WRAPPING UP A GREAT OLYMPICS

Despite totalitarian suppression of dissident protest, kitsch over-the-top fireworks, massive over-complicated displays and tainted awards in events that cried out for honest judging (all evidence of a lack of appreciation of what the games are about), the Chinese Olympics, thanks to unmatched athletic performances, ranks among the great ones. In event after event, world records were set, often by wide margins, the two most impressive athletes being the American torpedo Michael Phelps, who set or participated in settingseven record-shattering marks on his way to a world record eight Golds in swimming and the superlative Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt who set or helped to set four world track records on his way to four Golds. The darlings of the games, also great athletes, were Nastia Liukin and Shawn Johnson, who overcame officiously scrutinized warped judging to win a Gold Medal each, three Silvers each, and Liukin’s one Bronze. Both deserved more Golds, and what they won despite the judges’ dishonesty made the point. Liukin’s grace was overwhelming. As if lighter than air, she floated through high, dangerous spins and twists, landing like a feather touching ground or balance beam, on which during a one foot landing her free limb floated up like a ballerina’s. The energy-driven Johnson cleanly executed exquisite leaps and twists of unsurpassed difficulty, somehow managing to respond to blatant injustice with wide, warm smiles, rewarded with Gold in the final event when distinctions were too obvious even for these judges to deny. The most remarkable unacknowledged accomplishment of the games went to a team sport winner, Jason Lezak, a veteran Olympian in his thirties who in the 4X400, secured a Gold that Phelps needed on his way to the nosebleed eight. Lezak in the final lap found himself inheriting second place. Alain Bernard, the cocky French world record holder, dove into the water with a substantial lead, but Lezak, surpassing the 100 meter freestyle world record, caught and passed the Frenchman, winning Gold for America in relay world record time. The unequaled speed of his lap, 46.06, will not beacknowledged; it counts as part of a longer race, but it was the single most remarkable accomplishment of the games—worth four Golds, one for him, one each for his buddies and a leg up for Phelps as he chased down eight. Oh, and by the way, the games also proved that if the most talented basketball players in the world play as a team on both sides of the court they win easily. My own impulse is to have the NCAA championship team play the rest of the world—with this amendment, that all NBA players be ruled ineligable. Basketball this year was as over-the-top as the fireworks.