Phelps, Bolt and an unfortunate IOC President

7

 

It is now history.

The Olympic Games of 2008 is now over, committed to the annals of global history well beyond the narrow confines of sport.

The historic landmarks of this mega-event that held the attention of the international community from the Opening Ceremony on 8 August through to the Closing Ceremony on 24 August 2008 will be forever highlighted in documents ranging the gamut of academia.

The Beijing Olympics was the greenest ever in the history of the International Olympic Movement, environmentally speaking.

The Beijing Olympics was the most extensive ever. It was the largest ever. It had the most expansive facilities ever. It had the most security ever. It topped the charts for technology in the history of sport. It had the most world records and Olympic records ever established in any one competition.

The list of superlatives describing the Beijing Olympics seems endless and no one can take anything away from the hosts on whom the eyes of the western world were forever fixed, almost always seeming to wish failure rather than success.

Even the gods seemed to have favoured the Beijing Olympics bringing clear skies and extremely good weather not witnessed in Beijing for many years, leaving the hapless cynical international media utterly stumped.