Gold star

China went to great lengths to give the world spectacular Games

BEIJING - The most controversial - and successful - Olympics in history will come to a close tonight when the flame that has been blazing for 17 days above the Bird's Nest Stadium is snuffed out and the hosts hand over the five-ringed flag to London, which will have to live up to the loftiest of standards in 2012.

For quality of venues, organization, and hospitality, these Games were unmatched. So was the curiosity of the planet's televiewers, who watched in record numbers even though many of them already knew the results. Getting an inside glimpse of the once-mysterious Middle Kingdom is rare.

From the moment the International Olympic Committee chose Beijing seven years ago, human rights advocates and environmentalists objected to the world's biggest sporting event being given to a repressive society with a polluted capital.

Yet the Games played to rave reviews from athletes, officials, media, and visitors, who overloaded their Visa cards at the Silk Market. "The world can say with gratification: We have made a correct decision by selecting Beijing and China as the Olympic host," declared the state-run Xinhua News Agency.

There was a yin-and-yang quality to these Games that reflected China's desire to invite the world to come and poke around without revealing too much. Beijing was open yet closed, welcoming yet wary, ancient yet hip, with Mao's portrait at the entrance to the Forbidden City and Chinese women in teeny bikinis rooting on their beach volleyball players.

The city was eager to show off its gleaming office buildings, its modern (if clogged) expressways, its upscale shopping malls and gourmet restaurants without exposing its dilapidated neighborhoods, many of which were torn down as part of a massive urban renewal project that reportedly displaced more than a million residents.

No host city ever prepared so long and so feverishly for the Games. Four years ago, the joke was that Beijing would be ready for 2008 before Athens was for 2004. It was the first time, IOC president Jacques Rogge observed, that he had to ask a host city to slow down.

After six centuries, this was Beijing's coming-out party, and the organizers felt everything had to be perfect. And while the weather was hot and sticky most days, the infamous "Greyjing" pollution was less noticeable, ostensibly because the government took nearly 2 million cars off the road and shut down smoke-spewing factories.

These were the most stage-managed Games in history, both for better and worse. The government erected Potemkin walls to hide rundown streets and storefronts and established special zones for protesters, who were required to apply at least five days in advance for permits that were not granted. During the days before the Games, foreign journalists found that Internet access was restricted.

Yet the exhaustive preparation and microscopic attention to detail were astounding. To make sure that the jade-inlaid medals remained intact, testers put them through 45 experiments. One rehearsal for the opening ceremonies lasted more than 50 hours. When officials discovered that the young girl scheduled to sing the "Ode to the Motherland" had a chubby face and crooked teeth, they substituted an adorable lip-syncher. The tai-chi performers trained 16 hours a day for several months at an army camp outside the city. The synchronicity of the four-hour show was so precise that ceremonies director Zhang Zimou said only the North Koreans could have surpassed it in human uniformity.

The Chinese not only wanted to put on the best Games, they also wanted to top the gold medal table, which is viewed by most of the planet as the truest measure of Olympic supremacy. The hosts easily did that, displacing the US. But the emphasis on gold also put enormous pressure on Chinese athletes, who felt that even a well-earned silver was a letdown. When shooters Du Li and Zhu Qinan failed to defend their titles, they wept and apologized.

Despite China's gilded mother lode, no athlete emerged as the country's darling. Neither of China's marquee athletes whose faces adorned billboards from Shanghai to Urumqi - Yao Ming, the 7-foot basketball behemoth, and hurdler Liu Xiang - won medals. When the injured Liu limped off the track without running a step, the country went into shock.

What China had instead was a parade of champions in 16 sports. While most of the gold medals came in the country's traditional sports such as gymnastics, diving, table tennis, and badminton, the hosts also claimed eight in weightlifting and five in shooting, plus solos in archery, fencing, rowing, canoeing, swimming, and taekwondo.

Most notably, the Chinese won only one gold in the medal-rich sports of track and field and swimming, where they've been caught doping in the past. A drug scandal at their own Games would have produced a humiliating loss of face, so the hosts sought handfuls of medals elsewhere.

Yet China's unprecedented success atop the podium was tarnished by allegations that half of its women's gymnastics team - most notably tiny skywalker He Kexin - were well under the minimum age of 16. The IOC said it would investigate the issue, and even if only He is proven to be underage, China could forfeit two gold medals, which would go to their US rivals.

Though the US Olympic Committee has pushed for a quick resolution to the issue, the Americans aren't complaining, not after winning 10 gymnastics medals and topping the overall standings for the fourth straight time. And they've been delighted with the extraordinary playground that the hosts created for them and the warm reception spectators gave to their athletes, who applauded great performances by all comers.

"We couldn't be more pleased with the Chinese people's presentation of the Games," said USOC chairman Peter Ueberroth, who headed the Los Angeles organizing committee in 1984, when China made its Olympic debut. "Whether it's the village or the venues, they've done an incredible job."

Beijing was following what Rogge called "an unbelievable dream Games" in Athens, yet the hosts took them to an unparalleled level with a blend of Chinese imagination, efficiency, and friendliness. The venues, particularly the stadium with its interwoven steel twigs and the Water Cube natatorium that were juxtaposed according to feng shui balance of fire and water, were the most creative in history.

The organization was similarly flawless. Buses ran on the minute, the communications and results systems were glitch-free, and the 70,000 volunteers, nearly all of whom spoke English, were exceptionally eager to help, whether it was giving directions or debugging a computer.

Though it was hardly a universally popular site, Beijing undeniably proved an exceptional host to everyone from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe.

"A successful Olympic Games in Beijing," said Xinhua. "It is indeed the most precious gift the Chinese nation has presented to the world."

John Powers can be reached at jpowers@globe.com.