Beijing Olympics Over

Posted by Nikki

August 25, 2008

Well, the Beijing Olympics have successfully come to an end on the 24th August 2008, but the Olympics this year where definitely anything but smooth sailing; with controversy over air pollution levels and human rights, attendance numbers and the scoring of events going the Chinese way, there was definitely a lot to talk about!

The pollution levels were definitely one of the most talked about aspect of the Olympic Games long before the games even began. Beijing is definitely a City growing at an astounding rate, in-fact many of the locals call Beijing ‘The Raped City’. The reason Beijing is called The Raped City by many people is because over the past three years, one third of the Beijing culture has been destroyed and re-built into new age buildings, resulting in the local people feeling like the city has been stripped and raped.

The large increase in development has not been easy for many people living in the city of Beijing, especially during the years leading up to the Olympic Games. This is definitely another side of the Beijing Games that has been covered extensively over the media, although not with the consent of the Chinese Government who did their best to avoid any outside information about the estimated 1.5million citizens who where taken out of house and home, and a lot of the time work, to make way for the construction of the Olympic Games. Many of the local citizens of Beijing who where unfortunate enough to have been badly effected by this event where too afraid to talk to outside sources as it could lead to their arrest and many years of Chinese imprisonment. For those who did speak to the media in a safe location, the stories where horrible to hear and definitely un-justifiable by the Chinese Government.

The dramatic increase in re-building Beijing has also meant the increase in industrial business and air pollution. It’s a pretty well known fact that the pollution in China is greater than most other countries in the world, in fact out of the 16 most polluted cities in the world, 12 of those are in China. This statistic alone would have been enough to spark the huge concern over the athlete’s wellbeing at these Beijing Olympic Games, and many Olympic athletes (such as Haile Gebrselassie who pulled out of the men’s marathon run) decided not to participate in their event due to the concern over their health.

The air pollution in Beijing was defiantly noticeable throughout coverage leading up the games as well as during some of the earlier outdoor events such as the road cycling, near the end of the games you could see the sky beginning to clear, events such as the women’s marathon and on the last day, the men’s marathon, the sky was almost completely clear of pollution. Of course, the skies didn’t just decide to open up for the last few days of the Olympics; the end result was the cause of many of the pollution causing factories being shut-down, around 3.3million cars being taken off the roads, and chemical plants and power stations cutting emissions by 30%.

All of this effort to make the Olympic Games a success before they even began. And then when they did, the controversy didn’t end, Gold Medals where being won by the Chinese in practically every event which had a scoring system, especially with regards to the gymnastics in which most of this controversy surrounds. Many people watching the events where shocked to see low scores appearing for gymnasts who would complete an advanced routine with next to no-errors, leading to the Chinese dominating the #1 position. Not only where viewers shocked, but the commentators of the events where also surprised to see such low results for certain routines and high scores for Chinese performances which where less than perfect.

However, now the Beijing 2008 Olympics have come to an end, all this controversy will slowly die down, I have no doubt though that the stories of human rights throughout the lead up to the games will live on and continue to be broadcasted in the media to some extent. The Olympic Games however will defiantly be remembered mostly for the many memorable events of athletes triumph and new world records such as;

Americas Michael Phelps winning a record eight Gold Medals
Jamaica’s Usain Bolt breaking the 100mtr world record with a time of 9.69 seconds
Australian Women’s 4 x 100m medley team smashing the old world record by 6 second
Germanys Matthias Steiner emotional gold medal victory in weightlifting
Afghanistan’s Rohullah Nikpai winning the countries first ever Olympic medal with a bronze in taekwondo
Togo’s Benjamin Boukpeti winning the countries first ever Olympic medal with a bronze in the Men’s K1
Romania’s Constantina Tomescu Dita being the oldest Olympic marathon runner to win a Gold Medal
Australia’s Steve Hooker breaking a new poll vaulting world record (5.96) to win Gold
Australia’s Matthew Mitchan winning Gold in the men’s 10mtr platform diving, breaking the Chinese gold medal dominance

And MANY more!

Hope you all enjoyed the games! I definitely can’t wait for London in 2012.