What to expect for athletes and fans at the 2008 Beijing Olympics

Athletes at the Beijing Olympics can expect what every athlete has learned to expect from these events ever since international competition came about.

They can expect fierce competition, they can expect those countries with most funding and more facilities to do better. They can expect to win if they are the best, and to do poorly i

if they have not managed to train well.

Thankfully, they can also expect less cheating than say in the 1970s, and they can expect to be regularly dope tested whether they win or not. If they win they will be automatically dope tested after an event.

Athletes can also expect a certain level of camaraderie between each other. Competition is healthy but athletes from all countries understand what it is like to live and breath a sport so they will commiserate with the losers, feel jealous yet admire the winners and feel empathy when an athlete get injured. This is probably the biggest event of their careers and to have to withdraw due to injury is a painful experience.

Above all, athletes can expect a huge rush of adrenaline, many emotions and a sense of fierce national pride. They can also expect to find fans they never knew they had.

Fans can expect something a little different at the Beijing Olympics. First, they have to accept they are in China and the rules there will be strict. They will be subject to a barrage of propaganda from the CCP (Chinese Communist Party). They will be told how well China is doing, how its people are prosperous and secure, yet they will not have the freedom to wonder Beijing at will and certain areas will be strictly no-go areas for visiting fans.

They can expect to be amazed, disappointed, happy, sad, empathetic, proud and also angry at the athletes success and behavior. They will see feats of achievement, records broken, personal bests, real achievements from athletes not expected to do well and they will also see the difference between those countries that can train athletes well and those lacking in funds.

The fans will go away with a mixed bag of emotions as they will have witnessed probably the greatest sporting spectacle they will ever see, yet they will have been in a country whose record of human rights is one of the worst in the World.

They will be aware of protests, propaganda and government forced jollities. They will be aware of the seething mass of people that is Beijing and they will, perhaps a little sadly, be aware that they have been unwitting supporters by paying money for travel, hotels and goods, of one of the most oppressive regimes in the world.

They will perhaps have to accept that they have been subjected to a well oiled masquerade, one aimed at the wolrd’s media and designed to show this oppresive regime in the best lightpossible. They will hear nothing in China about ‘disappearances’, forced sterilisations, the plight of the Tibetan and Mogolian peoples.

Yet, for all the mixed feelings, if you asked them would they do it again, the most likely answer will be, ‘yes, in a heartbeat’.