Just like the Games, only much smaller, very far away

While reporting on the London Olympics, I've often found my mind preoccupied with the "Mini Games" recently organized by a Londoner in a poor and remote village in Northwest China's Gansu province.

Days before the London Games opened, my friend Laragh Widdess flew to Gansu as a volunteer English teacher with a group of Chinese university students.

The 27-year-old organized dozens of village children to compete in relay races, sprints and other sports during the seven-day training.