Beijing Beat: A Blog of the 2008 Olympic Games

Beijing Sports Wrap: My Top 20

Mark Starr — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 02:32:02 GMT

The closing ceremonies. Photo: Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK

Much as in the run-up to the Beijing Games did, the aftermath will focus on the impact of the Olympics on China as it defines its path in this emerging Chinese Century. But nobody who was here or watching at home will soon forget the sensational sports competition that took place. My top 20 sports stories (from a decidedly American vantage point):

1) Eight for Eight: Nobody doubted that Michael Phelps could win each of the eight races—five individual and three relays—he entered. But could he win all of them in the Olympic hothouse, a feat that required him to swim 17 times over nine long days? Turns out he could—seven of them in world record times. But he needed a miracle relay leg by a teammate in one race and had to survive a photo finish (and Serbian protest) in another. The biggest record—eight gold medals in a single Olympics—should stand forever. Phelps’ total of 14 Olympic gold medals is the most by any athlete in history.

Photo: Mike Powell for NEWSWEEK

2) Bolt of Lightning: The Phelps saga may have been the only thing Usain Bolt couldn’t quite catch and even that is debatable. The Jamaican youngster—he turned 22 during the Games—almost singlehandedly ended American claims on sprinting supremacy. He won the 100 and 200 and ran a leg on Jamaica’s gold-medal 4X100 relay team. In a meet where world records are scarce because of summer swelter and multiple heats in each event, all three gold medals were in world record times. Unusually tall for a sprinter with a remarkably graceful gait, Bolt was a hot-dogging champion. He incurred the wrath of the straitlaced 10C when he celebrated his 100-meter victory with some chest-thumping before he even crossed the line. But most fans saw him as a breath of fresh air in a sport ravaged by scandal—and it’s everybody’s hope that Bolt runs as clean as he does well.

3) China’s Gold Rush: It didn’t exactly come as a surprise. China almost caught the United States in gold medals in Athens and had pointed to Beijing as the Games in which they would assert their athletic supremacy. The results of world championships during the years from Athens to Beijing gave fair warning. Still, nobody was quite prepared for the landslide win, as China netted 51 gold medals to America’s 36. The U.S. still topped the charts in total medals (110-100), but with China’s population, the state sports system and unstinting investment, that seems unlikely to hold at the 2012 London Games. What keeps China-U.S. from becoming a great rivalry is that China excels at sports—table tennis, weightlifting, shooting, diving—in which American isn’t very competitive and which evoke little interest in our country. In the one sports, woman’s gymnastics, we do care about, there was plenty of consternation about the result, complaints about favorable “home” judging and allegations that the Chinese cheated with underage gymnasts.

4)Tragedy/Triumph: The tragedy at a popular Beijing tourist attraction was almost unimaginable—an attack by a knife-wielding Chinese man on the in-laws of U.S. men’s volleyball coach Hugh McCutcheon. His father-in-law Todd Bachman was killed and Bachman’s wife, Barbara, seriously injured. The killer committed suicide so it is unlikely there will ever be an explanation for the bizarre crime in a city considered highly safe for tourists. Win it for the coach never had to be said out loud. But while McCutcheon was away from the Olympics with his family (he resumed coaching duties after four games), a U.S. volleyball team that hadn’t won a medal since a bronze in Barcelona back in 1992 caught fire. It went undefeated throughout the tournament, climaxing with a comeback win over defending Olympic champion Brazil. When McCutcheon called his wife back home in the States wand heard her, she exclaimed, “You won, you won!” Then he told reporters, “There was nothing left to say. We were just kind of listening to each other smile into the phone.” We smiled too. Maybe even cried a little.

5) Ballet on Bars and Beams: For a reporter a few stories become more personal. Years ago I became captivated by a 14-year-old gymnast who performed with a lyrical beauty that I had never seen from an American.. For NEWSWEEK’s annual, year-end “Who’s Next” issue, I am responsible for picking one young athlete who will make a splash. In 2006 I picked Liukin. But she was beset by a series of nagging injuries, and an Iowa sparkplug, Shawn Johnson, became America’s new gymnastics darling and the Beijing favorite. The American duo went 1-2 in the all-around in Beijing, but it was Liukin’s balletic performance that landed her on top. Johnson, with three silver medals already in hand, finally won a very happy gold on balance beam. But it was Liukin who went home to Texas with the biggest prize (as well as five Olympic medals).

6) The ‘We’ In American Teams: There has been a sneaking suspicion that American athletes had lost their grasp on the team thing. In recent years, our all-star teams have been humbled by international losses in sports that we dominate: basketball, golf and baseball. But in Beijing, most American teams excelled. Both men’s and women’s basketball, volleyball and water polo teams made it to the gold-medal games, as did the U.S. women’s softball and soccer teams. The U.S. went 4-4 in those finals, but this mother lode of team golds and silvers demonstrated that when they put their minds to it, Americans still know how to play well together.

7) The ‘Redeem Team’: The U.S. men’s basketball team had a lot to make up for--two miserable performances in the last two world championships and a dismal bronze at the Athens Olympics. But Kobe and company proved up to the task, thoroughly dominating the competition until the finals where they met defending world champion Spain. In a game far closer than the final scored indicated, the NBA stars responded to every Spanish challenge—and used their speed advantage and some clutch outside shooting to squeeze out a 118-107 win. They celebrated the gold medal with all the excitement of high-school kids who had won the state championship. Beyond the court, the NBA stars treated the competition with the respect the rest of the world gives it—and were goodwill ambassadors all over the Olympics, cheering on Americans from the women’s basketball team (undefeated gold medalists also) to Michael Phelps.

8) Going Solo: Even with the basketball team’s Olympic revival, there was no better tale of redemption than that of Hope Solo. Solo was the starting goalkeeper for an unbeaten U.S. women’s soccer team in last year’s World Cup when the American coach inexplicably benched her for the semi-final against Brazil. After Brazil thrashed the Yanks, Solo went off on him and, far worse, suggested she would have performed better than her replacement. It was an unconscionable moment by the sisterhood standards of American soccer and Solo was kicked off the team and sent home. But the new coach convinced reluctant team members—“Do you want to win? she asked them—to let Solo return for the Olympic run. Against, of course, Brazil in the finals, Solo was the standout star, shutting out a superior attack until the Americans muster a goal overtime. A jubilant Solo explained afterward that she had broken a new barrier in women’s sports: “we don’t all have to be friends.”

Photo: Donald Miralle for NEWSWEEK

9) China Beach: Just as it has been since beach volleyball was introduced to the Olympics, the rhythm of the beach was decidedly American—from the rock and roll to the Chinese cheerleaders in tiny bikinis. The results went America’s way too. Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh won gold in the pouring rain and extended their astounding unbeaten streak to more than a year. The next day, the sun was shining on Phil Dalhauser and Todd Rogers, who completed the American sweep.

10) Butterfingers: There was, of course, one mortifying exception to all that good American team play: track’s 4X100 relay teams. The U.S. era of sprint dominance is clearly over and the Americans would have been underdogs to Jamaica in the relays anyway. Still, you don’t have a chance if you don’t get the baton around the track. And in the first preliminary heat, both the U.S. teams dropped it before the final leg. It is the third straight Olympics in which the American women have bungled the handling of the baton. If USA basketball can command Kobe Bryant and LeBron James to training camps, then USA Track and Field can force its sprinters to convene and practice their relay skills before each Olympics. It’s either that or more embarrassments on track’s biggest stage.

11) Tears and More Tears: One of the problems that led to the IOC booted softball out of future Olympics, was that the American women were simply too dominant. It certainly looked to be true as they went undefeated into the finals, including two victories over Japan. But for Japan, the third time was the charm and they beat the Americans 3-1 for the last Olympic gold medal (with the faint hope that the IOC will reconsider and reinstate softball for 2016). The U.S. women aren’t counting on it, but the loss may actually help the cause. Still, a handful of American softballers poignantly left their cleats on the field as they left the Olympics for likely the final time.

Photo: Donald Miralle for NEWSWEEK

12) 400 Strong: Track and field was a very mixed bag for the Americans with some notables flopping big-time and a few surprise winners. But the surest thing for the U.S. team is the 400 meters for men—be it runners, hurdlers or relay tams. The American men went 1-2-3 in both individual events and won the relay handily in Olympic record time. The women didn’t far quite as well at the distance. But in the relay, Sanya Richards, who had taken a disappointing bronze in the 400, ran down the Russian in the stretch to claim the gold medal.

13) The Straight Dope: Hard to imagine any Olympics in which doping wouldn’t rate a spot in the top ten. But only five athletes in Beijing have been caught doping to date. And frankly it’s hard to know if that’s good news or bad news, if the testing advances have begun to scare the cheats off or of if the cheats have become too sophisticated for the dope police. The biggest name nabbed here was Ukraine‘s Lydmila Blonska, who forfeited her silver medal in the heptathlon and faces a lifetime ban for her second offense. That is if you don’t count Yelena Soboleva, the leading 800 and 1500 runner in the world this year and one of seven Russian track and field athletes banned from Beijing before the Games even began. Athletes got sent home for other misdeeds too. A Swedish Greco-Roman wrestler lost his bronze after he tossed it on the ground to protest a refereeing decision. And a Cuban in taekwondo was banned for life when he kicked an official in the head.

14) World’s Greatest Athlete: Perhaps no title has been depreciated more than “world’s greatest athlete”. It has been the legacy of the Olympic decathlon champion since the 1912 Stockholm Olympics when King Gustav V told the American legend, Jim Thorpe, “You, sir, are the greatest athlete in the world.” Since then it has been held by some storied Ameican names--from Bob Mathias to Rafer Johnson to Bruce Jenner to Dan O’Brien. But today we Americans are more likely to consider Kobe Bryant or Tiger Woods as “the greatest” and Bryan Clay ran away with the decathlon here in virtual anonymity. Clay was the first American to win since O’Brien a dozen years ago in Atlanta So at least let it be said here: Bryan Clay is the world’s greatest athlete.

15) Lezak’s Leg: Very few athletes are destined to be remembered very long for a single relay leg. But Jason Lezak may be the exception. Lezak’s extraordinary anchor swim in the 4x100 meter freestyle relay—catching French world recordholder Alain Bernard from behind—kept Phelps’ record chase alive. They don’t hand out assists in swimming’s record books, but nobody who watched Phelps’ set his record will ever forget Lezak’s critical role.

16) Liu-sing: Ever since his breakthrough gold medal in Athens, hurdler Liu Xiang has been the face of China’s Beijing dream (and the face of all the global companies hoping to cash in on that Olympics dream). To win the most gold medals, China had to excel in sports at which they had never before competed successfully. His final was regarded as the single most important athletic moment of the Games, a national coronation of its hero. But while Liu got into the starter’s blocks, he never ran the race, pulling out with an injury. China’s sensational Olympic showing likely spared him much harsh criticism as well as tough questions about why he even stepped on the track in the first place. Still, some wondered if that was a gesture to his homeland or to his sponsors.

17) Sabre Rattling: Women’s sabre debuted in Athens and American women usually seem to get a jump-start on new sports and new disciplines in old sports. The U.S. took gold and bronze there, but here in Beijing upped its reach. Mariel Zagunis reprised her gold-medal performance, Athens bronze-medal winner Sada Jacobson took silver and newcomer Rebecca Ward completed the sweep.. This was one of the rare Beijing occasions when the parts were greater than the sum: the three women combined only to take a bronze in team saber.

Photo: Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK

18) Muhammad Ali weeps: This was supposed to be the Games when an American revival honored the nation’s extraordinary Olympic boxing legacy, from Floyd Patterson to Muhammad Ali to George Foreman to Sugar Ray Leonard to Oscar De La Hoya. But the Beijing team’s two amateur world champions went out early and the only medal, a bronze, went to an overhyped, underexperienced heavyweight who scored just s single point (and that in the final seconds) in his semi-final bout.

19) The ‘X’ Game: Those ‘X’ sports, the TV-friendly games invented in the U.S. and new to the Olympics, are very good to the American medal count, both summer and winter. In Beijing, making its debut was BMX, bicycle motocross, an event that figured to follow the success of snowboarding’s wild-and-wooly cross event. Americans didn’t win any gold in the two races, but they did win half the medals.

20) Marvelous Messi: Argentina wanted its brilliant forward Lionel Messi to lead its attack in Beijing. And Barcelona, his professional team, wanted the young superstar to stay with the club for Champions League contests. Barcelona went to court and won, but eventually relented. And everyone who got to watch his dazzling play here is grateful. Messi was brilliant throughout the tournament, leading Argentina to a 3-0 romp over arch-rival Brazil and then to the gold medal with a 1-0 victory over Nigeria. A happy Messi should ultimately redound to Barcelona’s benefit.

Closing Ceremony Extravaganza: Revenge of the Nerds

Melinda Liu — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 16:44:47 GMT

Photo: Donald Miralle for NEWSWEEK

Some people predicted the 2008 Olympic spectacle would be worthy of Leni Riefenstahl, Hitler's favorite filmmaker whose theme for the 1936 Games was "Triumph of the Will". Instead, for the dazzling closing ceremony which brought the Olympics to a close tonight, we got Busby Berkeley reincarnated as an engineer. How else could you think up 60 furiously pedalling cyclists in glowing tracksuits propelling giant "light wheels" precisely 2.008 meters in diameter, symbolizing "the collision of time and space and the human spirit of constantly surpassing oneself and never giving up".

Or a massive 23-meter "Memory Tower" -- think Tower of Babel built with erector sets -- rising out of a pit in the ground, suddenly swarmed by 396 nimble climbers (in mountaineering kit) clad in tracksuits that are red on the underbelly and silver on the back, enabling the men to create visual images, like the "sacred flame" and the "running man" symbol of the Beijing Games, by gyrating as they clung to the girders or scuttled scarab-like over the structure and abseiled down its sides?

Or a slick 53-page media guide deconstructing "every aspect of the closing ceremony of the XXIX Olympiad -- both protocol and creative -- that might be of interest and relevant to the public", chock full of factoids like 20 tons of steel were used to construct the "Memory Tower" or the electricity load totaled 10,500 kw or a year of rehearsals took place in a 1,750-square-meter temporary gym? The only thing missing was a slide rule.

This is a country where eight out of nine of the country's most powerful people -- the nine men who make up the communist party's Politburo standing committee -- are trained as engineers (as are 17 of 25 Politburo members). Sure, the opening and closing ceremonies were both the brainchild of famed film director Zhang Yimou, whose ability to mesmerize movie audiences is well-known. But in tonight's case the script was about a resurgent, rising China -- and its mandarins are celebrating every twinkling bulb and length of electrical wire that powered their achievements (which, in the case of the closing ceremony, was 2,583 lights and 160 kilometers of cable).

And now they're one happy bunch of engineers. Despite some tragedies and disappointments, the Games were perceived by Chinese and overseas participants alike to have been a sporting and organizational success, enhanced by the magnificent venues that have made the Bird's Nest and Water Cube familiar around the world. Human rights monitors had warned that the Games would be marred by massive rights violations -- and in fact a number did take place, as we have blogged on earlier.

But on this balmy (and not even that polluted) Beijing night, in this place, with this relaxed and cheering crowd, the main violations that spectators witnessed were a systematic defiance of laws of gravity. Limber spacemen emblazoned with what looked like white Christmas-light strips on their helmets and suits were slowly raised and lowered on invisible wires as they executed lazy mid-air back flips or froze in athletic poses like glowing man-sized arachnids -- Charlotte's Web on acid. Performers in red fluorescent leotards attached to the end of six-meter-long "rotating poles" soared and swiveled in seesaw arcs, as phalanxes of Day-glo performers -- wearing gimmicky extreme sports' "bounce shoes" -- bounded high above the ground like alien kangaroos.

For those who were feeling a bit blinded by all those kilowatts of costume lighting, something of a respite came when it was time for London, host of the 2012 Games, to put on its own 8-minute show. (Remember when 7 used to be a lucky number? That's all different now -- like so many other things that have changed inexorably due to China's rise. Look out, world, now it's 8.)

A shift in mood and iconography was signaled by the appearance of an old-fashioned British double-decker bus rolling slowly into the arena. The London chapter in the media guide began to sound like it was shaped less by engineers and more by your normal public relations message-meisters: "We demonstrate why London remains the coolest place on the planet."

Then the crowd gasped as the bus suddenly peeled itself back -- al la Transformers -- to reveal a rising stage that featured singing star Leona Lewis and iconic Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page doing "Whole Lotta Love" followed by football super-celebrity David Beckham kicking a soccer ball into the audience to the adulation of screaming fans. Along the way, dancers holding large umbrellas pranced around the bus.

Just when you began to wonder if that self-deprecating gesture towards London's weather was a bit too mundane, suddenly the opened brollies transformed into a phalanx of LED lights flashing colors and symbols in a sychrony that even China's Politburo would have been proud to have wired.

All in all, it was a glittering finale to Beijing's big show (and we have yet to discover the manipulative wizardry behind the scenes, like the lip-synching and CGI effects of the opening ceremony). To those who have portrayed the Games' visual extravaganzas as Hitleresque in proportion and impact, I say this: tonight in the Bird's Nest it didn't feel like Springtime for the Politburo, but more like a triumph of the techno-geeks.

UPDATE: Later my colleague Mary Hennock, who's British, said the scene in which the bus unpeeled itself was in fact somehow related to a privet hedge -- a quintessentially British icon that most people in the audience neither knew nor cared about. Which all goes to show that you don't have to be Chinese to be self-absorbed.

China: New King of the Rings?

Jonathan Ansfield — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 02:16:55 GMT

Leading up to the Games, Beijing's tsars of sport took pains to lowball medals projections in the conservative fashion of its economic planners. In the end the Chinese squad far outstripped its softly stated goal of 40 golds. With 51, China is the first nation to crack the 50 mark since the USSR won 55 in 1988. It's a phenomenal achievement, but what to make of it? The host nation's sweet showing was undercut by bitter controversy over its female gymnasts' ages, the numbing disappointment of its sole track star Liu Xiang, and the perennial critique that Team China is just the latest gargantuan image project - if the Party builds it, the medals will come.

It therefore seemed fitting that China's last couple golds came in the embattled event of boxing. I spent much of the weekend in the circular gallery of the Workers Gymnasium, a musty gem of Soviet-inspired monumentalism. There I saw China's fighters scrap their way on up from a single bronze at Athens to one bronze, one silver and two gold medals in Beijing. One of those two golds, the country's first, was won by the reigning world champ without much of a fight. The other came courtesy of a dark horse with a motivational tattoo of a winged Pegasus on his left arm, not to mention a major boost from the crowd and the benefit of the doubt from the judges. If you think the regurgitated debate over medals rankings is going to be a tough one to ever resolve - given America's historic focus on cumulative medals versus China’s (and many other nations') on gold - try judging the victor of an Olympic boxing bout.

In the light heavyweight final, Zhang Xiaoping outmaneuvered Ireland's Kenny Egan by a tally of 11-7. It was Zhang's second straight upset, and if conventional wisdom in our press section was any indication, the scoring was dubious both times. In the semifinal on Friday, a timid-looking Zhang scrapped to a 4-4 tie with Kazakh Yerkebulan Shynaliyev through four rounds, forcing a decision on countback. Shynaliyev had whipped Zhang by 13 points in the quarterfinals of the world championships in Chicago late last year. When the referee hoisted Zhang's hand this time, even the home crowd sounded mildly flabbergasted, releasing a wondrous roar. Another journalist and I turned to one another and shook our heads. Afterward Shynaliyev insisted that he would have won had he not developed pain in his shoulder in the second round. Zhang just pointed to his Pegasus tattoo. "People have been calling me a dark horse, but I will fly higher."

For Egan on Sunday, it took square blows to the head or torso to score points, while Zhang racked up many of his off his back foot. In a couple cases Zhang scored after he and Egan were entangled or had barely brushed at all, making it hard to discern where the points came from. But points are points. After getting out in front early, Zhang stood rounds two and three before pussyfooting the final minute. As the clock ticked down a red sea of Chinese fans were enrapt, while a rowdy pocket of Irish among them were livid. “Over the past two weeks I don’t think anyone’s appreciated how hard it’s been,” Egan winged afterward. “Shoulder slaps get scored.” He was accepting of silver - "brilliant" he called it. But in a very awkward moment on the medal stands, he peered up at Zhang, clutched the gold slung from Zhang’s neck and kissed it, as though claiming it were his. Twelve hours later, around 3 a.m., I would spot Egan blowing offf steam nearby at the raucous Irish-style pub Paddy O'Shea's. Ah, the luck of the Chinese. What's a brawler to do?

In fact it was just part of the bargain in Olympic boxing. The scoring system has been shrouded in scrutiny for decades now, and the International Boxing Association has been subsumed in a perennial state of reform since the Roy Jones, Jr. fiasco in Seoul in 1988, where a number of protested decisions nearly got the sport booted from the Games. Now, under an electronic scoring system first implemented after Seoul to improve transparency, at least three of the five judges must ring in within a second of a punch for the boxer to tally a point, while the judges and referees of each match are randomly assigned by computer. But the boxing world’s efforts at house-cleaning sort of remind one of China’s Communist Party’s never-ending war on corruption. With so much money and glory riding on a match, the risk of fixing is endemic.

The AIBA revealed that two months prior to the Games it was informed of “a possible attempt on the part of certain individuals, both within the organization and within the competition officials, to manipulate the competition.” The revelation came after Rudi Obreja, a technical delegate and president of the Romanian federation, called a spur-of-the-moment press conference to accuse colleagues of meddling in the process of selecting match officials. The AIBA responded by suspending Obreja for breaking protocol and announcing an investigation.

After watching Zhang's unlikely win and a couple other close contests, I sat in on another a predictably heated presser. AIBA bosses vehemently defended efforts to democratize the scoring, while journalists clearly frustrated from covering the event pressed them to explain why even they couldn’t agree consistently how bouts were being scored, let alone the average spectator. Disciplinary commission chair Tom Virgets acknowledged the system remained less-than-perfect but maintained the better fighter won 90 or 95 percent of the time. An AIBA communiqué stated, as evidence of the improvement, that in 249 fights to that point only four boxers had filed protests. The reason so few countries had protested, one journalist contended, is that they know it's no use.

Fortunately, there was no disputing China's 50th gold. Light flyweight Zou Shiming is the world's premier amateur in the 48 kg class and represents a feel-good argument for how the state's largesse can produce a new breed of model sports hero. What a compelling story Zou is, having taken up wushu to toughen up as an adolescent after his mother raised the boy as if he were a girl. Foreign press have given him nicknames like the "fox" or the "pirate", a bit pettily, for his elusive style of snatching points. In the end his Olympic conquest proved more anticlimactic than he himself had wished. Mongolian Serdamba Purevdorj retired with a hurt shoulder 20 seconds into Round Two. But Zou delivered the moments of raw emotion afterward. After telling himself he could not cry on the podium, he choked up one verse into the playing of the Chinese national anthem. Then the easy-going Guizhou lad, who could soon turn pro, declared to reporters that he had "shown the whole world the strength of the Chinese people."

Asked what food had fuelled him during his Olympic campaign, Zou said he'd been on a steady diet of Western fare such as burgers and pizza, particularly pizza (his favorite), explaining that he had missed Chinese food when fighting at the championships in Chicago, and hence vice-versa in Beijing. "Plus Chinese food can be very greasy, and I have to control weight." No one quite got that remark but everyone including him laughed. Zou, who had to settle for the bronze in Athens, also took some credit for Purevdorj's early exit. In Round One, he sprayed the Kazakh with upper cuts. Zou said his coach sensed Purevdorj's shoulder was vulnerable and advised him to go for a "pre-emptive" strike. "Maybe it looked easy, but in fact there was a lot of preparation behind it." The same could be said for many of China's Olympic champs.

2016 Games: Cleaner Air, Less Commuting, More Fun?

Manuela Zoninsein — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 19:04:40 GMT

                 Representatives of the four cities campaigning to host the 2016 Olympic Games — Chicago, Madrid, Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo— are were out in force during the 2008 Games, promoting their respective candidacies. Generally speaking, they're prohibited from commenting on or criticizing each other or the current host. So its been something of a lovefest -- even as reps of aspiring host cities highlight their own advantages and try to address the lessons learned from Beijing. "The Chinese people have done alot for us to learn from," was how Chicago 2016 Chairman-CEO Pat Ryan introduced his city's initiatives at Saturday's 2016 Bid City press conference on the Olympic Green (sponsored by McDonald's). Carlos Nuzman, President of Rio 2016, stressed that his team would "look at Beijing as a model for what they've done, and then consider how we can best address these questions for our city."

                  While criticism has been muted, there's no escaping the fact that the 2008 Games have been the most controversy-wracked Olympics in a long time. As they draw to a close, you can read between the lines of what the 2016 crowd is saying to discern the types of headaches they're resolving to avoid. Recently Madrid launched a promotional campaign suggesting it'll open its arms to all ethnic groups ("Whoever you are, from wherever you are, how you are. Welcome.") which could be read as an oblique comment on China's much-criticized handling of Tibetan riots which erupted in March. Asked about the evident analogy, Spanish IOC member Juan Antonio Samaranch -- a close friend of Chinese leaders -- told the Associated Press that the ads are "certainly not a reaction to Beijing."

                Still, a long-running history of violence by Basque separatists is seen as one of Madrid's weakest points. Faced with internal regional divisions and an influx of immigrants, the Spanish government clearly hopes to promote an open-minded and multi-cultural image. And, of course, to signal a departure from the way Beijing handled the Tibet issue, which triggered such intense protests during the Olympic torch relay through London, Paris and San Francisco that they threatened to tarnish the Olympics brand itself.

                 In terms of stunning venues, modern infrastructure and related hardware, Beijing's a hard act to follow. But a look at the 2016 pitches reveals other ways in which wanna-be Olympic hosts hope to bring the Summer Games eight years from now cleaner air, shorter commutes and more fun:

                1) Environment, especially air quality, is instrumental for any city hoping to get the IOC's nod for 2016. Madrid claims one of the lowest pollution levels by European standards, as well as "sustainable transport" for those commuting between venues, says Mayor Alberto Ruiz-Gallardon. The city's existing metro system will be the primary mode of transport, but if buses must be used, they will be electricity-powered. Rio de Janeiro intends to implement the model rapid-transit system developed in the Brazilian city of Curitiba. A quarter of Tokyo's 2016 initiatives focuses on environmental issues -- a five-foot-tall digital globe highlighting areas suffering from high levels of global warming is featured at the Beijing-based Japan House, which looks after Japanese nationals in town for the Olympics.

            2) Future hosts say they'll strive for shorter transport times and tighter venue clusters -- in contrast to sprawling Beijing and its far-flung Olympic sites which demand lengthy commutes. Tokyo vows that 95 percent of all athletic facilities would be located within an eight-kilometer radius. Madrid promises a maximum 10-minute car ride between two clusters of competition sites. Chicago would base the Athlete's Village and Olympic Green in Washington Park and the near South Side so that athletes could walk no more than 15 minutes to reach nine-tenths of their competitions.

            3) 2016 should be more fun. Chicago's "compact Games" also envisage that Olympic-related activities would be located in an "entertainment city", which places a premium on the enjoyment of the athletes. For 2016, "it's all about the athlete," explained Pat Sandusky, VP of Communications for Chicago. "They will get to enjoy the city, in the heart of the city." To support their bid, representatives of Rio's 2016 bid pointed to the energy of the fans inspiring athletes during the 2007 Pan-American Games, held in their "Marvelous City". Meanwhile Dr. Ichiro Kono, Chairman and CEO for Tokyo 2016, said he "enjoyed the size [of Beijing] very much—but in our plan, athletes can enjoy their travels, because they will be in the center of the city."

                Such declarations are a tacit critique of the security-conscious isolation that many athletes and others felt during these Games in terms of, well, simply meeting ordinary Chinese. Beijing's jitters led to such tight restrictions -- especially after a U.S. coach's relative was killed by a lone Chinese assailant -- that most grassroots citizens were barred from the Olympic Green, which in past Games has been open to the partying public. Though undoubtedly more secure, visitors feel out of touch. So in 2016, fun is consciously on the agenda -- and not just for athletes. Chicago highlights its reputation as a festival city. Rio points to its annual Carnaval celebration. And Madrid now hails its boisterous "Latin" culture -- despite years of discrimination against South American immigrants -- as a gauge of the spirit that should be affiliated with the Games.

                  The Olympics provide an opportunity for host cities to invest in infrastructure and social projects. That's one argument for awarding the Games to a developing country, and in this regard Rio is unique among the 2016 contenders. (Seoul, Barcelona and now Beijing are prominent examples of cities that the Olympics helped re-make.) But that also makes it even more important to stress that renovation and construction must be completed on time. Each of the 2016 bidders promise the IOC that all loose ends would be tied up well before the Games. Tokyo is already partway through a 10-year revitalization project, due for completion in the summer of 2016. Rio claims it'll be ready by 2014, when it's slated to host the World Cup. Madrid's metro already stops at all but one of the wanna-be Olympic venues. And Chicago says it's almost ready right now, with little need to build new facilities other than temporary archery fields.

                 2016 Bid City representatives were unanimous in their congratulations to Beijing in one particular regard: the energy and ubiquity of China's young Olympic volunteers. (Then again, it probably helped Beijing to have a ruling party accustomed to mass mobilization exercises -- and to have more than 1.3 billion people to mobilize.) Rio sees the Games as a unique chance to encourage more youth to experience the Olympic spirit and participate in sport. "[It's] very important to work closely with volunteers, and to bring the same atmosphere to the Games in Tokyo," said Masanori Takaya, International Communications Manager of Tokyo 2016.

He pointed to the "Cutting Edge Technology" booth at the Tokyo House, where foot-tall robots were engaged in various physical tasks such as exercise pull-ups and picking up objects. His colleagues are working on integrating such toys to aid the 2016 Games, he said. Technology will be part of the answer for helping make 2016 a success, no question about it. But another part will be more opportunities for the Olympic family to party with just plain ordinary folk.

Soccer Footnote: The U.S. Team's 'Stupidity' Problem

Mark Starr — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 08:21:41 GMT

Watching Nigeria play Argentina in the men’s soccer final this afternoon at the Bird’s Nest reminded me of a grievous oversight. Sitting in the stands, I was so appalled by the U.S. team's early departure from the tournament last week—2-1 at the feet of Nigeria—that I forgot to vent publicly.

The American team is good enough to compete with most anybody in the youth ranks—the Olympics is a under-23 affair (with three ringers). But it’s not nearly good enough that it can afford the kind of stupidity that in Beijing assured it wouldn’t survive the qualifying round.

Coachs’ sons are expected to be savvier than the average player. But the first dim-witted play came in the game before Nigeria against the Netherlands. In the waning moments, Michael Bradley, son of the coach of the U.S. senior men’s team, took an unnecessary and, even worse, futile, yellow card for delay of game. Granted it might not have mattered had the U.S. hung on to its lead, punching its ticket to the quarterfinals. But the Dutch scored in the final seconds and Bradley, thanks to his second yellow in two games, had to sit out the critical showdown with Nigeria. The 21-year-old is a key cog in the midfield, good enough that a week later he was in the starting lineup for his dad when the U.S. opened World Cup qualifying in Guatamala.

Still, Bradley’s stalling ploy classifies as genius next to the bone-headed retaliatory elbow that got defender Michael Orozco ejected just three minutes into the Nigeria game. The Americans, needing only a tie to advance, were game, but outmanned. And when a late rally fell short—a header clanged off the post—they were headed home.

Orozco compounded his sin afterwards by refusing to express a modicum of regret for his costly foul. But far worse was how coach Peter Nowak praised his team’s efforts in Beijing, acting as if U.S. soccer was still an interloper in the world’s game and couldn’t reasonably be expected to produce anything more than a first-round ouster. Nowak must have been sleeping through his team's brilliant performance against the European U-23 champ Netherlands, when his team looked the equal of any.

Fans of American soccer are used to folks around the world denigrating our game. But it's particularly galling when it comes from our own coach, who should know better. There is no longer any reason to have such meager expectations for a country that, despite its minimal traditions, has usurped Mexico as the leading soccer power in its region. The American game may not yet be at the level where we can expect the team to get out of the qualifying rounds, but it certainly is at the level where we can be disappointed when it doesn’t. While there may still be Pyrrhic victories to come for American soccer, losing in a preliminary round will never again produce one of them.

As for the Nigerian team that the U.S. barely lost to, it proceeded to beat Ivory Coast 2-0 in the quarters and to thrash Belgium 4-1 in the semis before it lost 1-0 to the defending Olympic champion Argentina. Who knows what the United States might have done if it had played with as much brains as it did heart?

The end of the U.S.-Nigeria soccer match. Photo by Mike Powell for NEWSWEEK

Kung Fu Fighting for Fans

Melinda Liu — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 05:39:01 GMT

Ever heard of wushu? Most if not all of China's 1.3 billion people have. But contributor Fergus Naughton explains why you may not have. And why China's traditional martial arts are not competing with beach volleyball to snag Olympic spectators during the 2008 Games:

In 2001 when Beijing got the nod from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to host the 2008 Games, it was hoped by many that wushu -- China's traditional practice of martial arts, also referred to as gong fu or kung fu -- would be accepted as a medal event seven years later. After all, South Korea got to introduce its indigenous martial art of taekwondo as an exhibition event in the Seoul '88 games. Surely wushu -- the ultimate synthesis of China's unique sporting tradition, martial ability, philosophy, religion, poetry, calligraphy, music, painting, drama and literature (to name but a few of the inputs) -- would be considered worthy as an exhibition event?

It was not to be. IOC head Jacques Rogge declared in 2005 that wushu would not be added as an Olympic event. "We are not introducing wushu in the Olympic program," state media reported Rogge as then saying. "It will not be an exhibition, not at all," he said. This was an unimaginable kick in the face for the Beijing-based International Wushu Federation (IWUF), the sports governing body.

In an attempt to save itself from louder criticism -- and to save the IWUF some face -- the IOC sugarcoated this humiliating rejection by bending its own rules. It allowed the 2008 Games hosts to hold the Wushu Tournament Beijing 2008 international competition at the same time as the Olympics, and in an Olympic venue.

Thursday China's Wushu Tournament Beijing 2008 kicked off unceremoniously in the Olympic Sports Center Gymnasium.That wushu is not a marquee Olympic event may pass unnoticed by most Games enthusiasts. In the run-up to the Olympics, visitors to China have been bombarded with the "five thousand years history and culture" party line which is pummeled into native old and young alike. But if you walk down the street, take the bus or subway, open a magazine or newspaper, or flick on the TV you'll be bombarded with images of sporting heroes in glory, triumph and even in defeat -- but few of these images are that of a wushu practitioner. (Taichi, one type of wushu, did feature in Zhang Yimou's spectacular Olympics opening ceremony though).

Despite the numerous breathtaking silver-screen displays of Chinese martial arts prowess, such as Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or Zhang Yimou's Hero, or any one of the numerous Jet Li or Jackie Chan movies, as well as the local period TV dramas and epics that hit the movie theatres here come holiday season, real-life wushu has yet to capture the imagination of its own homeland, let alone a global audience.

The IOC's official line on its ruling is that the body was trying to trim down the number of events in the Olympics. While baseball has seen itself taken off the ticket, however, many other relatively inaccessible sports such as BMXing, mountain biking, clay pigeon shooting and dressage, to name but a few, appear to remain. Reaction to the IOC's decision by local martial arts practitioners was one of muted bewilderment. After all, this sport is a perfect showcase for China's vast and lengthy history "I really don't understand it," said Mr. Zhang, a former wushu champion and now a teacher of Chinese martial arts in Beijing."The Olympics has Korean Taekwondo and Japanese Judo…..why not our own gong fu?" he lamented.

Perhaps the IOC thought wushu was just not popular enough or international enough to even consider it as an exhibition sport. But according to IWUF chairman Wang Xiaolin, wushu -- which includes two schools, one known as taolu (routines such as taichi) and a second known as sanda (full contact kickboxing) -- has about 200 million practitioners worldwide.

The Wushu Tournament Beijing 2008 aimed at boosting its global appeal. With 128 athletes from 43 countries and regions fighting it out for the tournament's 15 gold medals, it is hard to deny that China's martial arts has a more international and more venerable feel to it than some other sports, such as, say, synchronized swimming (where Spanish competitors were barred from wearing special lights that would have made them look like waterproof Christmas trees).

However, not all agree that bringing wushu onto the world stage would necessarily be good for the sport or for traditional martial arts overall. "Wushu is a competitive sport, both in taolu and sanda," said a foreign traditional-style wushu practitioner who requested anonymity so he could talk freely. "If it becomes more global, it will cheapen the name of kung fu……the reason for practicing martial arts will not be the same."

He admitted it would be good to see more people performing martial arts. But the pursuit of medals, fame and -- in the case of America's pay-per-view Ultimate Fighting Championship -- money, could hurt the core essence of wushu. "People practice it for different reasons. Mostly it's for health, both physical and mental. But it is also a challenge….a life-long challenge," he said.

A life-long pursuit of personal pain and triumph may be too much delayed gratification for some, especially Chinese youth who're continually bombarded with images of Bentley-driving NBA superstars. "Everyone wants to be a Yao Ming," said a taichi teacher in downtown Beijing. "America is hot. NBA is hot. When kids finish school, they can put on these expensive clothes and play basketball with their friends." In fact, Chinese kids seem more willing to wear their Nike and Adidas replica jerseys and play, watch and consume soccer, basketball, and American football than to embrace the ancient and quintessentially Chinese art of wushu (despite all the neo-nationalist jingoism of late).

"What about Beckham?" the teacher's teen-age student piped up. "I want to be a football star like him…Look at his wife!" Perhaps wushu's victory as a global phenomenon will come only after a long struggle, after many lifetimes of dedication, hard work and sacrifice. Then again, perhaps donning tight spandex swimwear might accelerate the process.

On China Beach, Americans Party

Jonathan Ansfield — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 04:39:16 GMT

Good thing the IOC killed Beijing’s idea, back in 2000, of Beach Volleyball on Tiananmen Square. It would never have been such a blast. Who could fathom the centerpiece of the 1989 carnage sandboxed for a fortnight a la playa? Who spiked Beijing boss Liu Qi’s tea before he had that idea, for that matter? As twisted and tactless as Liu's proposed site in the Square came off globally when the story first broke, it would not have played any better domestically today (even as memories of the 1989 crackdown fade from many Chinese minds, or never entered them in the first place.) That's because the whole uptightness of the place could never have hosted flouncing beach gals in string bikinis, patriotic odes remixed to techno, and the favored Americans emerging triumphant in a sweep of gold: dude, not in the square. Chairman Mao would have been bummed.

In the end Games organizers picked a substitute locale, deep inside Chaoyang Park. It’s the capital’s biggest, least historic and most artificial park, known almost solely for the bawdy nightlife around it. And so it became an natural destination for the varied elements of beach volleyball: white sand brought in from Hainan island, blaring dance mash-ups spun by DJ Stari (an Athens vet from Austria), and the frat-boyish emcee “Geeter”, of the U.S. pro tour, firing up the crowd.

At each break in the action, on came the aforementioned beach girls, the most shapely of all the cheerleaders at these Games. The rich-poor gap in flesh and moves, from venue to venue, has not been lost on the spectators. It appears clear that the cheerleaders -- unlike the food concessions, security lines, mascots and volunteers -- could not have been centrally planned.

Two days, two U.S. golds, under divergent conditions. The weather Friday, like five or six other days during this distinctly un-Beijing-like August, was postcard-perfect: authentic blue skies, 77 degrees Fahrenheit - 76 on sand – and manageable 73 percent-humidity, with a cooling mist bestowed by blowers in the grandstands.

Todd Rogers and Phil Dalhausser certainly took their time soaking it up. The world champs had received a welcome wakeup call in their opening match, a shock upset to the next-to-last seeds from Latvia. But from there they pretty much coasted. In the final, though, they faced upstarts Marcio Araujo and Fabio Luiz Magalhaes of Brazil, who in the semis had upset compatriots Emanuel Rego and Ricardo Santos, holders from Athens.

The Brazilians pushed the Americans to three sets. Careless American setting and Marcio’s dipping serve helped them claw their way into serious contention. But the Americans finally began to look serious themselves in the decisive set. Dalhausser was a beast, smacking a rash of blocks and spikes. Up 9-1, Rogers flattened out for a dig but couldn’t elevate on the kill and netted it.

No matter. Dalhausser cleaned up for him, stuffing an authoritative block to end the tourney. Before they were garlanded with gold, the ladies in red (red bikinis, red cowboy hats) jiggled forth a 15-minute encore to fill the setup time. This helped keep people around for the medal ceremony. The P.A. announcer (Aussie accent) summoned a stirring round of applause to send them off. “They were the real stars of Beijing 2008,” he opined.

By contrast Thursday’s women’s final was, duh, no day at the beach. It was played under a relentless downpour. But the match was a showdown: China versus USA. Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh came in the top ranked women in the world, but they were up against the top seeds in the tournament: China’s queen of the sand, Wang Jie, and her nimble 19-year-old partner Tian Jia. The storm did not deter the crowd. In fact, the stands appeared fuller than under the splash of sun on Friday. Never underestimate the will of Chinese to witness their athletes take gold. As an esteemed American colleague of mine observed, “It’s more evocative when everyone’s wet.”

Cool-colored rain ponchos were issued (one size fits all), and DJ Stari played a set to uplift us from dampened straits – no Creedence Clearwater Revival. He led off with the Pointer Sisters’ “It’s Raining Men.” Actually, it was raining women. In the presser afterward, Misty took dig at the skimpy swimsuit debate: “This is just another reason why we play in bathing suits.” (See Ashley Harris’s related piece on this topic).

If the U.S. and China could confine their rivalry to beach volleyball, this would be a very fun century indeed. Revving everyone up pre-game was Geeter, who shielded himself from the rain under a kitschy cap with a Manchu queue – the braided-pigtail emblem of Han Chinese submission to Manchu rule under the Qing Dynasty. Geeter tested his lungs and the limits of his Chinese. Geeter: Zhong guoooo (China). Crowd: Jia You! (“Add Fuel,” i.e. “Go!”). Geeter: “USA”. Crowd (almost as loudly): Jia You!.

During warm-ups, Stari played a Mandarin hip-hop number looping in the notes of that old revolutionary number, “The East is Red”. Early in the match, we heard the sped-up dub n’ bass version of another beloved Mao-era classic, “Ode to the Motherland” (the same tune at the center of a lip-synching imbroglio from the Opening Ceremony). The five-starred red Flag is flutters in the wind/ bright is our song of victory... A journalist from a major Chinese sports tabloid expressed mild surprise at what he was witnessing. But people bounced and swiveled to the retro techno as though it was the most natural instinct in the world. Yet more good reasons this wouldn’t, couldn’t, and didn’t go down at the Square.

The sopping crowd was rewarded with a topsy-turvy contest, which matched Chinese spunk and guile versus American strength, size and experience. The score was knotted numerous times in each set, climaxing at 17-17 in the first and 18-18 in the second. But Misty and Kerri gutted out all the pivotal points, and won convincingly in the end.

The home crowd could not be disappointed, though. The Chinese women took the silver and the bronze in the event, another in a run of medal breakthroughs for China in a number of events (including a gold in women’s wind-surfing). Walsh was effusive about China’s progress at the news conference afterwards. “These girls are so young and they’re so good”. Indeed the Chinese volleyball federation’s influx of investment in the softer surface has paid off very fast, and Tian’s a symbol of that. Rather than being plucked from the six-person game, she was drafted virtually straight into beach volleyball duties, as she explained, in part because her home region of Xinjiang, where the majority of residents are of the Muslim Uighur minority group (though she’s Han Chinese), has no provincial squad. What Xinjiang does have, I might add, is sand.

So does a lot of the country, as matter of fact, and we’re not talking about desertification, but rather beaches. The often cheaply developed strips of Hainan still suggest otherwise. But lily-white skin is not the sole standard of beauty in China any more. Tourism to Thailand and Bali is big, and tanning-booth bronze is in with some fast-moving city lasses. Some are predicting beach volleyball fandom will be a boon to the hang way of life.

In a column on Friday in The Beijing News, China Central Television announcer Han Qiaosheng was particularly bullish on the significance of the women’s medal feat: “Our country has a long coastline. As the economy develops at breakneck speeds, the vacation and beach businesses will be an added growth factor in the coastal economy, and beach volleyball will certainly become a attractive slice of the beach business. Beach volleyball will make a giant contribution to the development of the vacation business, and the promotion of health for the masses.”

Wei Hanfeng on Liu Xiang: "50 Medals Can't Make up for This"

Jonathan Ansfield — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 02:44:38 GMT

Many Chinese kids are in the market for a new idol. Even a lot of adults just can't get over Liu Xiang's dramatic withdrawal from the Games. China's champion hurdler showed in Athens that, as he put it, his “yellow” race can both run and jump, and do them both to precision. So the sight of him staggering off moments after stepping onto the track at the Bird's Nest was simply unfathomable. It's the nightmare Chinese sports fans will take away from an otherwise dreamy Games. My Chinese nephew, a 19-year-old jock, questions why Liu kept groping his thigh if his coach said the problem was his heel. Was the real problem his head?

In a cover story published Friday, the Chinese edition of Sports Illustrated reports that Liu's Achilles tendon inflammation was not only real, but that it was clear for some time that he would have difficulty competing. But that fact was handled in a less-than-transparent fashion. While his nagging injuries were not completely kept from the press, Liu himself was. Even his own family remains out of the loop, the magazine's account suggests. Asked about her kid’s condition after the race, Liu’s mother Ji Fenhua was quoted as saying: “It isn’t good for me to pry into his personal affairs. Right now he’s the son of the country. Wait a few years until when he’s returned to me.” On Wednesday, I spoke with SI China’s executive editor Wei Hanfeng about how the one gold medal Liu was expected to win meant more than the record haul of gold that Team China won. Excerpts:

Q: Press and television in China have been overwhelmingly sympathetic to Liu, but on the streets and the Web there’s a lot of cynicism and speculation. Is there any pressure or guidance from authorities on you regarding how to cover this story?

Not for us. In fact, the only direct pressure we had was from sponsors and advertisers. I wouldn’t really call it pressure. But they did ask the magazine to dilute our story somewhat, to soften it. But we are independent media, and we have to operate based on our values of independence.

Q: So you’ve felt a market backlash against Liu?

Yes, at least initially. Before this race, a slot [in the publication] beside Liu Xiang was such an honor. But now certain advertisers are asking specifically not to be placed near stories about Liu Xiang. There were at least two or three.

Q: But Nike has taken the opposite approach. Their ads embrace Liu’s situation as a fundamental part of sports.

For Nike, there’s no way to avoid it. They had to face up to it. They did the right thing. But there's been a lot of talk of several other sponsors pulling Liu Xiang’s ads for the moment. We’ll see.

Q: Why is there so much skepticism over what happened?

From what we know and reported, well before the race Liu Xiang’s heel injury was too serious for him to run. If that’s case then the question is why did he even take the track. Some people are comparing this to Ronaldo at the World Cup in 1998. In the final against France, people said Nike pressured Ronaldo to play on his bad ankle. Now you hear Chinese people who suspect it’s the same kind of thing here. They’re saying all sorts of things on the Internet -- about how Liu Xiang had to come out and at least show his face before going down. That’s the basic theory.

Q: If Liu’s camp had failed to alert people to the extent of his injury, he wasn't exactly left with many choices.

Yes, you could say that. If he had dropped out of the race ahead of time, people would suspect him of being one of two things: a coward, or a doper.

Q: If Liu's injury was real, why would he and his coaches and federation feel such pressure?

The pressure, direct or indirect, came from all sides: from the country, from the sponsors, from the officials and coaches, as well as from his own personal desire for success. We feel that all these factors combined bore down upon him.

Q: A lot of people still don’t believe that he was as badly hurt as he appeared. Was it the pressure, or the pain, that caused him to pull out?

Liu Xiang definitely would have run if he could. But China has some very strange history here. Back in 1962, the ping pong player Han Yuzhen was facing a big match in Japan. But she suffered a deep cut in her left hand and had to pull out. She claimed a Japanese attacker broke into her hotel room [and wounded her]. But then it was discovered that she took a knife to her own hand. Why? She did it because was afraid she was going to lose and bring shame upon the nation [On returning home Han was banished to reeducation through labor on a farm; she was persecuted during the Cultural Revolution and died of cancer in 1979, aged 38] Today the times are completely different, but Liu Xiang is under just as much pressure. This is just an ordinary injury. But it’s become a major event for society.

Q: Liu Xiang is not just an ordinary star.

Of course. He’s conscious of that that. He’s got something like 14 different sponsors. If he were just an ordinary sports star, it would have been easy for him to say, “I’m injured and I’m not racing.” It seems the most innocent thing. But for him it’s a scandal.

Q: But why did he have to apologize?

That’s his Chinese subconscious talking. They knew what people might start to say: That for example they covered up the injury in order to keep his ad deals going this year. If the sponsors knew long ahead of time that there’s no way he would be Olympic champion, then what? That’s how people tend to think. His partnership with Cadillac, for instance, only began this year. And what do you say to the country? [In March, Chinese leader] Hu Jintao passes you the torch to start Olympic torch relay. And now you’re not ready to go? The state attached so much importance to him, and the people pinned their Olympics hopes to him.

Q: Still, China is going to end up with 50 gold medals, the highest number of any country. Doesn’t that make up for the loss of one?

Sure. But you could say that a lot of these other medals are cheap. The governments invests so much into the minor sports, and in a sense the results sort of trick the people. But when you win a medal in the so-called big sports – basketball, soccer, or track – that’s really something. People know the difference. So that’s why people had their hopes riding on Liu Xiang. Nothing can really compensate. Another fifty gold medals cannot make up for this. We’d won so much gold [the first week], but then this. People were completely caught off-guard. The way it happened, it was like Heaven was playing a joke on China!

Q: Do you feel everyone’s making too much of this?

No. It’s a huge story. To tell you the truth, when I watched it, my tears were uncontrollable. But I also felt very conflicted about it. On the one hand, here you have just an injured athlete. But on the other, he’s a symbol of the country. His image was completely one of health, vigor, and omnipotence. We put him on such a high pedestal. He basically became a spokesman for the new generation of Chinese people. So the feeling is, “how could this happen to him? This is always our nation’s bad fate.”

But that’s the other problem. Why must we feel this way? Chinese people have such a drive to win. Other nations know what sports they can play and what sports they can’t. But we feel we should be able win at absolutely everything – in soccer, basketball, everything. Maybe part of it’s because as a nation, we were bullied around for too long -“100 years of humiliation,” and so on. But then this ambition culminates in misery, because you see the result. We cannot always break through, cannot accomplish it all. So in the end you just feel hurt. This is what I feel inside, as a Chinese citizen.

Q: But your work is sport.

Yeah. And right now, at least, I feel that [Liu Xiang’s withdrawal] is the biggest sporting event in my life. The Beijing Olympics, that’s an intangible sort of thing. But Liu Xiang, that you can deeply feel. You can feel what his mom is feeling. You can feel the pain in his foot.

Q: What if he had raced and lost?

No problem. That would have been normal. Didn’t [former champ] Allen Johnson fall down in Athens? The 110-meter hurdles is a very tough race. Everything has to go righ [for an athlete] to win. Not a lot of people realize that. But his pulling out so suddenly, after all the buildup, struck some sort of nerve in the self-esteem of the Chinese people. This reaction is really quite vain.

Q: Yao Ming was injured earlier this year, too. Why was that handled so differently?

China’s expectations of Liu Xiang and Yao Ming are very different. They want Liu Xiang to win gold at the Olympics, but they only hope Yao Ming will win an NBA championship. Some fans even said they would rather that Yao not play at the Olympics, because they were scared he’d aggravate his injury. Yao Ming was injured, the Rockets announced it, and everyone moved on. But Liu Xiang trained behind closed doors, the Chinese way. And everyone was preparing for him. Even Newsweek was preparing for him. You put him on your cover.

Q: In his CCTV interview [broadcast the day after his pullout] Liu himself seemed shocked by the injury.

It’s as if the whole world was preparing a banquet for you and you didn’t show up. And you didn’t even bother to call and tell them ahead of time. Or you just stopped by for a minute and then left.

Q: Yet it seems Chinese media are standing firmly behind Liu Xiang. Why is that? What other considerations go into your treatment the story?

Obviously it’s hard to be too critical. That would not be fair. The issue’s so complex. And when the nation’s Vice-President [Xi Jinping] sends official condolences and understanding, you have to take note of that, too. Our original headline was “Liu Xiang: A Nation Dumbstruck”. But we decided that was too strong for the cover. So we changed it to something simple: “Liu Xiang: 8.18” [the date of the race].

Q: The state runs competitive sport in China and raises all the athletes. But Liu Xiang transcended the system and became something much more. How hard is it for China to produce more stars like him?

You are lucky to have grown up with sports stars you can really love. China now has so much money and so much status and everything else but we have no sports stars whom we can really extend our love towards. Maybe if there were ten Yao Mings and ten Liu Xiangs, the disappointment over Liu Xiang would be minimized and our drive to win would be diluted. But for now there’s only one Yao Ming, only one Liu Xiang.

In Defense of the Volleyball Bikini

Newsweek — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 00:27:17 GMT

Power and Grace: Misti May-Treanor of the U.S. in the 2008 Olympics gold medal match. Photo by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK

By Ashley Harris

In the summer of 1996 I was formally introduced to spandex. Not long after my cousin, former U.S. National Volleyball Team member Penny Lucas-White, accepted the head women’s volleyball coaching position at the United States Air Force Academy; I spent the first of what would become many summers in Colorado Springs training with the some of the top players in the country. When I arrived for the first day of camp I was surrounded by young ladies my age who had at least two years playing experience on me. These girls wore their unadorned hair in high ponytails or buns. The sleeves of their t-shirts tucked lazily into the straps of their sports bras to keep arms bare, and yes, they had spandex on. Clearly, I missed the memo that an integral part of this sport is not only comfort, but also image, which are not mutually exclusive entities.

This is especially true in the beach variety of the game. Since the introduction of beach volleyball at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, the two most frequently asked questions have all been variations on this theme: “Isn’t this terrible that the players are half-naked?” and “Isn’t this awesome that the players are half naked?” As a player I learned that the answers to both questions basically came down to this: Yes, there are a lot of practical and competitive reasons we wear these uniforms. And, no, sexualization of the sport isn’t one of them.

Sure, there are legion beach and indoor volleyball fans that tune in to watch hot girls in bikinis, and, you know, if there’s a game involved, so much the better. At least in the minds of some 15-year-old--or 60-year-old--males, watching taut, half-naked bodies drip in sweat as they dive into the sand is some version of nirvana, but there are actual reasons for the skimpy uniforms. First is comfort: the reduced amount of clothing helps cool body temperature in matches that are often played under a grueling mid-day sun. Some critics have argued that more dermis level injuries came from the lack of clothing. Possibly, but the majority of my injuries came from areas not normally covered by clothing anyway. I have left plenty skin on the court, but it came from my elbows, shins and wrists.

The uniforms are practical and more comfortable than wearing loose fitting clothing. Those first weeks of camp, while I was wearing my old baggy basketball shorts and t-shirts, I noticed the girls moved more efficiently on the court than I did. They seemed to jump higher and land faster. Not only did they seem lighter in the air, they were diving and getting up quicker - not drowning in mesh shorts that seemed to always get in my way. They were able to roll over their shoulder and see the net, not the hem of their shorts. Suddenly, my shorts felt like a parachute, impeding my blocking and hitting. Many of the players I admired, like the current U.S. women’s indoor captain Danielle Scott-Aruda, wore the smaller uniform and was able to command the court without looking self-conscious.

In fact, as I learned, it was just he opposite. There is nothing more intimidating than watching a group of twelve six-foot tall women slam a ball down at speeds of 90 mph and seeing nothing jiggle, wiggle or move on their bodies. Watch The University of Nebraska Lady Cornhuskers play one day. Watch May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh. Watch the current Olympic team. They take their opponents out of the game before they step foot on the court by physical appearance alone. More than anything, they carried themselves like volleyball players. All sports have it, that certain swag that says “hey, I’m an athlete and I’ll kick your ass on the court/field/track/pool.” A 27-inch vertical didn’t matter to me anymore; I wanted to look like them.

I bought an acceptable pair of spandex shorts and a control top bikini to play in. At first, it was a bit of an unnerving, self-conscious experience. But soon noticed an improvement. I slid across the ground without worrying my shorts were going to fall off and expose my undies. I could get in the “ready” position--full squat, one foot slightly forward, and on the balls of my feet--prepared to pass the ball without having to constantly adjust my shorts before the whistle blew. The same applied with beach volleyball. Shorts and shirts were for amateurs. The effect was the same, I wasn’t stuck in my clothing after diving in the sand, I wasn’t fooling around with the waistband of my shorts and I wasn’t overheating under the blazing Colorado sun. Plus, I looked like I was about to hurt someone’s feelings on the court. As the years went on and I became a serious player, the shorts got shorter and the uniforms got tighter. It was great not to get stuck in my shirt or my teammates shirt when coming down from blocking the ball in tandem.

So to the naysayers I say, get over it. Consider that beach volleyball athletes have the option to wear one-piece bathing suits, but the majority choose not to. There’s function to the form, and as these gold medals keep rolling in from our nation’s top volleyball competitors people will soon remember that this is sport, not mud-wrestling.

Chinese Athletes Pierce the Propaganda Curtain

Melinda Liu — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 17:03:12 GMT

Duncan Hewitt in Shanghai reports on a new trend in Chinese media, which has begun revealing personal stories and quirks of Olympic athletes:

We all know Chinese authorities are just a tiny bit concerned about how their country is perceived, both by foreigners and their own citizens, as a result of these Olympics. “We are an image-conscious nation – we do house-cleaning when guests visit,” announced the official China Daily in an angry editorial denouncing foreign criticism of the Games last week. This ‘image-consciousness’ has been a sub-theme of everything from ultra-tight security to politburo-level intervention in the choice of the little girl who sang at the opening ceremony. And state media are of course doing their bit to paint their portrait of a harmonious, confident, and increasingly important nation: “Beijing brings happiness to the world,” and “Beijing has made the Olympics more genuinely global in nature” are just two of the burbling front-page headlines run by the always on-message tabloid The Global Times over the past fortnight.

China’s official broadcaster, CCTV, has done its best to reinforce the harmonious mood as well -- by ignoring all protests, broadcasting endless repetitions of the gruesomely banal video for the Olympic song ‘Beijing Welcomes You’, and running news stories about folk dance troupes from China and around the world performing in Tiananmen Square, “showing the friendship between China and foreigners”. There are other unique gems, such as the show I saw featuring a woman in army uniform surrounded by dancers in ancient Chinese costume, singing a song in English that praised the Olympics to an audience of uniformed police officers. (Words hardly do it justice, but the phrase ‘Confucio-militarist kitsch’ does spring to mind…)

Add to this the fact that China’s sports system is well-known for being one of the least reformed parts of the bureaucracy, and it’s perhaps inevitable that some foreign media coverage has portrayed China’s ever-more successful athletes as faceless cogs in a giant propaganda machine. “The state broadcaster is interested in Olympics but not Olympians. Not for CCTV the looks at individual athletes' back-stories which are commonplace to those who watch sport in the west … The Chinese are not presented with the athlete's journey to gold. It is as if the only narrative that matters is that of China's. Hence endless focus on the medal table,” wrote one visiting journalist.

Now it’s clear that the nation’s sporting success fits into an important narrative for the government (when you hear commentators using the phrase “a historic breakthrough for China” to describe success in beach volleyball you know that something’s going on.) At the same time, what’s actually been striking in Chinese media coverage of the nation’s athletes at this Olympics has been the amount of focus given to individuals. The idea of stony-faced medal-winners parroting official slogans and dedicating their success to the motherland may (perhaps) have been true a few Olympics ago. But this time things have been very different and a lot more complex.

Yes, we did have the female windsurfing champion who couldn’t stop thanking her ‘leaders,’ but she also thanked her family and friends. And in general there’s been a lot of coverage of athletes expressing their own feelings and showing a lot of emotion, from the weight-lifter who greeted his gold medal by saying he couldn’t wait to get back to his family now that he didn’t have to train anymore, to the badminton duo shown weeping in an Olympic car park after failing to repeat their gold medal success at Athens.

It partly reflects a generational change – as their trendy hairstyles and willingness to ‘open up’ in front of the media reminds us, many of these athletes are in their teens or early twenties. And a media which now increasingly reflects the interests of younger viewers – and younger journalists – is keen to lap up the human-interest stories (provided these don’t break any propaganda taboos of course). And so we got the air-rifle marksman who broke down on camera, apparently inconsolable about how he’d let himself down by ‘only’ winning a silver medal. There was the medal-winner who appealed via the media for her long-lost father to get in touch with her.

There was the enfant terrible of Chinese badminton, Lin Dan, with his popstar looks and sports star girlfriend, defying the odds and the critics who’d written him off, to win a gold medal - and then pumping the air, hurling his shoes into the crowd and leaping into the arms of spectators in the front row, much to the irritation of the security man trying to usher him off the court. “I won this to show people what kind of a person I really am,” he said on TV afterwards, before bursting into tears.

And of course there was Guo Jingjing, the diving champion with the ‘film-star looks’ (as the Chinese press like to put it) , whose private life is of so much interest to the media that one questioner at her news conference asked whether her gold medals were a revenge against media intrusion into her life; Guo simply ruffled her long hair, looked away from the camera and appeared rather disinterested.

It may often be pretty sentimental stuff, but it’s certainly all about personalities - which are now the stuff of the media (particularly print and local TV) in China nearly as much as they are in many countries. Liu Xiang, whose Olympic dream ended so forlornly in Beijing, played a large part in stirring this frenzy when he exploded onto the scene in Athens four years ago.

Hence at this Olympics we’ve had even the staid central sports broadcaster CCTV5 trying to get in on the personality act, with a nightly chat show where medal winners and their coaches come on and talk, at sometimes embarrassing length, about themselves, their careers, and their feelings, before placing their handprints on gold stars on a ‘wall of fame.’ American gymnast Shawn Johnson got on the show too, with her Chinese coach. Host Cui Yongyuan, one of China’s best known celebrities, did his best to keep it informal – trying to persuade medal winners to propose to their fiancées live on air, dancing with embarrassed female gymnasts and asking their male colleagues to teach everyone the names of complicated gymnastic moves, so viewers could impress their friends in the bar. Cui also had a long discussion with a Chinese swimming coach who spent years in Australia learning a different approach to training, then set up his own club in China as an alternative to the official sports ‘machine’.

And there was space for the losers too. Talking to one female gymnast -- who was near to tears as she described how upset she was after falling and losing out on a medal, and how she felt sorry for all the people who’d supported her -- Cui suggested that as China’s sporting prowess has matured, “our fans have grown up too. We know now that sport is about success and failure and how to deal with them.” It was a timely reminder that, for all the propaganda, a more human, thoughtful and down-to-earth side of China and Chinese has also been on view at this Olympics. (It’s been on view too in the calm, non-jingoist and very well-informed commentary regarding many sporting events on some of China’s more ‘modern’, less centrally controlled TV stations, such as Shanghai’s sports channel) In a society where the official line and an often more complicated social reality often coexist, it’s quite possible that – as paradoxical as it may sound -- both these aspects will turn out to have been boosted by these Games.

IOC Should Butt Out on Bolt and Other Olympic Thoughts

Mark Starr — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 12:44:11 GMT

For journalists, the Olympics is a marathon, not a sprint. But today is my sprint version, touching briefly on 10 items of Beijing business that are on my mind.

1) What an embarrassment that the IOC president Jacques Rogge bashed Jamaican superstar sprinter Usain Bolt for over-celebrating. Bolt has been one of the most appealing and engaging athletes of the Games and nobody I talked to thought his style reflected any disrespect for his rivals. Why doesn’t the IOC pick on somebody its own size? Like China maybe. It couldn’t work up the same righteous indignation when the Chinese reneged on key agreements like dispersal of information. And now they have reluctantly taken up the matter of China’s transparently underage gymnasts, flagrant cheating that is the moral and practical equivalent of doping.

2) The Beijing Games may be the best competitive Olympics I have seen in my long tenure. And credit the Chinese with brilliant organization and execution. But the obsession with security and keeping the buses running on time has kept us in a cocoon. There are no casual intersections between reporters and real people from Beijing—unless you leave the sports arena and venture into the city. But when most of us venture out, it’s to the not-so-real city, the tourist places like the Great Wall and the Forbidden City. I loved how at the Sydney Olympics total strangers would beckon and say, “Buy you a beer, mate.” Here the Chinese who approach want only to take our picture—not even with them, but alone. We are simply curiosities

3) When I was a younger man, the winner of the medal count was the country that won the most medals. Somewhere along the way that switched and gold took on a primacy. Now the country that tops the charts is the one that wins the most gold. That will be China for the first time (and presumably forever now), though they probably won’t catch the United States in total medals. But the U.S. Olympic Committee today suggested a new, improved method of counting that would boost America’s standing: the total number of athletes who leave Beijing with gold medals around their necks. That new view is a reflection of the renewed strength of the United States in virtually all the team competitions.

4) The American softball team exited Beijing and the Olympics on a teary note. But the upset loss to Japan may come back to help them when the IOC considers reinstating softball for the 2016 Games. One of the complaints that led to softball getting booted from the Olympics in the first place was America’s dominance of the sport. With Tokyo and Chicago two of the four contenders to host the 2016 Olympics, that American loss could pay dividends when the IOC votes on softball’s future in the fall of 2009.

5) You couldn’t help but sympathize with the Brazilian women’s soccer coach, whose team had outplayed the Americans for the second straight Olympics and lost the gold medal in overtime for a second straight time. Brazil could have used a victory to bolster the support for the women’s game at home and perhaps throughout Latin American, where it is given short shrift. Still, he had nothing to be embarrassed about when it came to his team’s performance. The same can’t be said about Dunga, the Brazilian men’s coach. Brazil has not only abandoned its “beautiful game”, but it has adopted an ugly one, embracing the thuggish tactics of underskilled squads. Pele and others must be weeping as they watch.

6) The most frequent question we reporters are asked in correspondence from home is: What do you think of the NBC coverage? We see none of the NBC coverage so we have no opinions. If we see the Olympics on TV, it is on a private Olympic broadcast or on CCTV, Chinese television. CCTV has revealed to me the universality of sports broadcasting. Having watched so much sports on TV, I feel like I know what the Chinese commentators are saying based on the pitch of their voices.

7) The most pleasant surprise for the American team at these games is the indoor volleyball revival, with both the U.S. men and women reaching the gold-medal game. The biggest disappointment, without a doubt, is the track and field team. None of the biggest names on the team—Tyson Gay, Allyson Felix, Jeremy Wariner, Bernard Lagat, the shotput trio, Lolo Jones—took gold. And the performance in the 4X100 relay—dropped batons by both the men and the women was an embarrassment. It’s getting to be a bad habit. If U.S.A. basketball can command Kobe and LeBron to make a three-year commitment, can’t U.S.A. Track & Field stage a mandatory relay camp for its sprinters? The only consolation was that both teams spared themselves a whipping by Jamaica. As one press wag handicapped the men’s race, “For the U.S. to beat Jamaica, they would not only have to drop the baton, but lose it completely.” (Update: The Jamaican relay teams one-upped the Americans in every way. The women dropped the baton and, in their desperation, managed to collide with the British runners and knock them out of the race too; the men, however, held on and set a world record--a third world record for Bolt in one week!)

8) It’s been years now since Hollywood told us what all sports fans already knew: “White Men Can’t Jump.” But America’s black jumpers have come up short and low at this Olympics too. It would be bad enough that no American won a medal in the long jump, the high jump and the triple jump, events at which the country has long excelled. But no American even reached the finals. Are all our leapers going for the bigger money in basketball?

9) What the United States needs to catch the Chinese at future Olympics is more new “X” sports that were invented in America. Today was the debut of BMX and, while the American riders did not win a gold, they took three of the six medals. Can't do that in the longstanding Olympic cycling competitions. Where would the American medal count be, winter or summer, without the steady addition of non-traditional Olympics sports like half-pipe, short-track speedskating, snowboard cross and beach volleyball?

10) Sorry, boss. I have no idea who Michael Phelps may have been necking with at some party and—I know this comes as a shock—I couldn’t care less.

All That Glitters …

Newsweek — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 21:14:25 GMT

In her Asia Rising column, Melinda Liu writes on the debate in China about the country's obsession with bringing home the most Olympic gold medals:

China's shock—some called it "mourning"—over champion hurdler Liu Xiang's withdrawal due to injury Monday from the Olympics is bigger than a single athlete, albeit a very charismatic one. His dramatic pullout has roiled discussion on a number of delicate subjects, from government transparency (or lack thereof) to flaws in the Soviet-style sports system to sponsors' pressures on athletes—and most importantly to China's obsession with a home-team Olympic "Gold Rush." Officials and citizens alike had made little attempt to conceal their goal of winning the most gold medals at these Games, supplanting the American sports superpower as No. 1, at least in golds. Liu's anticipated gold had been seen as special; it symbolized the rare example of an Asian's ability to dominate a track and field event.

But instead of grabbing gold, Liu hobbled off the track. Now the current period of soul-searching "is a good opportunity to debate this 'Gold Rush'," says Dong Jun, an announcer from the Beijing Games organizing committee. He believes it's time to re-examine the centralized and elitist "going for gold" approach. At the other end of the spectrum is what Chinese call the "sports for all" attitude that would treat athletes less like robots and more like, well, people who play sports because it's fun.

READ THE FULL COLUMN HERE

Going Solo: An American Soccer Triumph

Mark Starr — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 18:32:40 GMT

An 'I' in Team: The U.S. women celebrate. Photo by Donald Miralle for NEWSWEEK

Despite how often Mia Hamm was reminded that she was the singular face of American woman‘s soccer, the “I” word never escaped her lips. Until the day she retired after the Athens Olympics, Hamm as well as her teammates always talked about “we.” And they insisted that the bonds of sisterhood, as the women struggled together to put their game on the American map, were as essential to their success—two World Cup triumphs and two Olympic gold medals—as their considerable playing skills.

That notion was supposed to be at the core of the next generation of U.S. women's team players. But the 2007 World Cup in China revealed that it had never completely taken hold. The implosion came after starting goalkeeper Hope Solo, who had backstopped the team without a loss to the semi-finals, was benched against Brazil in favor of the veteran, Briana Scurry. Scurry was hardly the only problem that day when a quicker, more talented Brazilian team kicked the U.S. women 4-0. But afterward, Solo mouthed off, indicating not only her displeasure at being sidelined, but insisting that she would have fared better than Scurry, a hero of the ’99 World Cup triumph.

Trashing a teammate and a coach was something a man would do and the team reacted with predictable fury. No longer was Solo just benched, she was booted off the team and on her way home before the U.S. team, with Scurry in goal, won the bronze medal game. The loss and the subsequent mess cost coach Greg Ryan his job. His replacement, Pia Sundhage, a Swede and the first non-American to coach the U.S. women’s national team, faced a lot of resistance when she invited Solo back. But she insisted that Solo was critical to the team's Olympic hopes. “Do you want to win?” she asked the players.

And last night with Solo in the nets, the United States—in the kind of delicious irony that sport so often serves up—faced heavily favored Brazil again, this time for the Olympic gold medal. Could the woman who had so recklessly shed one legacy be the mainstay in rescuing another—winning?

For 90 minutes, the 27-year-old Solo did everything possible to keep the United States in the gold-medal chase. She gobbled up balls without a stumble or a fumble, executed perfectly timed dashes to beat the speedy Brazilian forwards to the ball and punched out several dangerous corner kicks that she couldn’t snare. And in the 72^nd minute when the brilliant Marta dribbled through two U.S. defenders and fired inside post, Solo knocked away what looked to be a sure goal with her right forearm as she was falling to her left. The Brazilian coach would say later he was already getting to his feet to celebrate.

In the 89^th minute, U.S. forward Amy Rodriguez had the fairytale ending on her foot. After a game in which Brazil had frequently looked dangerous—it had 14 corner kicks to the U.S.’s 3 and possessed the ball 58 percent of the game—and the U.S. hadn’t, Rodriguez slipped through the Brazilian defense and went in alone on the goalkeeper. But rather than try to go around the keeper, who had ventured out, she tried to loft the ball softly over her and didn’t get it above her fingertips.

Sometimes you just have to work overtime for redemption. While Solo remained unflappable, keeping the potent Brazilian attack at bay, the ball finally took a big bounce America’s way in the sixth minute of the 30-minute overtime session, This time when Rodriguez got the ball at the top of the box, she knew exactly what to do with it. She slid it over to midfielder Carli Lloyd, the team’s best outside gun and the one player who had been outspoken in defense of Solo. Lloyd fired a left-footer, diagonally from about 19 yards out, and the ball just slid past the outstretched left hand of the sprawling Brazilian keeper.

The Brazilians never stopped threatening and fired away on Solo throughout the second half of overtime. But their shots were always just wide or just over the net. On one free kick from 30 yards out, Solo appeared to be screened because she never moved on the ball, but it skittered wide right. In the final minute, Brazil had two more golden opportunities; Solo punched one out of danger and sprawled to deflect the second wide. When the final whistle blew and the U.S. had held on for a 1-0 victory, Solo raised her arms in triumph and charged upfield and into the middle of her jubilant teammates.

Welcome: Solo after the match. Photo by Donald Miralle for Newsweek

But soon she was alone at the end of the field, talking on a cellphone to her brother back home in Washington. Later when she was asked if she felt fully part of the team now, she suggested that maybe she had been a pioneer—like Hamm, though she never suggested that—in changing roles in women’s sports. “We don’t have to be best friends,” she said of her and her teammates. But she clearly felt some burden had been lifted. “I can be myself now without looking over my shoulder,” she said. “I’m free to be myself now.” Asked if she felt vindicated, she simply said, “I feel amazing.”

Nobody will ever know if Solo would have made a difference against Brazil in the World Cup a year ago. And maybe her decidedly unsisterly comments were bad form. But in old-fashioned parlance, if she talked the talk back then, tonight she certainly walked the walk. Solo was all the difference. And thanks above all to her heroic efforts, the United States women’s soccer team has added another gold medal—probably the most surprising in its storied history--to its vast treasure trove.