2008 Olympics Updates

Only 5,000 items of official Beijing 2008 merchandise? Who said the Olympics were over-commercialised these days?

Just in case you can’t get down to the warehouse-like official store on Olympic Green (think Ikea on a Bank Holiday Monday and you’re getting close to the hellish frenzy that lies within) here’s a quick run-down of some of the fine gifts on offer.

For the special person in your life

Imagine the conversation upon returning to your loved one after a month apart.

“Sweet-cheeks – I’ve brought you back something special from China.”

“Oh darling – how romantic! What is it?”

“A Beijing 2008 portable hard drive. 160 gigabytes for 68 quid. Wallop.”

For a militant mate

Couldn’t get near the real Olympic torch as it made its way round the world? Still keen to hijack the sacred flame for your own political ends?

Hey presto – stage your own Olympic protest with this splendid metal replica torch – only £221.19, including a small Perspex base.

NB Heavy-handed policemen and ex-sportsman torch-bearer not included.

For the high-flying executive

Paperweights and stress-balls are so Athens 2004.

The must-have desk toy of 2008 is a 1:1200 replica of Bird’s Nest in gold-painted aluminium – a steal at just £153.55.

If that’s not enough to impress the drones who work under you, splash out a little extra on a foot-long blue glass replica of the Water Cube on a classy glass and metal plinth (£298.23).

Then, when you bag an inflation-busting bonus, blow a chunk of it on a Beijing 2008-branded replica Ming vase in hand-glazed porcelain.

If you can’t manage to claim the £3,799 back against tax, you need to get yourself a new accountant.

For Michael Palin/Paul Theroux/Bill Bryson

Writing on the move has never been easier, thanks to the Olympic Travel Multi-Function Pencil pack (£10.90)

Featuring Beijing mascots Bei-bei, Jing-jing, Huan-huan, Ying-ying and Ni-ni, the 10-inch long giant pencils come complete with little Chinese flags that unfurl from the top end.

You think I’m making this up.

For Aunty Judith in Saffron Walden

The girls at the Women’s Institute are sure to be impressed by a Beijing 2008 china tea set, decorated with illustrations of unisex tumbling gymnasts and straining pole-vaulters (£67.12).

Then, for those big nights out the Cambridge Arts Theatre, what about a necklace of fake pearls with a Beijing 2008-logo clasp (£51.86)?

For Gok Wan

The must-have look autumn/winter 2008? A polycotton lime-green tie with a discreet in-laid pattern of the Olympic rings – a mere £12.24.

With the money saved, accessorise it with a set of tinny Beijing-branded cufflinks in dull metallic grey – £4.58 the pair.

For a train-spotter

Nothing says I love you like a limited-edition stamp album called ‘Beijing Bearing Olympic Passion’ (£75).

With stamps of the logo of every single summer Games down the years, it’s no wonder just 10,000 copies were released.

Then, for those glamorous early mornings on platform 13 at Clapham Junction, throw in a pair of gold-look Beijing 2008 opera glasses – a snip at £128.20.

For the well-built

Some satisfy themselves with a single commemorative brooch or badge.

Not you. Make the most of that chunky chest and display a set of seven badges that, when pinned together end-to-end in the right order, show an athlete running an entire 110m hurdles from blocks to first barrier to dip on the tape (£14.34).

Also available illustrating a successful pole vault clearance and a stunted, Sothertonesque javelin throw.

For friends at the BOA

The sums are simple.

£250m of Lottery funding spent in pursuit of around 41 Olympics medals = around £6m per medal.

Alternatively, £195.31 on a box of three replica Beijing Olympic medals – gold, silver and bronze-painted copper, but otherwise identical to the real thing = £65.10 per medal.

Plus they come in a velvet-lined presentation box. Now that’s value.

Picking a symbol for the Olympic Spirit is the easy part. Defining the concept is also straightforward, but judging its relative standing in modern society isn’t.

The symbolic emblems of the Spirit are the Olympic torch and the Olympic flame. Lit every four years in ancient Olympia in Greece, for these Beijing Games, the flame has been on an unprecedented intercontinental journey.

China’s desire is for people everywhere to feel, live and understand its slogan “One World, One Dream”. So the torch has been to places it never had before, highlighting the inclusiveness of the Olympic Games.

If you doubt that inclusiveness, consider that there are more competing teams in Beijing than there are members of the United Nations.

The international relay of the Olympic torch was certainly controversial, with vigorous – often violent – protests in some cities, most notably London and Paris.

Dr Jacques Rogge, the President of the IOC, expressed his shock at some of the levels of violence exhibited against the torch procession, but there were also plenty of expressions of support for the torch, such as in San Francisco, most often by expatriate Chinese.

What the international torch relay showed definitively, once and for all, is that sport and politics are indivisible partners. One does not exist without the other.

From Moscow to Havana, from Washington DC to Paris, sporting glory is a symbol of national success, of progress and achievement, a matter of national pride and an indication that a country truly belongs amongst the elite of world society.

For me, the essence of the Olympic Spirit is togetherness, solidarity, understanding, compassion and participation. The Games are meant to unite, and again, as I’ve said in previous blogs, they are about establishing cultural connections.

But if I’m thinking about the Games themselves, in the here and now, the three words I’d use are multi-disciplined, marketing and money.

I’m not saying every TV viewer will analyze their reactions in such a manner, but watching great sporting achievement can lift the soul. Sporting brilliance celebrates the ascent of man and can be a common denominator for all humanity.

Those moments are also mirrored at the other end of the scale, because while we can all appreciate winners, we can also empathise with the rest, be they fourth, fifth or stone cold last.

Participation is the key, to be a part of the Olympic Games and to feel the togetherness of the biggest sporting gathering on the globe.

In Beijing, there will be more than 10,000 athletes taking part in 302 different events. That means only 906 medals are available for those thousands of competitors. The majority will have arrived here fully aware they stand no chance of winning gold, silver or bronze, but they still want to be here to take part.

Two of the most symbolic and evocative moments of Atlanta 1996 came from completely opposite ends of the spectrum.

First there was the indelible image of the American Michael Johnson, his golden shoes and upright stance sprinting to a world record in the 200 metres.

Then there was the Briton Derek Redmond pulling up injured on the home straight of the 400 metres. Almost unable to walk, his father jumped over from the spectator stands to put an arm around his son and help a tearful Redmond across the finishing line.

The white heat from the flashbulbs around the stadium was just as intense for both moments, and they are both two of the best manifestations of the Olympic Spirit.

What sums up for the Olympic Spirit for you? If you want to appear live on the show, or just have an opinion to share, email us at mygames@bbc.co.uk.

Beijing

It is quite literally the burning issue: how will they light the Olympic cauldron tonight?

It’s always the key moment of any opening ceremony (check out our photo gallery of ceremonies from years gone by here) – the one detail they keep totally hush-hush until the night itself, the iconic image designed to be remembered for years to come.

Back in the day, it was all so charmingly simple.

At the 1948 London Olympics, athlete John Mark simply jogged up to the cauldron and shoved the Olympic torch in. Whoosh. Bingo.

By Montreal in 1976, things were still relatively prosaic.

Two Canadian teenagers – one French speaker, one English speaker – did the job, the most memorable aspect being the incredible bubble perm/wafro that young Stephane Prefontaine was sporting at the time.

Those Montreal Olympics – so low-tech that, when a rainstorm put out the Olympic flame, an official re-lit it with his cigarette lighter – now seem almost laughably downbeat.

These days, the spirit of Leni Riefenstahl stalks Olympic stadiums once again.

It has to be bold. It has to be daring. It has to trump anything we’ve ever seen before.

Cast your mind back to the Games of 1988. Three torch-bearers were carried skywards on a gleaming white disk, higher and higher into the Seoul sky, like astronauts ascending into the belly of a spaceship.

It was incredible to watch – particularly for the doves who had perched on the cauldron’s lip after being released into the stadium earlier.

As the flames rose up, the scorched bodies of dove after dove plunged hundreds of feet to the ground. Never before has a television director jumped so quickly to a long-shot.

By Barcelona four years later, lessons had been learned.

Back-up plans had been put in place – which was just as well, since the burning arrow fired the length of the stadium by Paralympic archer Antonio Rebollo clearly over-shot the cauldron by some distance, sailing clean out of the stadium and into the streets beyond.

Not that you would have noticed, watching on TV. Spookily, the cauldron blazed into life regardless.

In Atlanta in ‘96, organisers provided an unusual twist by producing the highlight of the entire Olympics before the Games had even officially started.

When Muhammad Ali stepped out of the darkness to take the torch off the last relay runner, there was barely a dry eye in the house.

No matter that the pulley-system designed to carry the flame up to the cauldron then moved as jerkily as a backstage curtain at a village hall. The spell had already been cast.

Sydney 2000 saw Cathy Freeman dressed like a sacred alien, walking on water and setting light to a ring of fire that rose around her and wobbled slowly up a precipitous slope to a silver pedestal high above.

And Athens?

With the supposed final torch-bearer, Kostas Kenteris, a late pull-out after apparently falling off a motorcycle that was never seen again, it was left to windsurfer Nikolaos Kaklamanakis to stand unblinking as a giant needle descended from the heavens to an inch in front of his face and sucked the flame upwards.

This time around, rumours have been sweeping the city for days.

You might think that having Sarah Brightman singing live at the ceremony would be enough in itself.

After all, no man-made construction can ever hope to equal the awe-inspiring wonder that was Brightman’s hair/teeth combo during her late-1980s peak.

Still – incredible though it may sound, there is more.

Some have their money on something to do a traditional Chinese kite. Others are certain a terracotta warrior will have a part to play.

Some wags, with a nod to how many websites are still near-impossible to access from China, reckon a great firewall could do the job.

Personally, I’m backing the idea of a dragon being involved somehow. There’s been no mention of one appearing in any other part of the ceremony, and the fire-breathing aspect ties in beautifully.

You read it here first. But don’t blame me if it ends up featuring Monkey tennis…

There’s one slogan that I’ve now memorized (I had no choice – I’ve heard it perhaps several hundred times today): “Ao yun jia you! Zhong Guo jia you!” (translation: “Go Olympics! Go China!”)

This morning, in the city of Kashgar, teenage volunteers chanted this slogan as the torch relay got underway (occasionally adding “Go Kashgar!” or “Go Sichuan!” – the province hit by last month’s earthquake.)

Security for the torch relay here in the Xinjiang region has been tremendously strict (this region is home to 8 million Uighur people, who are Muslims. China says it faces a real terrorist threat from Uighur separatists – a claim disputed by human rights groups.)

The authorities here didn’t want reporters wandering away off on their own during the relay. So, just after dawn, we were all driven to the square outside the Idkah mosque for the start of the relay (to help identify us, local officials gave each of us two red stickers and politely told us to put one on our chests and one on our backs.)

Once the opening ceremony was over, we were driven straight to another square to get ready for the closing ceremony (as we drove we saw that most – if not all – shops and businesses were shuttered. There were no cars on the road. Local people had been told to stay indoors.)

We weren’t given the chance to watch the relay itself as it went through the streets – the torch was cheered along by carefully chosen crowds. My colleagues and I did manage to wander about 20 metres or so from the site of the closing ceremony to film some roads which were closed off – but we were quickly stopped by officials who told us that we were banned from doing this.

Just after midday, the closing ceremony came to an end, and we were allowed to walk away on our own. We passed one side street and saw a line of Uighur people who’d come out of their homes to catch sight of the relay. They were being watched by a police officer – he told us to stop filming them. So we walked on. We saw people slowly coming back onto the streets – to open up their shops. The Olympics came to their city – but not everyone got to see it.

The Olympic torch is coming to China’s Xinjiang province – a region in the west of the country that borders Russia, Afghanistan and six other countries. Xinjiang is home to a large ethnic minority – around eight million Uighur people, who are Muslim.

The Chinese government has Xinjiang on its mind. Here’s why…

First of all, a quote: “Although the general security situation for the Beijing Olympics remains stable, we still face the challenges of terrorism, separatism and extremism… terrorism, in particular, poses the biggest threat.” – Zhou Yongkang, Minister of Public Security, 10 September 2007.

Now, a few events:

27 January 2008: Two militants are killed and 15 arrested in a raid in Urumqi, the capital of China’s western Xinjiang province.

“Obviously, the gang had planned an attack targeting the Olympics,” says Wang Lequan, Xinjiang’s Communist Party chief.

7 March 2008: China Southern flight CZ6901 from Urumqi to Beijing makes an emergency landing in Lanzhou. China says air stewards stopped an attempted hijacking.

“The Olympic Games slated for this August is a big event, but there are always people who conspire to commit sabotage. Those terrorists, saboteurs, and secessionists are to be battered resolutely, no matter what ethnic group they are from,” says Wang Lequan.

10 April 2008: The government says that security forces have detained 35 suspects and seized explosives and firearms in raids carried out in Urumqi. It says that security forces broke up plots to carry out suicide bombings and kidnap athletes during the Olympics.

“We face a real terrorist threat,” says government spokesman Wu Heping.

So that’s the government’s view: China is facing a serious terrorist threat – and this threat comes from where I’m writing these words – the Xinjiang province.

China says that a militant group called the East Turkestan Islamic Movement is trying to break Xinjiang away from China (in order to form an independent state which would be called East Turkestan). China says this group is allied to al-Qaeda. It blames this movement, and other Uighur separatists, for attacks which killed more than 160 people between 1990 and 2001.

Because of this, China is keeping a close eye on progress of the torch relay through this province. We’ve just spoken to one shopkeeper here in the capital city of Urumqi – the relay will go right past her stall. She’s been given a notice by the local government. This is what it says (our translation from the Chinese):

“All residents in this area, please shut all your windows from 7am till 2pm on 17 June. [the time of the torch relay] It is strictly forbidden to lean out of the window or to walk around near the window. Please stay in your home and watch the TV coverage – don’t go out in the street. If you don’t co-operate you will be punished in accordance with the law.”

No unvetted onlookers, then. And the police are already keeping an eye on the streets. When my colleagues and I went out onto the street to test some of our broadcasting equipment, we were quickly approached by a plain clothes police officer who wanted to know what we were doing (we showed him our press passes and he let us carry on).

But it’s worth saying that Urumqi itself feels very calm – shops are open, cars are on the road, volunteers on the street are selling Olympic flags (one yuan for a small flag, two yuan for a big flag), right now I can look out of the window and watch people wandering into a fast-food restaurant.

So, here’s a question which is easy to ask and much harder to answer: how real is the threat that China faces? We know almost nothing about the East Turkestan Islamic Movement. We don’t know who its leader is, now how many members it has. It doesn’t appear to post messages on the internet. Some believe the threat posed by this group has been exaggerated.

This is what Amnesty International says: “Concerns remain that the authorities may be overstating the ‘terrorist’ threat in an attempt to justify their tough security stance in Beijing, or even divert international attention away from the ongoing crackdown on peaceful activists.”

A number of groups have documented discrimination against the Uighur people. In a report, the US Congressional-Executive Commission on China says that religious restrictions on Uighurs remain severe. The Commission reports increased control over Muslim pilgrimages and vetting of the content of sermons.

The World Uighur Congress, which campaigns from outside China, says this: “In the run up to the Olympic Games, the Chinese government has stepped up its heavy-handed policies to suppress the resistance of Uighurs against Chinese rule, no matter how peaceful it is. Uighurs are still living in a culture of fear, facing persecution, marginalization and assimilation that erode the very core of cultural identity, religious belief and economic rights of Uighurs.”

This is a hard story to cover.

But we’ll report on what we see in Xinjiang during the torch relay.