China's extravagant Olympics will not be ever emulated for a long time

China's slam-bang, over-the-top and generally spectacular Olympic Games won't be repeated soon, says the director of the International Centre for Olympic Studies. 

Nope, it's a politically driven one-off that nobody can, or should, emulate in the opinion of Kevin Wamsley, director of the University of Western Ontario-based centre. 

"China has gone all out to make a big impression internationally," Wamsley said yesterday. "It was a decision made long ago. China decided to make a statement and it has." 

China, of course, has been emerging in a big way economically and culturally. It seized upon a tried-and-true method of putting its best face before the world through sports and there isn't a more effective international forum than the Olympic Games. 

This is why China's athletes have come light years athletically inside mere decades. Sporting success glows wonderfully on an image to a world often bedazzled by image. Since the athletes are so successful, so then must be the entire nation and its political system, right? 

 


It is why China went over the top in terms of infrastructure and venues, Wamsley said. A lot of the massive projects were unnecessary or overdone, he feels, but were created just in case there was any doubt. 

Who pays for all this, one is tempted to ask. The answer is roughly the same as that given by a Moscow citizen when the Russians pulled out all the stops to put its best face forward in a similar coming-out party in 1980. 

"Those old women with the twig brooms pay," he replied. 

What he meant was those with the most menial jobs and every other citizen of the Soviet Union and its republics was on the hook. 

This, of course, will be much easier in the world's most populous country. When 1.3 billion people are picking up the tab, the damage is much easier to handle. 

The Greeks were not so lucky in the aftermath of of the 2004 Olympics and wound up on the hook for even more than Quebec and Canada did after Montreal's 1976 overpriced show. Montreal mayor Jean Drapeau famously said at the time Montreal would no more lose money than a man could give birth to a child . . . alors, c'etait un miracle. 

But what about England, site of the Games four years hence? This Beijing show is an impossible one to follow. 

"England won't even attempt to," predicted Wamsley. "To try and match China would be financially prohibitive. More important, England doesn't have to." 

England has already made a far-reaching impression on the world and merely has to maintain appearances. 

Troublesome to the historian is that much of the massive costs of Olympic Games were not necessary. For all their size and superb architecture, many of the Beijing facilities aren't full. 

"It hardly seems reasonable to build all those wonderful things if you can't fill them," Wamsley said. "There's something wrong in Beijing." 

Indeed, that's not new. Despite what organizing committees say about sellouts, as they did in Atlanta (1996) and Athens, you still have to prove it by putting bums in the seats. Of recent Games, Sydney came closest in 2000. 

Essentially, The Olympic Games have been a massive TV production. It's always nice to have people cheering in the background but the big dough comes from broadcast rights, not the turnstiles. 

All of this brings up an ongoing topic. If the venues are mainly television studios, what about a permanent site for the Olympics? Wamsley thinks it's a wonderful idea -- that will never happen. 

"Television seeks a varied cultural aspect," Wamsley noted. "I don't think the rights fees would be as high (at a permanent site) and that wouldn't appeal to the International Olympic Committee.