Ah, the Olympics. The world’s greatest athletes, the impressive architecture, the lighting of the torch, the familiar startup screen of Windows XP–er, wait a minute. Good old Win XP might not yet be an internationally-recognized symbol of the Olympics but it could become one: Lenovo, sponsor and official supplier of computer systems for the 2008 Games in Beijing, says that they’ll be using Windows XP–not Vista–for all of the Olympics’ mission critical systems. To put it in the words of Lenovo’s chairman Yang Yuanqing, “the Olympic Games require mature, stable technologies and it’s not a place to try new technologies.” That’s a pretty big slap in the face for Microsoft, as the company can’t quite seem to figure out how to get folks excited about Windows Vista–and, doubtless, this sort of negative PR isn’t helping. It’s worth noting, however, that the folks at Lenovo are being extra-cautious with this deployment–they’ve also ruled out WiFi as being “too risky” for use during the Olympics.

For more on XP’s Olympic bid:
– see this article from PC Launches