Quotes of the Day

I was standing in Tiananmen Square at the exact moment in 2001 when Beijing won the right to host the Summer Olympics. At 10:11 p.m. on a muggy July night, China's capital transformed. As indulgent police looked on, revelers hung from traffic lights and clambered up lampposts. Tens of thousands of Chinese sang along to patriotic songs being broadcast from creaky loudspeakers that, in an earlier era, had been used to threaten democracy protestors. At one point, a drunken man with his undershirt pulled up to air his belly weaved up to me, beer bottle in hand. "Hey, foreigner," he called out, waggling his finger in my face. "China No. 1."

As the Beijing Olympics came to a close on Aug. 24, China was, indeed, No. 1. No country had lavished so much on hosting the Summer Games — $44 billion by the government's own accounting of its Olympic building spree. Nor could any nation come close to the People's Republic's haul of 51 gold medals, 15 more than runner-up America. The state-sponsored sports machine had delivered magnificently. No discipline was too esoteric in the pursuit of national pride. A gold medal in women's quadruple sculls rowing? Check. Men's 50-m air rifle three positions? Check. Women's 75-kg weightlifting? Check.

Beyond the numerical superiority was an evolving sense of what these Olympics meant to China. When the Games kicked off on Aug. 8, a palpable sense of anxiety gripped many Chinese: How would they be judged by the world? During the opening ceremony's one-hour cultural program, the hosts gave overseas viewers a quick history lesson. Dear exalted foreign guests, they seemed to say, did you know that we Chinese have 5,000 years of history and that we invented paper and movable type and gunpowder? The unease manifested itself in sartorial diktats, too. Lest visitors think that China was somehow not sophisticated enough to merit hosting the world's premier sporting spectacle, local residents were admonished not to wear more than three contrasting hues at the same time. At a time of national glory, it just wouldn't do to have colors clash.

But as the days wore on and the number of gold medals won by China's army of athletes piled up, the approval of outsiders seemed to become less important. Beijing residents knew exactly how many golds their compatriots had racked up — and were slightly miffed when foreign media questioned whether several medal-winning Chinese gymnasts might be underage. Polite applause for foreign competitors occasionally degenerated into boos, or, just as bad, half-empty stadiums for events in which China wasn't favored. By the end of the closing ceremony, it was clear: Yes, the world had been invited to watch Beijing 2008. But this was China's Olympics. The rest of the world was just a bystander.

Granted, China put on a fabulous show. Volunteers were unfailingly polite, constantly showering foreigners with a chirpy "Beijing warmly welcomes you." Events kept to a strict time schedule and positive drug tests were far fewer than in previous Games. The stadiums, from the latticed Bird's Nest to the ethereal Water Cube, stunned audiences with their architectural bravado. And the sheer athletic drama was, as it always is during any Olympics, astonishing.

Sporting events are about more than just center stage, however, and questions about China's continuing political repression festered on the sidelines. Throughout the Games, stories trickled out about jailed dissidents, banned websites and curiously empty designated protest zones. And, as if acting out a one-man play on the perils of overtraining and stifling national pressure, star hurdler Liu Xiang, the face of China's Olympics, arrived in the Bird's Nest to run his first qualifying race — then turned his back to the crowd and limped off the track. After a shocked silence, the weeping announcers on Chinese TV intoned that it was acceptable to continue idolizing Liu because he had done his best. But gold-medal fever returned soon enough, with by-the-minute updates on just how many victories the host nation had tallied.

Perhaps, looking back on Beijing 2008, we will judge the Games as the moment that China assumed the role of future superpower. Tokyo '64 was like that, heralding the emergence of what was to become the world's second largest economy. The enduring legacy of Beijing 2008 won't be known for some time. For now, all we can do is celebrate the accomplishments of swift Jamaicans and amphibious Americans and, most of all, a battalion of Chinese athletes who resoundingly displaced the U.S. atop the gold-medal count. These really were China's Games.

• Hannah Beech