OLYMPIC GAMES:SO HOW were the Olympics? You look at the person asking this question and try to give an honest answer. You think of Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps and Kenenisa Bekele. You think of Liu Xiang and Yoa Ming and Zou Shiming and with a shaking of the head try to separate the real from the imagined and realise it's all a blur, writes Ian O'Riordan
Were you even there? A great Olympics, you say, scratching the surface, knowing at least that much is true but remembering that feeling of your eyes about to fall out of their sockets. Four months on it's even more shadowy and dreamy, more vague and vast. So how were the Olympics? To be honest? You had to be there.
You know it all began on a hot and steamy Friday night when, under the expectation of 1.3 billion people, the lights were dimmed inside the Bird's Nest at exactly 8pm - this, of course, being 08/08/08. Opening Ceremonies have a tendency to swing from the mundane to the boring, but Beijing had other ideas. Not since Berlin in 1936 was there such an unashamed display of national pride, only this time there was hope in buying into it.
So the Bird's Nest resembled a giant movie set. But it was an unexpectedly moving experience. Then the man in charge was Zhang Yimou, director of recent Chinese blockbusters as Hero and House of Flying Daggers, and he knew what he was doing. Banned by the Chinese authorities 12 years ago from accepting a prize at the Cannes Film festival, Yimou's very involvement was in itself a symbol of change, and from the moment 2,008 drummers set the rhythm of the ceremony it was clear it would be every bit the coming out party that China had intended it to be.
So what if some of the singing was prepared earlier and Li Ning (who?) lighting the Olympic flame was a bit of an anti-climax? The marching of 204 nations - the first of many records to be set at the 29th Olympiad - got a little tiresome too, but walking out of the Bird's Nest that night you realised this had been a once-off, never to be repeated.
Smog - what smog? Traffic - what traffic? Human rights demonstrations - that might have been out of view too, though not out of mind. No modern Olympics were weighed down with as much preliminary controversy as Beijing, some of it unfairly so. What Beijing delivered on is what Beijing promised. These issues were there before the Olympics, and remain there afterwards.
With that the Games began and all the focus was firmly on the Water Cube - not just because it was the of the most special sporting facilities ever imagined, constantly changing colour to suit the time of day or night, but because there was clearly something special in the water. And not just Michael Phelps. Over the opening eight days, there were 25 world records set inside the Water Cube, and 66 Olympic records. All a little suspicious? No one at NBC thought so.
Phelps was unbelievable, in the original sense of the world. Half man, half albatross, with a wingspan three inches greater than his height, Phelps came to Beijing with six Olympic gold medals already (and two bronze), and left with another eight - the record eight gold - and thus pronounced himself the greatest Olympian. Mark Spitz, Carl Lewis, Paavo Nurmi? Move along.
One morning inside the Water Cube, when chasing up the story of the Irish bathing cap that didn't fit, Phelps walked through the mixed zone, wearing his Speedo LZR tights, talking about breaking one world record, and presumably on his way back to the starting blocks to break another. You couldn't help but stare at the man and wonder, about that torso, about that physique, about many things, including your own sexuality. Then he smiled that goofy smile and you realised he was human after all.
"To be honest, I had no idea I was going to go that fast," said Phelps after slicing more than a second off his world record to win his first gold medal, in the 400 metres individual medley. All week he spoke with this awkward humility and in the end it was hard to remain excited about the 23-year-old from Baltimore. You couldn't help feel all Phelpsed-out.
"I guess I just want to kind of see my mom," he said after winning his eighth gold medal, in the 4x400 metres relay, in what was his 17th swim of the week.
There were 39.9 million Americans watching that race live on NBC.
In fairness Phelps didn't have it all his own way: Milorad Cavic of Serbia could have gone down as the biggest spoil sport in Olympic history had he just timed his touch a fraction better the day before, in the 100-metre butterfly final. Phelps timed his perfectly. Eight gold medals; seven world records; one Olympic record: Athlete of the Games? You would have bet your house on it; until the action started over to the Bird's Nest.
But before the "real" Olympics got under way, there was ample time to explore some of the other Olympics venues, each one as mind-blowing as the next. The Shunyi Olympic Park resembled Disneyland Florida with all its rushing water and splashing about, and if it was designed to mimic a rollercoaster ride on water, the K1 Slalom provided exactly that. Eoin Rheinisch came to Beijing with an outside chance of a medal (as in, way outside) and suddenly, after riding the sort of luck that would have made even the Chinese number eight envious, he had medal - at least in one hand. With just four competitors to go in the final, the Kildare canoeist was in the gold medal position; with three to go, he seemed certain of the bronze. Rheinisch ended up fourth.
In the end, the bitter end, his luck had run out. Truth is Ireland could have done with that medal. Unaware of what was to come at the Workers Gymnasium, the promising mood among the Irish team had quickly disappeared. The rowers huffed and puffed and tried hard but with no reward. The cyclists rode well but didn't figure. Others disappeared without a trace.
By the time the starter's pistol was first fired inside the Bird's Nest this didn't seem to matter. Like a bolt of lightning - which is what he compared himself to - Usain Bolt set the track alight, and with that a star was born.
By the end of the week there was no arguing that Bolt had delivered the greatest sprint performance in history. Two world records, and a big hand in the third (the 4x100 metres relay), Bolt was like a gift straight from the gods of Olympus, the saviour of track and field, as long as nothing suspicious shows up in one of his drug samples.
And why should it? Inevitably there were those who felt Bolt was "too good to be true" - whatever their pathetic reasoning - but from the moment his 6ft 5in frame came pounding down the 100-metre straight it was obvious Bolt was on something alright - as in on-form, on a high, on a mission. Even if you didn't believe in him it was impossible not to be held breathless when he ran his 9.69 seconds to win the first of his three gold medals.
But unlike some other Olympic sprint champions of the past two decades, who celebrated victories through bloodshot eyes and unnatural bulk, Bolt celebrated with Jamaican dance-floor moves and flexing his distinctly natural-looking muscles. In those moments the only thing you feared he'd test positive for was rum and Coke and a little ganje.
Every generation of athletes throws up a Bob Beamon moment, and Bolt just provided it. So he won the 100 metres easy, but those who doubted his competitive edge got their answer in the 200 metres when Bolt went for it - truly went for it - and shaved .02 from Michael Johnson's world record, set 12 years previously. 19.30 - that could well stand a generation.
It was midnight before Bolt made it to the media room, and in addressing the first question realised he'd just turned 22. "I've been dreaming of this since I was like, yah-high?" As one American journalist commented, Bolt is so laid back it would take him two hours to watch 60 Minutes.
Bolt's 200 metres will feature in Olympic highlight packages for a long time, and from an Irish point of view the only pity is Paul Hession won't feature in it too. The impeccable style with which Hession came through the opening rounds, including winning his quarter-final, looked certain to see him through to the final, but in the end he fell one place, one stride, one fraction of a second short. Making that final may well have defined his career, and Hession knew it.
Others probably did define their careers in Beijing, and Olive Loughnane finishing seventh in the 20km walk, and Robbie Heffernan finishing eighth in the men's event, provided a deep sense of self-satisfaction that few people seemed able to relate to.
It seemed easier to relate to Alistair Cragg, who after making the 5,000 metres final - and subsequently dropping out - cut to the heart of Irish athletics, revealing what he said ails it. The sport has moved on, he argued, and when Kenenisa Bekele ran the last mile of the 5,000 metres well under four minutes to complete a long-distance double, Cragg was spot on.
Only then the Irish mood had turned jovial thanks to events at the Workers Gymnasium. Not even the news out of Hong Kong that Denis Lynch was in trouble with his horse Lantinus could upset it. Capsaicin? A banned substance? None of this seemed to register in Beijing. You were a world away. One world. One dream.
A typical day for Ian O'Riordan in Beijing . . .
August 16th, 2008: Struggle out of bed at 6.30am.
Skip breakfast to make start of men's 20km walk.
Come on Robbie. Eighth! Down to mixed zone for quotes. Back to press seats for 400 metres. Chat with Greg Allen in RTÉ commentary box. Come on Joanne. Out! Down to mixed zone for quotes. Transcribe quotes. File two pieces. Run to bus hanger. Get bus C31to Workers Gymnasium. First up Paddy Barnes. Win! Wait around for Darren Sutherland fight. Win! File two pieces. Bus C31 back to Bird's Nest. Heaving! Men's 100 metres final. Bang. Bolt. 9.69!!! Down to mixed zone for quotes. Wait around for press conference. File two pieces. Taxi back to Hotel Tibet. Ring Vinny Hogan. Meet in Banana Bar. Order two Tsingtao each at a time. Hit the bed at 4.30am.
What We Already Knew
That with a record 204 competing nations, and record TV audiences that saw almost 80 per cent of the world's population tune in for the Opening Ceremony, the Olympics remain the undisputed one and only truly global sporting event.
What We Learned
That with 43 world records, 132 Olympic records, and a record 87 nations winning medals - including, for the first time, Afghanistan, Mauritius, Tajikistan and Togo - it's getting increasingly harder to make a mark at the Games.
What We Think Might Happen
London in 2012 will bring it all back home and all back down to earth and Jacque Rogge will declare them "the best Olympics ever".
