Beijing, over and out - follow that, London!

With one spontaneous gesture, a nervous tic really, Boris Johnson signalled exactly how London should attempt to follow the glitz and grandeur of the Beijing Olympics: don't even try.

The London mayor's comedy salute as he set foot on the red carpet at the Bird's Nest was a late bid for my moment of the Games.

It encapsulated what many British observers here have felt throughout these Games: we're all pretty blown away by the show the Chinese have put on, and we certainly can't afford anything as fancy as this, but we'll muddle through in 2012, and we'll try to put a smile on your face while we do it.

And did I really see him shout "I want the flag!" to Olympic impresario Jacques Rogge before it was his turn to do the ceremonial swirling bit? If so, I apologise for voting for Ken: you are a legend, even if you don't know what to do with your hands.

So that's that then. They are sweeping up around me after the most spectacular closing ceremony I can remember, and there really is no getting away from it - we are the next hosts of the summer Olympics. Gulp.

It's a huge challenge - make no mistake - but also a massive opportunity. And in some ways the Chinese have made it slightly easier for us. Hold on a minute Chinese bloggers, let me explain.

The closing ceremony was absolutely in keeping with everything I have seen in Beijing over the last three and a bit weeks: staggering in scale, perfectly choreographed, visually stunning and absolutely on time.

The drum carts, the heavenly drums that looked like giant cheeses, the acrobats on rotating poles, the "memory tower" with its 396 performers on wires, the fireworks, Jackie Chan's singing (especially that), will live long in the memory. I really can't imagine London, or any other city, topping that.

And it was also done with genuine enthusiasm and sincerity. London should take special note of that.

But these were also emphatically China's Games. The ambition and expense on display here is pretty unsustainable, if not for China, then certainly for the rest of the Olympic movement. And the International Olympic Committee knows that.

The magnificent venues, the remarkable infrastructure improvements, the stuff-the-expense measures taken to improve the city's air quality, the mobilisation of an army of smiling student volunteers: China has risen the bar to such a height that I don't believe any other city in the world could or should try to reach.

So that bar must remain where it is. The records these Games have set should be Beijing's forever. It deserves them, as London 2012 boss Seb Coe said on Friday, it is difficult to know what more the Chinese could have done.

But now the Olympics must draw a line under the big studio era and think humbler, smaller and smarter. The Olympics needs to think about the footprint it leaves behind when the circus moves on, and it needs to reassess what it is trying to celebrate.

That is London's opportunity. The budget will be under half what they have spent here and that is only right and proper. Every host city has a story to tell when they bid to stage a Games, London's story is different to Beijing's. Not worse, not better, different.

source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/olympics/2008/08/beijing_over_and_out_follow_th.html

25/08/2008



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