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The Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXIX Olympiad and commonly known as Beijing , was an international multi-sport event that was held from 8 to 24 August in Beijing, China.‎Olympics closing ceremony · ‎ Summer Olympics medal · ‎Women's singles.
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Spectre of doping blights Beijing. After the famines and purges of the Mao years, the one residual claim to legitimacy that the party can make is that it has unified China, after it came close to falling apart from colonial and Japanese occupation and then civil war. The message is rubbed in constantly in history books, in newspaper articles, on endless period dramas on television: before the revolution, China was hopelessly reduced, largely by malevolent foreigners — the same foreigners who now criticise the country for its record on human rights, its rule over Tibet and its lack of democracy.

For a decade, world leaders claimed that engagement with China would bring political reform. Three years ago, Tony Blair declared the momentum unstoppable. Jacques Rogge, the president of the International Olympic Committee, has been more circumspect, but he has also interwoven his insistence that the Games are above politics with assurances that they would change China for the better. Yet in many ways the reverse is true: the Games have been an excuse for the party to assert control over an increasingly disparate society.

Beijing Olympics A hope lost or fulfilled? - BBC News

It has knocked down hundreds of thousands of homes, many private, and relocated their inhabitants as part of its building programme. The single-party state is more entrenched than ever — and while a successful Games would make it seem invincible, one beset by protests and complaints might also serve only to unite party and people in a defensive laager. The nationalist mood reaches its extreme in bloggers such as Sima Nan, a television celebrity turned writer who lambasts the few liberal newspapers here for selling out to America.

Mr Sima says that China is not ready for personal freedom, nor suited to one man, one vote. When I asked him whether the Olympics were not supposed to represent universal values, he said its values were very different from those we have in mind. The readiness with which both the young and those who think of themselves as controversialist freethinkers, such as Mr Sima, mirror the party line is among the most depressing features of modern China.

Of course, there is more to China than the party, and more even to the Olympics. It was as far back as that a group of young men — who met through the YMCA, of all places — first expressed the hope that the country might one day stage the Games.

Beijing's crumbling Olympic legacy – in pictures

The whole idea was relatively new, and three years before the Games had been held in America — another country on the rise. In fact, Prof Brownell argues that much of the incessant Olympic propaganda has actually been intended to bring the country closer to the West.


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She has sat in on classroom projects where children are taught about the history of the Olympic movement and its ideals, without the heavy overlay of Communist theory that is so prevalent in other areas. Likewise, progressives have organised international exchanges and conferences in a whole range of fields, as a means of introducing Western standards. And Prof Brownell is the first to admit that some of the pre-Games disasters, in Tibet and elsewhere, have triggered a conservative backlash.

Others believe there are serious tensions inside the leadership about the whole future of the reform agenda, which will be increasingly exposed by the simple question: what next? The Games have been a unifying force for the party, not just the country. The crowds on Wednesday were impressive, and the packed, passionate stadiums guaranteed when the gates open will be even more so. Whatever our feelings about the party that rules them, few of us will begrudge the Chinese people a moment of triumph. After the Games are all over, this feeling may need a new outlet — and we are entitled to ask of that, too, what next?

Except me. The interesting thing about being inside the machinery of the Chinese Government is that you think nothing of it, and you start to wonder why aren't there a dozen more guys like me here? How did I survive?

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Basically I became wallpaper. I was a tree. A potted plant. I was seen and not seen and over time, the co-workers and even the BOCOG Beijing Organising Committee for the Olympic Games management looked at me no different than any of the people they broke bread with every noon at the staff canteen.

Journalists who came and went to the myriad press conferences held at the Olympic Media Centre prior to the Games and in the Main Press Centre during the Olympiad came away with exactly what we meaning the collective we wanted them to know. And after the media left, I stayed.

Michael Phelps - Inside Story of the Beijing Games Intro

I was in all of the back door meetings with senior leaders of the Chinese Government and a trusted confidant who re-wrote the speeches of the Chinese leadership. The Chinese were driven by an unrivaled passion to make their first Olympic Games the very best that has been or will ever be — and they succeeded.

Sydney may be the "best" but the Olympics in China were the "greatest" because the Chinese people understood and harnessed the incredible power of change that comes from the mantra: peace through sport. Fan dancers rehearsed their routine in front of the Bird's Nest Stadium When the Chinese are alone — away from the prying eyes of the outsiders and work daily together, it is an entirely different world. Lunch was for wimps. Dinner is for cowards.

I was part of endless debates by BOCOG management on what the international community would think about this and about that. Wanting to drill home the superiority of the Chinese nation, the Chinese staff at BOCOG spent endless hours in preparation for the Olympic Games and did an awesome job. Take simple logistics as an example. Of this, the Chinese are experts in moving masses of people, as they do this each and every day. Moving spectators in and out of athletic venues is nothing here.

The same goes for teaching the Chinese people how to applaud or how to behave in a major Olympic venue. Commuters at a subway in Beijing during rush hour during the Games Nothing was ever left to chance. What I saw being inside the Chinese machinery was that the Chinese nation is here. Today — and inside the Beijing Olympics, every day, the Chinese worked like church mice in making every facet of the Games flawless.

Transportation, food, housing, hotel accommodations, air transportation — the list is near endless. Everything worked and the entire Chinese nation was honed and laser focused on these Games. Sure, you can compare the Beijing Olympics to the London Olympics all you want. Good luck on that. Swimmers at the Water Cube broke 25 world records during the Olympics No Games will ever come close to what was done in Beijing and none should.

The bar is set just too high. What I learned from the Olympics in China is that the Games are not about big buildings, instead the Chinese proved to us all that the Olympics are about the language, history, art, science and food of the host nation that beckons the world to the shining city on a hill to watch games that children play.


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With unity and harmony, the Chinese showed the world how the Olympics should be done. Jeff Ruffolo served as the senior expert for the Beijing and is author of a new book - Inside the Beijing Olympics - available on Amazon. David Owen: Formats - the long and the short of it.

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