Friday, August 08, 2008
China strides onto Olympic stage (8:30 p.m.)
BEIJING -- Once-reclusive China commandeered the world stage Friday, celebrating its first-time role as Olympic host with a stunning display of pageantry and pyrotechnics to open a Summer Games unrivaled for its mix of problems and promise.
Now ascendent as a global power, China welcomed scores of world leaders to an opening ceremony watched by 91,000 people at the eye-catching National Stadium and a potential audience of 4 billion worldwide. It was depicted as the largest, costliest extravaganza in Olympic history, bookended by barrages of some 30,000 fireworks.
US President George W. Bush and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin were among the glittering roster of notables who watched China make this bold declaration that it had arrived. Bush, rebuked by China after he raised human-rights concerns this week, is the first American president to attend an Olympics on foreign soil.
Already an economic juggernaut, China is given a good chance of overtaking the US atop the gold-medal standings with its legions of athletes trained intensely since childhood. One dramatic showdown will be in women's gymnastics, where the US and Chinese teams are co-favorites; in the pool, Chinese divers and US swimmers are expected to dominate.
The run-up to the games had epic story lines - China investing US$40 billion to build the needed infrastructure, reeling from a catastrophic earthquake in Sichuan province in May, struggling right up to Friday to diminish Beijing's stubborn smog. China's detentions of political activists, its crackdown on uprisings in Tibet and its economic ties to Sudan - home of the war-torn Darfur region – fueled relentless criticisms from human rights groups and calls for an Olympic boycott.
Second-guessed for awarding the games to Beijing, the International Olympic Committee stood firmly by its decision. It was time, the committee said, to bring the games to the homeland of 1.3 billion people, a fifth of humanity.
The games, said IOC President Jacques Rogge, "are a chance for the rest of the world to discover what China really is." (AP) |
