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REPORTING FROM ... THE BEIJING BUREAU

by Anthony Tao

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The Mag.com's own Anthony Tao has been checking in with us weekly from Beijing in preparation for the upcoming Olympic Games in August. Check out all of his columns here.



Liu Xiang lost a lot more than a shot at a medal
Liu Xiang pulled up at the sound of the starting gun, grimacing and clutching his leg as the gun sounded again to signal a false start. While the other athletes returned to the blocks, the man the 91,000-plus came to watch tore off his number and limped towards the exit. The 110-meter hurdles heat proceeded without him, and just like that, a national hero's Olympics were over, and with it a nation's hopes and dreams.
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China copes with early Games upsets of their heavily favored athletes
The Olympics weren't a day old when a shocking murder-suicide took some of the glitter off the previous night's Opening Ceremonies. The fatal stabbing of American Todd Bachman is a sober reminder that sometimes even all the preparation in the world can't pave over the cracks in human nature. The Games, however, are set up to be a foil against the ugliness of reality. The Olympics celebrate the distinctly human, from triumph to defeat and everything in between, and the first weekend had plenty of it all as The Games went on.
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The Beijing Bureau: 3 days until Opening Ceremonies
Three days and that's it. For hours they waited, on bridges, leaning on guardrails, along the fence surrounding the National Stadium, on curbs and street corners. Traffic on the highway slowed to a standstill, waiters stepped out of restaurants, people filed out of nearby subway stops by the trainload. At 10 p.m. it finally began: first a few quiet rockets, then a barrage of light that seemed to melt the sky into cosmic dust. The second round of Opening Ceremonies rehearsal fireworks lasted only a few minutes Saturday, but the impression it left was indelible. Olympics organizers hope the Games will be the same way.
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The Beijing Bureau: Ticket Madness!
Ten days until the Opening Ceremonies. Got your ticket? The fourth and final phase of ticket sales started Friday and ended Sunday, with booths operating at various locations throughout the city. It was complete with all the predictable travails accompanying low supply and high demand: general confusion, pointed chaos, miscommunication, etc. Add to that some hot and muggy weather and you have a recipe for certain discontent.
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REPORTING FROM ... THE MAG'S BEIJING BUREAU
Rounding the corner—17 days left until Opening Ceremonies. It's been a seven-year marathon for China's Olympic planners—longer, really, since Beijing was a finalist in 1993 to host the 2000 Games—but we've finally made it to the home stretch. As August 8 nears, a recent spate of initiatives has helped Beijing find its sprinting legs.
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The Beijing Bureau: Schooling in China
Your Olympics update, 24 days before the Opening Ceremonies. Sunday marked both the seven-year anniversary of China winning the Olympic bid and the grand opening of the Beijing Jingcheng Olympic Education Museum. Situated inside the walls of Beijing Jingcheng Experimental Primary School near the Olympic Village, it's China's first "Olympics education" museum and proof that someone, in fact, is thinking of the children. The museum's stated goal is to foster international goodwill while teaching kids the true meaning of "Olympic spirit."
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REPORTING FROM ... THE MAG'S BEIJING BUREAU
Just 30 days before the Opening Ceremonies. For the past three weeks, a rounded dormer-like structure has poked out of the top of Beijing National Stadium. Nicknamed the Bird's Nest for the warren of crisscrossing steel that make up its outer frame, it effectively conceals any goings-on inside. This, in plain view, is the literal manifestation of the shroud of secrecy surrounding the Opening Ceremonies. Everything about it—from performers down to color schemes—remains a state secret.
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REPORTING FROM ... THE MAG'S BEIJING BUREAU
In the long-running Sneaker Wars between Nike and adidas, the latter just landed one mighty volley into a market of 1.3 billion. Last Friday at midnight, in Beijing, adidas opened its largest Brand Center worldwide, a four-story building with 100 staff members, several "interactive zones" and a rooftop basketball court. Neither the location nor the timing was a coincidence: China will soon become adidas's largest international market (it already is Nike's), and after ponying up $80-100 million, according to the Wall Street Journal, to become an official Olympic sponsor, the company would like to do everything it can to increase its exposure in advance of the Games.
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REPORTING FROM ... THE MAG'S BEIJING BUREAU
Only 38 more days until opening ceremonies! Recently we went to Beijing Sports University to visit with marathoner Han Gang, who ran in Athens in 2004 and is one of four finalists competing for three spots on the Chinese team this summer (a decision is expected early next month). Modesty prevents him from talking about his chances—"50 percent, maybe," he says, "though that may be overestimating"—but after posting the second-best time earlier this year, we'll put our money on him. In our chat Han explained, among other things, why he's not worried about Beijing's air, athletic training in China and why he likes the Phoenix Suns. In his words (translated):
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REPORTING FROM ... THE MAG'S BEIJING BUREAU
T-minus 44 days until the Opening Ceremonies. One of the more interesting Olympics-related developments to watch heading into next month is whether Beijing's recent spate of air quality initiatives—the hiring of foreign environmental experts, a halt on construction and a shutdown of factories, the removal of half the city's cars—will have any effect. In other words, after spending $17.1 billion, according to Xinhua, on improving air quality these last few years, will we see more blue skies and less of this? We decided to ask an expert. Enter David Streets, a senior scientist at the Argonne National Laboratory in Chicago, who has been involved in Chinese air quality research for about 15 years.
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Mag.Com's Beijing Bureau opens up
[Ed.'s Note: This is the first of Mag contributor Anthony Tao's weekly reports from Beijing as we count down to the start to the Olympic Games on Aug. 8.] On July 13, 2001, the day Beijing won the rights to host the Olympic Games, some 200,000 people converged on Tiananmen Square to celebrate. This moment was, at last, China's chance to show off its 5,000-year-old culture and history, and enter the global community's inner circle. But somewhere along the way, the Chinese people began accepting the ubiquitous Olympics hype as just another facet of everyday life, leaving us to make sense of it all.
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