Faster, Higher, Stronger. Let The Games Begin.
The Age
Friday August 8, 2008
Tonight's the night. After years of preparation, China unveils its Olympic dream to the world.
ONE world, one dream. Tonight an estimated 4 billion people - almost two-thirds of the Earth's population - will turn their eyes to Beijing to witness the opening of the 29th Olympics. The ceremony promises a spectacular bursting forth of colour and movement, of fierce national pride wrapped in swirling ribbons. Tonight China will see its dream realised. But how will the world see it?China looks at the Games as its chance to present its credentials to the world, its chance to put on a show the equal of anything the West can do. But do it bigger and better. The former is a given for, on matters of scale, China is simply bigger in virtually every respect to the rest of the world. At 1.3 billion people, composed of 56 ethnic groups, it has one-sixth of the world's population. It is rapidly closing on the United States as the largest, most powerful economy. These Games are its entree to acceptance. Acceptance, however, is predicated on trust. And there are fundamental aspects to these Games, both on and off the sports arenas, that can cloud judgements. On a purely visceral level, the Games have delivered one thing to Beijing residents: a blue vault above them. Beijing's smog-smudged skies have been under relentless attack; hundreds of factories have been ordered to shut down, hundreds of thousands of vehicles have been taken off the roads, an odds-and-evens system introduced and new subways built. All for two weeks of running, jumping and swimming. Will the leaden sky fold back over Beijing once the Games are over? Or will the authorities have taken from the experience the possibility of cleaning up the air permanently?One area in which regrettably there is little hope of the phrase "cleaning up" having any hope of maximum effect is in drugs in sports. Even before the Games begin, drug cheats are being revealed. Six members of the Russian women's athletics squad for Beijing have been suspended for "fraudulent substitution of urine". A year-long investigation by the International Association of Athletics Federations showed the DNA of urine samples from the women did not match other samples by them. Three other Russian athletes have also been expelled on drug matters. These Games will be the most drug-tested in history: 4500 tests in a fortnight, more than 300 a day. In Athens, the figure was 3600, and in Sydney half the Beijing total.The lag in technology to detect the constantly developing new ways to cheat means the ideal of a drug-free Olympics is a fantasy. One can spare a thought but little sympathy for prisoner 84868054, sitting in a Texas jail, and no doubt watching the Olympics. The prisoner is Marion Jones, who stunned the world at the Sydney Games in 2000, but who now has to live with her disgrace from using performance-enhancing drugs. She was not the only one. Members of the US men's 4x400 relay team at Sydney were also found to be drug cheats. Ten years ago the swimming world was rent with charge and counter-charge against members of the Chinese team. No country is immune, for no country even one so generally fair-minded as Australia, can vouchsafe each and every competitor's deeds. The Chariots of Fire vision of a runner winning simply by being fleet of foot long ago vanished into the distance of a windswept beach. Now the vision is of mice, muscle-bound mice, courtesy of gene doping. Or of tattooing drugs under the skin. The gap between cheating and detection was acknowledged earlier this year with the disclosure that blood and urine samples from athletes would be frozen and kept for eight years. It is not ideal, but in a far from ideal world it may be the best that can be done. The threat of being caught down the track is better than no threat at all.The road to tonight has been littered with controversy, from the running of the Olympic torch, and its targeting by Tibet protesters, to security overkill and the selective censoring of the internet to the foreign press (now freed up), to a clampdown on human rights activists. Yesterday the US President, George Bush, en route to Beijing, put it starkly: "America stands in firm opposition to China's detention of political dissidents and human rights advocates and religious activists. We press for openness and justice not to impose our beliefs, but to allow the Chinese people to express theirs." By the middle of next month both these Games and the Paralympic Games will be over. Attention will then move to London. But what will be the legacy of Beijing? Will the Games be known for having opened the doors to greater freedoms or will the skies once again darken when the world's gaze shifts elsewhere?
© 2008 The Age