THE SEOUL GAMES / DAY 5 : Notes

Protesters, Day 4: About 100 protesters demanding the Olympics be stopped burned a giant U.S. flag and chanted anti-American slogans today outside a hotel where top Olympic officials are staying.

Riot police in green combat fatigues and black visored helmets watched but did not intervene as the radical students burned the homemade flag after marching out of Donguk University in Seoul.

“Get out Yankees which support the dictatorial regime!” the students chanted as the 10-foot-high flag, doused in gasoline, went up in a blast of orange flame.

The protest was held outside the school gate, about 900 feet away from the Shila Hotel, where the International Olympic Committee and athletic officials have been staying during the Seoul Games.

If you can’t beat them, out-manufacture them: South Korea is lacking in the medal count, but is outperforming foreign contenders in supplying sports goods for the Olympic Games.

Industries in the host countries are providing 72% percent of the total sports equipment ranging from table tennis balls to canoes and is the official supplier of 648 of the total 896 sports goods used.

South Korea has become the second host in Olympic history to supply more than 70% of the items. West Germany provided 75% in the Munich Games in 1972.

May I slap your face?: Two members of Paraguay’s delegation to the Olympic Games may be looking for trouble from South Korean women.

Carlos Gwynn, a tennis coach, and Chaparro Abente, an official with the fencing team, are carrying cards asking, “May I kiss you?”

Gwynn explained: “Paraguayans kiss each other on the cheek just to say hello. But things are a little different here in Seoul.’

So far the pair are batting zero.