Final Thoughts on the Beijing Games

I can't believe that the 2008 Summer Games are over.

It seems just like yesterday I was watching the Opening Ceremonies, thinking to myself that China wasn't going to challenge the U.S. in the medal count.

I was wrong.

Not only was I wrong, but the Chinese kicked the American's ass, if we're only looking at the number of Olympic champions each country produced. And that's what I'm going to be talking about mostly on this blog post.

I don't think that this was a shot-in-the-arm type thing from the Chinese. They won't be a one-hit wonder. The one thing that made the Olympics really popular after World War II was the fact that there were two superpowers, the U.S. and Soviet Union, and that the Olympics was like a mini-Cold War, played out in sport. Nothing too consequential. Just good, (sometimes) clean athletic competition.

Thank you China for making the Olympics relevant again. For the next few Olympics at least, this battle between the U.S. and China will take center stage, especially with the U.S. Olympic Committee saying that they're going to re-prioritize for the medal count.

On the purely athletic and sport-related issues, that's what's most important coming out of the 29th Olympiad. It's not Michael Phelps, or Usain Bolt, or that Team USA is once again king in basketball.

China has staked it's claim and now the Summer Games no longer belong to the U.S. If Team USA wants to take back the gold medal count, it's going to have to work harder and find innovative ways to train athletes in order to compete with China.

The days of American dominance may be over.

But of course, you cannot talk about Beijing without talking about the political aspects.

If there was any criticism of NBC's coverage of the Olympics here in the states, I would say that it played them to the Chinese's advantage. There were protests. There were hostages. But none of them were broadcast or reported by NBC during its coverage.

And then they had the audacity to say that these Olympics went off without a hitch.

But to those who say that the Olympics should have never been given to Beijing, I say they should have.

Why? Because the Olympics could have been, should have been the catalyst that's makes that totalitarian regime change it's ways. But I feel that it wasn't. What Beijing may have been (history will show us the light in a decade's time), is a missed opportunity.

Instead of forgetting about all the political shadows that shrouded the Beijing Games, the Olympics should have been used as a tool to make China change. It has a little bit, with nation after nation calling the Chinese out. But there should have been a discourse. There should have been pressures. But there were none of that.

So, these Olympics Games close almost unfinished. The story of these Olympics will depend heavily on whether or not China changes it's ways after these Games.

The Chinese spent an estimated $40 billion on the Games. Hopefully, it can spend that much on its people in the years after the Olympic Flame is long extinguished.