The Olympics ended this morning, or I guess last night, or this evening, or whatever it works out to depending on where you are in the world. I always enjoy the Olympic year events, and try to watch it when I can. This year, as with any Olympics, there were some exciting moments.

Our Canadian athletes went from a worry that they were winning nothing to a final count of 18, a reasonable showing in comparison to other Olympics. We don’t win a lot, compared to some other countries, but we have to keep it in perspective. We’re a relatively small nation, just over 33 million now I believe, the US is about ten times larger (and China about forty times). Quite likely we don’t devote enough funding to the Olympics and sports in general, that’s an issue that always comes up at this time, but our governments obviously don’t consider it the priority that it is in some nations.

The Olympics is always filled with dark horse competitors, like Priscilla Lopes-Schliep, who stubbornly charged out of nowhere in Row 8 to win bronze for Canada in the 100 meter hurtles, and with the thrilling come-back stories like Eric Lamaze in the Equestrian Jumping (suddenly millions of people know who “Hickstead” is), and these people and their stories provide the thrills of any Olympics. I followed the curious path of the American basketball “Dream Team” as they remained undefeated through their competitions, a situation that could be anticipated, but never has been since they were beaten in the last Olympics by Argentina for the Gold Medal. Early this morning (“last night”) they won the Gold Medal by a margin of only 11 points in a game against Spain, certainly not indicative of their skill. These “prima-donnas” of the basketball court have been difficult to motivate in any Olympics, often playing great and exciting basketball in the first quarter and then demonstrating almost boredom for the balance of the game. Their main motivation this time around was shame for their performance in 2004, when some of them admitted they were almost afraid to go home to the US after the loss. One of their coaches put it on the mark when he said, “You’ll win this competition when your desire is as great as that of the other teams.” They came through, but I think their desire was far less, and limited them to what had to be done.

The other story of this Olympics was the issue of the host country. Nobody knew quite what to expect with China hosting; the largest nation on the planet yet sometimes all we know about them is seeing their name on almost every product we buy.

All reports are that they hosted a fantastic Olympics, probably the best in history for organization and planning… nothing was left to chance, and it showed. It was a time for China to showcase to the world what they could do, and they provided excellent facilities, and almost flawless attention to detail.

Behind the scenes, it could be seen that the main focus of China’s attention was the “appearance”, and this governed much of their efforts. I doubt that any past competition has had the planning and advance preparation of this Olympics. The first hint of a flaw came when world news discovered that the little girl who delighted everyone in the opening ceremony with her singing was not actually singing, but lip-syncing. The real singer was not beautiful enough for the Chinese to present to the world, so sang in the background while another more attractive girl stood in the limelight and moved her lips. That was quickly followed by news that some of the fireworks displayed on the TV coverage of the opening ceremonies was actually not happening, but had been filmed previously in the skies and edited into the coverage to “fill it out”.

In a clever use of technology for appearances, a reporter noticed how nicely the flags on the stadium were flying at the opening, some even in defiance of possible wind. She later discovered that the flagpoles were equipped with vents to direct air from blowers to the flags– even the flags have to be on their best behavior!

There were no protesters marching in the streets of Beijing, since that was not an aspect of Chinese life they wanted the world to see. Three parks in the city were designated for protesting, but reporters who visited those parks saw no protesters, only happy people. To protest you needed a permit, and none were apparently given. CBC news followed one man who attempted to protest the disappearance of his wife, and he was eventually taken into custody. The reporters noticed they were being photographed as they followed the proceedings, and men could be seen watching them and talking on cell phones. A woman who had protested losing her home earlier was taken away and apparently will be sentenced to “retraining”.

Interesting to reporters were the legions of Chinese spectators in the venues. Many of these were “seat-fillers”— often older people, trained for almost a year in advance to occupy any venue where it looked like a poor attendance was showing for filming. These people were coached for months in the difficult art of “cheering”, clothed, and organized in a system that could respond quickly to an empty section in the stands. Reporters who questioned them often found that they knew little of the athletes they were cheering, sometimes not even the countries involved.

The closing ceremony this morning (our time) was as lavish as any have been. Quite likely the fireworks display near the end was the largest and finest ever presented— but after all, the Chinese invented the things! In all, it ended an Olympics that ran like a well-oiled machine. Impressive is one word; scary might be another…

Michel Cormier, the CBC’s normal Beijing correspondent made an interesting comment when asked what effect this would have on China in the future. He wasn’t sure… it could be that China will be happy with its acceptance on the world stage and move toward more freedom for its people and a more honest relationship with the other nations of the world, or it might also be that it will see that some techniques that bordered on manipulation and control also worked very well, and should be always used in the future.

With 1.3 billion people, we will always know they are around, and if we forget, we can just pick up almost anything and check the bottom.

—-