Sunday Business Post | Irish Business News

Breaking News Business Ireland World Sport Weather

Navigation (Home)News Ireland World News Features The Market Media & Marketing Comment & Analysis Computers In Business Profile Property Motoring Agenda Letters

People In Business Budget Forum Events / Conferences Company Reports Tools Crossword Search the archives Newsletter IMODE RSS

Text-Only

Superb Olympics let down by regime
Sunday, August 24, 2008 By Mairtín Ó Riada in Beijing
It began with a triumphant - and triumphalist - opening ceremony 17 days ago, and tonight another sumptuous visual feast will bring the games of the 29th Olympiad in Beijing to a close.

Despite persistent claims that Beijing has failed to honour many of its pre-games promises on civil liberties, the organisers of the Olympics will feel justified in celebrating tonight.

Since China was awarded the games in 2001, many had forecast that the event would be blighted by organisational and logistical chaos, and the heavy hand of the country’s totalitarian government.

Instead, visitors to Beijing have been greeted by permanently smiling volunteers, flawless operations and - but for a few scattered small-scale protests - no disturbances on the street. Even Beijing’s dreaded noxious air was a non-issue, as the city enjoyed an extended run of the best air quality it has seen in years.

With little else to grab headlines, the world turned its attention to the dazzling new sporting arenas of Beijing and, before some of the biggest Olympic TV audiences in years, the athletes did not disappoint.

The 2008 games will almost certainly be remembered for the superhuman performances of Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt, who between them did not so much redraw the boundaries of the possible as rip up the blueprint altogether.

After ‘Lightning’ Bolt streaked to his second gold medal, in the 200 metres, breaking Michael Johnson’s 12-year-old record, fellow competitor Kim Collins was moved to ask: ‘‘How much faster can a human go before there is no more going fast? It’s ridiculous, he’s doing it and making it look so simple.”

There was just the right amount of heartbreak, too, to keep viewers engaged. Both the men’s and women’s US 100 metres relay teams dropped their batons in their respective heats and crashed out. For the second Olympics in a row, shooter Matt Emmons threw away a certain gold medal with a wild shot in the very last round of the competition.

China’s golden boy, Liu Xiang, who was attempting to defend the 110 metres hurdles title, didn’t even make it out of the blocks. He limped off the track before his first round heat began, leaving a nation in shock and his weeping coach to explain the severity of his injury.

The domestic disappointment did not last long, however, with China already in an unassailable position in the gold medal count. The host country won almost 20 more golds than it did in Athens, a remarkable return for the so-called Project 119 approach begun in 2001.

Officials selected 119 medals in more obscure sports that the nation could potentially win. Over the last seven years, millions have been invested in preparing athletes for the challenge.

However, as the medal count continued to rise, a growing body of evidence suggested that at least three of China’s medal-winning gymnastics team had been too young to compete. While the Chinese authorities produced passports to prove that He Kexin, Yang Yilin and Jiang Yuyuan were 16, domestic news reports from 2007 and early 2008 and documents on official websites seemed to indicate that the girls were just 14.

Just as the backgrounds of China’s Olympians may have been artificially massaged, behind the polished smiles of the host city over the last 17 days, there was evidence of a certain Potemkin-like artifice at play.

As the games drew to a close, more incidents came to light to indicate that, rather than allowing the public to protest - as it had pledged to do - the government was inviting applications from protesters and using those applications to punish troublemakers.

In one case last week, two women in their late 70s were each given a suspended sentence of one year’s hard labour after they applied to protest against the destruction of their house by government-sponsored property developers.

Last Wednesday, Reporters Without Borders released documents which, it claimed, proved that Beijing had violated its pledge to grant complete media freedom to foreign journalists, by instructing security officials to harass and intimidate reporters’ interviewees.

‘‘The police were indeed ordered to let foreign journalists work, but they were also ordered to investigate the Chinese who told them embarrassing things,” the group said in a statement.

On Thursday, IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davies acknowledged that, despite the sporting successes of the Beijing games, a lingering sense of disappointment remained.

‘‘The IOC took a decision to come to Beijing because opening the door and engaging is the way forward and it can be a catalyst for development,” said Davies.

‘‘We see - just by the fact that we are all here discussing important matters that fall outside the direct sporting area - that that catalytic effect isn’t happening. But the games themselves cannot be a cure for all the challenges, cannot be a cure for all the ills.”

Click here for Sunday Business Post stories before this date