Bye Bye Beijing

The Age

Monday August 25, 2008

Greg Baum

Olympic visitors may not have see the real Beijing, but they did see more than 40 world records broken in what was the biggest Games ever, writes Greg Baum.

EACH Olympic Games aspires to be the best ever. Beijing's were not, but they were the biggest. The Olympics probably can't and certainly shouldn't grow any bigger. The challenge for London 2012 is to improve them in more subtle ways. For instance, the archery here was at a custom-built, high-tech but rather clinical stadium on the Olympic Green. The archery in 2012 could be in Sherwood Forest.

Beijing's Olympics were on an unfathomably vast scale. The concepts were big, the technologies were big, stadiums were big, the operation was big, the efficiency was big, the deployment was big.

The opening ceremony was the biggest, last night's closing ceremony complementary in size and grandeur. It began with the staples, fireworks and drums, a prelude to an ultra-fancy dress party.

Both ceremonies demonstrated that China is acutely aware of the impact a mass of people, properly drilled and choreographed, can make. And to think that there was a time when we thought that Aida, with all those elephants on Princes Park, was big.

Beijing is an improbably big city anyway, with long, wide, flat, straight roads, lined on each side by tall buildings, many of them grand, stretching into infinity, or, in the first week at least, into the haze of pollution. Discovering it puts the newcomer in the mind of a Jacques Tati movie: around every new corner, the view was the same.

Anyone with Western sensibilities was liable to feel small and lost. The army was everywhere, soldiers either standing rigidly and unblinkingly to attention on street corners, or marching in little detachments. Any body of people in uniform moved about in single file, even cleaners. But both the numbers and formalities reduced in the second week as all tired; this, too, is characteristic of the Olympic Games.

The volunteer army was exclusively young, fluent in English, and unfailingly and cheerfully helpful. As at most Olympics, they were the lubrication. The idea of the no-fun Games can only have been a construct of those determined not to have fun.

Security was constant, but not nearly as oppressive as at other world events. The most officious person I met in Beijing was a jobsworth with the American rights-holding broadcaster who threatened me with punishments Maoist China never imagined. Another of her type yesterday prevented a Spanish marathoner from greeting his girlfriend at the race's end.

It is doubtful that Olympic visitors saw the real Beijing, anyway, any more than they saw the real Athens or the real Sydney. An Olympic city tarts itself up; of course it does. Resident correspondents reported that the Beijing streets were emptier and cleaner than usual, but in regional Quingdao, the venue for the sailing, the bustle and chaos was as great as ever.

Critical Australians should be wary of an enclosing glasshouse. China faked effects, bussed in crowds and made up numbers; but how does that differ from Melbourne's Grand Prix? So Chinese support sometimes was choreographed; as opposed to the work of the Fanatics? Chinese crowds were no more nationalistic than Australian ones.

But Beijing could not hide everything, any more than Beijingers could contain their curiosity. The attitude of Olympic authorities to Western media was problematic: essentially, it was mind your own business. The English-language press was as toothless as its reputation, either glowing in its praise of all aspects of the Olympics or leaping to defend them against an army of straw men.

But propaganda, no matter how finely spun, cannot hide its deceit. One day, the China Daily thumped its tub about how wrong the West had been in its concerns about pollution. Presumably, the editorial writer had not set foot outside the paper's air-conditioned HQ at the media centre.

Ultimately, though often forgotten, the Olympics Games are a sports carnival. They will be remembered for what happened, not where. In this, Beijing will be well served. The prodigious feats of Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt, as big as the Games themselves, will ensure that "Beijing 2008" becomes a byword in sports history. About 40 world records were broken, excluding the one for supplies of bottled water; it never ran out.

The Games also are a celebration of the obscure, the arcane, the sport and the sportsperson who was unknown yesterday and will be dimly remembered tomorrow, but momentarily is a hero to their nation. It is their strength, not their weakness.

Australia finds itself at a crossroads in its illustrious Olympic history. The medallists kept the romance alive, none more so than hyper-ventilating and elevating pole vaulter Steve Hooker.

Taking into account the almost complete collapse of the cycling team, Australia won almost as many medals as predicted, capped off on Saturday night by the stunning performance of diver Matthew Mitcham. It slipped two places in the standings, behind Britain and Germany, also as predicted.

The question now is: how important is it to our national psyche to recover those places, and what price are we prepared to pay? Now that all Olympic sport is professional, there is a direct link between funding and success. Exact figures are hard to come by because sponsorship of athletes comes from several sources - government, corporate, private - and at different times in the Olympic cycle.

But it is probable that Britain spent about twice as much per athlete as Australia. This was in anticipation of London 2012, just as Australia spent lavishly in anticipation of Sydney 2000. More money has been pledged in Australia, but even more has been sought. But questions should be asked about the funding model's lack of sophistication. Essentially, it is money-for-medals, which is great for swimming, but threatens to send cycling, a sport always dear to Australia's heart, into a vicious spiral.

Drugs did not become a major issue in Beijing, which is gratifying, but when contemplating that plethora of world records, the most prudent conclusion might simply be to say: watch this space.

Instances of poor sportsmanship were remarkable for their rarity. The Olympic spirit is easy to mock from afar, but is a palpable thing to all who come near to it. But it should not be confused with high-blown IOC rhetoric about how the Games will change the world. Darfur is today as it was a fortnight ago, and as it was when Steven Spielberg chose to boycott these Olympics in February.

The legacy of the Games for China, in all its vastness, complexity and inscrutability, is not for a fleeting visitor to assess. The legacy of the Games for the Olympic movement is plain. A benchmark for competence has been set; everything else is a matter of taste. Officials from the four cities bidding for 2016 - Rio de Janeiro, Tokyo, Madrid and Chicago - all said they had been both humbled and inspired (the tip, incidentally, is Chicago).

"Govern a great country as you would cook a small fish," said Confucius, meaning gently, so as to get it just right. China's Communist Party might take cooking lessons from its Olympic chiefs.

© 2008 The Age

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