Olympic Report: Day 5

Are we ever in fine fail form so far this Games.

Five days. Zero medals. Canadian records galore, particularly in the pool, which is Phelping fast--but no medals.

Sigh.

I'll get back to Team Canada later. For now, some reflections on Beijing's coming-out party.


The opening ceremonies were, as far as I'm concerned, nonpareil. I simply can't imagine how you'd even go about trying to surpass them. Jaw-dropping followed brain-boggling followed awe-inspiring until I was left mesmerized, benumbed, exhilarated and drained in equal measure.
Yet I've run into people who were deeply disturbed by the spectacle.
As with anything else, you got out of those opening ceremonies what you put into them. If you admire a culture that has lasted longer than any on earth, you relished the show it put on. If the thought of 1.3 billion people bound by a communist tyranny scares the wits out of you, then 2008 drummers performing in perfect unison, each with a frozen grin on his face, exhibited an alarming militaristic subtext.
Likewise, the news that certain aspects of that opening ceremony were not as they appeared either left you unfazed or upset. Personally, the revelation that not all the fireworks were real doesn't diminish the effect for me...it may in fact enhance it. There were enough legitimate pyrotechnics to satisfy the most discerning viewer, and as linked artictle states, filming actual 'footprints' in the sky may have been impossible and was at the very least prohibitively dangerous.
More troubling is the news that the angelic singer of 'Ode To The Motherland' was not the angelic figure we all saw singing. That such a thing would be lip-synced doesn't unduly bother me--how many seven-year-olds, divine voice or no, can pull off a performance in front of a couple of billion people? But this quote from the musical director of the Games does set off warning bells:

"The reason why little Yang was not chosen to appear was because we wanted to project the right image, we were thinking about what was best for the nation," Chen said. "The reason was for the national interest. The child on camera should be flawless in image, internal feelings, and expression.''

A cynic would suggest we in the West do this every day--when's the last time you saw an ugly celebrity? A cynic of a wholly different sort would don a thick Teutonic accent and say "zat littl grrl izz not Aryan enough."


"How sad to see
What used to be
A model of decorum and tranquility
Become (like any other sport)
A battleground for rival ideologies
To slug it out with glee"
--Tim Rice, CHESS


Indeed, things like that had been circulating through my brain long before the opening ceremonies. Every time somebody tries to tell me the Olympics shouldn't be politicized, I remind them of Berlin, 1936. Or Munich, 1972. Or Moscow, 1980. Or any other Olympics you can name. As much as we idealize pure sport and try to declare it free of the taint of politics, whenever nations come together to compete, nationalist agendas are in play with the athletes. I'm as guilty of this as the next person: there I was above, bemoaning Canada's pitiful showing at the 2008 Summer Games so far. Does an Olympian's country of origin matter? Of course not. But we make it matter. Countries behind curtains (iron, and now bamboo) seek gold not as a triumph of the individual athlete but as vindication of their political system. And they're not above cheating to achieve victory, whether by doping or by more subtle measures (like, maybe, sending in people too young to compete). I'm on the fence here: while I wouldn't put it past China to obtain all the forged identification necessary to pull this off, and coach its young charges extensively to boot, I'd also imagine that in a country as vastly populous as China, finding a few dozen 16-year-olds who look eleven isn't beyond the realm of possibility.
You have to remember that sport in China, like everything else in China, is serious. (Those who said the opening ceremonies, while visually stunning, weren't "fun" enough, kind of missed the whole point of the exercise.) The government in China will seek you out, match you to a sport its computer models predict your body type will excel in, and the rest is up to you. Whether you like the sport picked for you or not is entirely irrelevant--and it's certainly not a good idea for your parents to question the decision, not unless they enjoy forced labour.

Put me down on the list of people who would have preferred these Games somewhere else on the globe. Not because China has a repressive, totalitarian regime, but because the rationale for awarding China the Games--that it would weaken that repressive, totalitarian regime somehow--is faulty.. Call the Chinese what you want: they're not dumb. They've given 300 million people a taste of the good life, while over a billion slave away in rural poverty. Do you really think those 300 million urbanities, with their new cars and their rapidly improving lifestyles, are eager to give the rural billion an equal vote? Odds are they'll actually fight to keep the system we'd like to see them give up. And China's dominant performance at their own Games is an affirmation, to Orient and Occident both: see, our system works.

While we're on the subjects of idealism, sport, and politics, here's something I'd like to see: all athletes from any country currently at war summarily disqualified. Yup, that includes Canada...and the U.S....and most of the parade of nations, actually. Most especially Russia, which actually launched an action during the Games: does the Olympic Truce mean nothing?
Yes, I recognize that this is undue and harsh punishment for athletes, who usually have nothing to do with their governments. However, I do think the threat of the public shaming of disqualification would serve to rein conflict in a tad, at least during the Games. As discussed above, the athletes will tell you they're representing their countries...as far as most governments are concerned, if an athlete represents a country and a government represents a country, then an athlete represents a government. Logical fallacy, that, but who ever said governments were smart?


Back to reality...

Our national team is putting forth a valiant effort--as I said above, several Canadian records have been smashed--but we're not podiuming. (In English, any noun can be verbed.) There really is little sense in heaping the burden of national disappointment on athletes who are already disappointed in themselves (and if you think they're not, ask yourself who goes to the Olympics gunning for that 26th spot?) Still, it's hard to keep a cheery face when little Kazakhstan is blowing Canada out of the water.
While I do support our athletes, and wish like hell the government would too (or is athletics just like culture, Mr. Harper?), I wonder if, given the lacklustre state of our Olympic program and at least until it improves, we should consider sending fewer athletes to the Games. A contingent of three hundred plus gives Canada a strong showing in the parade, but is the parade really where the strong showing's desired?

More to come.