events for that sport. Type in “Blanka Vlasic Olympics” to keep up on the world champion high jumper and her news, schedule, and results. Gold medal for Yahoo! Search for making it that easy. More here.
• My Olympics: And speaking of the summer games, the My Yahoo! team just released an Olympic Games module that gives you an at-a-glance summary of the latest and greatest. You’ll get news headlines, photos, videos, and medal counts for the top countries, all in one place on your My Yahoo! page. For you busy multitaskers, there’s no better way to catch the thrill of victory… and the agony of defeat. More here.
• Medals to go: Yup. It’s another Olympics feature! This one lets you keep tabs on the run. Not to be outdone, the Mobile team has created two ways for you to stay up to date on game action. If you have Yahoo! Go 3.0, just add the “2008 Beijing Games” widget to your carousel. Otherwise, just fire up your phone’s web browser and head over to http://m.yahoo.com/2008games. You’ll get news, analysis, photos, and can even customize your site to focus just on your favorite sports (judo, fencing, kayaking, what have you). More here.
• Photo fix: The next time you upload a batch of photos to Flickr, you might notice a new “Save and Edit” option. Click that and you’ll enter the free and easy world of photo editing with Picnik. Your whole batch will appear in a tray (aka the Picnik Photo Basket) so you can tweak en masse — rotate, crop, resize, fix colors or exposure, sharpen, kill red-eye. It’s like rolling in the thick green grass on a warm summer’s day, minus the ants. Edit away! More here.
• See what you wanna see: Imagine visiting a blog that builds you a personal list of headlines that are most up your alley. That’s what the MyBlogLog team just made possible, through a new WordPress plug-in (we’ll get on that next week!). Blog owners who install the Just For You plug-in can deliver custom headlines to visitors who are MyBlogLog members. It looks into the blog’s archives and serves up posts that matching tags or categories listed in the user’s profile. If the reader isn’t a MyBlogLog user, Just for You just presents a list of headlines based on collective tags of recent MyBlogLog visitors. More here.

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With the 2008 Olympic Games just around the corner, this is a nostalgic time for many Americans. After all, who can’t remember their favorite Olympic moment?

I’m no different, except my favorite moments were spent atop the Olympic medal podium. My formative years were with the U.S. gymnastics team, and for three unforgettable Games, I got to compete with and against the best in the world.

Needless to say, a lot has changed for me since I last wore the red, white and blue. Instead of worrying about my next floor exercise, I’m worrying about how I’ll be able to stay up late enough to watch the women compete. I’m a spectator now, and I want to make sure my next favorite sports moment isn’t happening while I’m sleeping or driving to the grocery store!

This made me realize I needed to be in Beijing this year, but I haven’t forgotten how it feels for everyone back at home. That’s why I’ll be joining fellow Olympians Gretchen Bleiler and Mike Powell to cover the 2008 Games on the Yahoo! Sports Summer Games site. We’ll work alongside Yahoo!’s experts to give every fan a minute-by-minute account of what’s happening with the world’s greatest athletes, day or night.

I know, you’re thinking that still won’t help when your favorite sport isn’t covered in the papers, or is only on Channel 390 at 3:25 a.m. But Yahoo! is offering some new features to help you stay on top of all the sports – like the Watch List, which lets fans track results, news and medals for their favorite countries, sports and athletes. You won’t even need to worry about staying next to your computer, because Yahoo!’s mobile Web site gives fans the option of tracking the medal count, getting the latest news, and seeing photos right on your mobile phone.

So while you’re half way around the world from the Games this summer, don’t wonder what it’s like to be there. Just visit Yahoo! Sports Summer Games and look for me and my friends; we’ll tell you – anytime you want. It’s not a trip to the podium, but it’s pretty close!

Dominique Dawes
Yahoo! Sports
1992, 1996, 2000 U.S. Olympic Gymnastics Team