Beijing leaves a rich legacy

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By Calvin Palmer

What do we do now?  For the past 16 days, the Olympic Games in Beijing have gripped TV audiences across the world.  People have marveled at the amazing feats of honest human endeavor; the levels of speed, endurance, grace and agility that the human body is capable of.  I include myself among the many who have probably stared at their flabby and out-of-condition bodies and said, “Where did it all go wrong?”
 
Yesterday, the curtain came down on an Olympic Games that has surpassed all others.  From the comfort of our sofas, we have witnessed not only sporting history in the making, on the track and in the Water Cube, but also one of the greatest spectacles in living memory.  In the latter respect, the Beijing Games will be a hard act for London to follow when the Olympic flower blooms once again in 2012.
 
Beijing will go down as the games where Michael Phelps emerged as one of the greatest Olympians of all time, winning eight gold medals to beat the record set by Mark Spitz in 1972.  Two of those eight gold medals provided edge-of-the-seat excitement – the Men’s 4×100m Freestyle Relay, where Phelps had to rely on Jason Lezak to swim the race of his life to overhaul France’s Alain Bernard in the last couple of meters; and the Men’s 100m Butterfly, where Phelps just beat Serbia’s Milorad Cavic by a fingertip.
 
Those eight gold medals for Phelps, described by some as the great haul of China, brought his gold medal tally to 14, the most any Olympic competitor has won.  He plans to add to that total in London.
 
The gymnastic competition saw the ascendancy of China’s men and also the never-say-die attitude of the USA men’s team, which secured them a bronze medal.  The USA women’s team sulked as the controversial Chinese team took gold. But in the individual competitions, the grace of Nastia Liukin and energy of the irrepressible Shawn Johnson won our hearts.  Investigations are still ongoing to find out whether the Chinese did field under-age girls. 
 
A touching moment came in the men’s super-heavyweight weightlifting when Germany’s Matthias Steiner unexpectedly snatched gold from the favorite, Evgeny Chigishev of Russia.  Steiner was beside himself with joy, for a big man to be so delighted looked somehow comical.  But at the medal ceremony, a poignant moment came when Steiner displayed his medal and a photograph of his wife to the cameras.  His wife was killed last year in a car accident.
 
The track events provided the biggest, in every sense of the word, sensation of these games.  The Jamaican giant Usain Bolt, at 6 feet 5 inches, towered above his rivals in the 100m and 200m finals to perform phenomenal sprints not only to take gold but also set two world records.  His blistering pace in the Men’s 4×100m Relay Final helped put the Jamaican team on course for gold in another world record time.  Three gold medals, three world records and the headlines rightly proclaimed him as Lightning Bolt.
 
His personality will stand out from these games just as much as his running.  Bolt exudes fun and the Jamaican laid-back manner.  He is undoubtedly the best sprinter the world has ever seen but his greatness also embraces the ability to clown, a rare quality these days when sport has become such a serious business, with the emphasis on winning rather than taking part.
 
It was impossible not to warm to Bolt and the rest of the Jamaican athletes.  They set a shining example of how sport should be conducted — play hard, give it your best and, if you win, celebrate.  Shelly-Ann Fraser’s delight at winning the Women’s 100m Final was a joy to watch.  And if you fail to win, as Jamaica did in the Women’s 4×100m Relay Final, you just accept it as part of life; no excuses and no recriminations.
 
Jamaica’s response to a clean sweep of the medals in the Women’s 100m Final was in marked contrast to the USA’s clean sweep of the medals in the Men’s 400m Final.  LaShawn Merrit’s in-your-face attitude and Jeremy Wariner’s sneer may win races but few friends.  They should learn from colleague David Neville about good grace and charm.
 
Being British, I have to say that I am extraordinarily proud of the exploits of the GB Team In Beijing.  Fourth in the medal table and fourth in the number of gold medals won were the stuff of dreams before these games.  The British athletes have set the standard for greater things to come in 2012.  And with home advantage, who knows what Britain’s medal tally will be?
 
British officials are already saying that they have no plans to compete with the scale of the Beijing Games and that the London Games will aim for something quite different, promising a more fun-loving and relaxed atmosphere.  I have a feeling it is going to be an event where pop and rock meet sport; a party mood that sees the regeneration of Cool Britannia.
 
Just how free and relaxed the London Games turn out to be remains to be seen.  In these days of world terrorism, security is going to have to be tight and it may curtail the organizers’ hopes.  I can imagine terrorist groups are presently in the process of submitting bids to the International Terrorist Committee for the right to attempt to disrupt the London Games by some heinous act and thereby grab headlines across the world.  Forget Cool Britannia, it may well be a case of Fortress Britannia in 2012.
 
For now, the baton has been passed from Beijing to London and all our personal planners should have July 27, 2012 entered in as the date of the opening ceremony of the XXX Olympiad.  London becomes the first city to stage the Olympic Games three times, having previously hosted them in 1908 and 1948. 
 
The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, said yesterday, “London is the sporting capital of the world.  Sport is coming home and we are going to give those sports an Olympic Games to do Britain proud, to do London proud and to do the world proud.”  I hope he is right.

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Tags: Beijing, Boris Johnson, GB Team, Jamaican athletes, London 2012, Matthias Steiner, Michael Phelps, Nastia Liukin, Olympic Games, Shawn Johnson, Shelly-Ann Fraser, Usain Bolt