The was always going to be different from any other recent Olympics.
None of the usual questions that tend to surround an mattered here: money, organisation, level of government support and the public's enthusiasm - or indeed lack of it.
Instead, the question China faced was: should a regime like this have the honour of the biggest gathering of people in peaceful sporting competition without agreeing to change its authoritarian ways?
This issue was presented very clearly seven years ago when the International Olympic Committee voted for Beijing.
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Britain has its best Olympics for a century while the .
So will the nation begin to lose some of its obsession with why the golden generation of Beckham and company failed to deliver and turn to the real golden generation of British sportsmen and women that have flowered so extraordinarily here in Beijing?
Not even London 2012 chief Lord Coe believes the nation is ready to turn away from football. As a season ticket holder at Chelsea, Coe himself worships football, and he rightly sees it as the nation's religion.
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When , organising chairman faces a very different challenge to those he faced on the track.
During a tour of , I asked whether it compared to the when, having lost in his favourite distance of 800m to his great rival , he then went on to win in Ovett's favourite distance of 1500m.
Coe's reaction was a barely disguised smile.
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Just before I left London for Beijing my godson asked me:
I was more than a little surprised to hear the question.
My godson, although not involved professionally with sport, has great interest in it and runs his own basketball team.
But I was surprised because it had been a long time since anyone had asked me about the 100m sprint.
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Great champions always speak a language that sets them apart from the rest.
Late on Friday night when I spoke to about this weekend's sporting bonanza and how Britain might fare, he made it clear that what matters to him was winning gold medals.
The total medals haul did not concern him, he would rate British performances on the basis of how many golds were won.
And I am beginning to think that the Chinese are learning that in competitive sport anything less than winning gold is just not good enough.
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The Premier League's is back, but with a difference. It has discussed a plan with Mohammed Bin Hammam, the President of the , for playing a couple of Carling Cup matches in Asia.
Hammam may not be against it but Sepp Blatter, president of Fifa, who for league matches to be played overseas, still thinks it is a bad idea.
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What makes a champion? And can a champion only be measured by the number of golds he or she wins?
Michael Phelps's victory in the pool on Wednesday reignited the debate about who is the greatest Olympian of them all.
And in doing so reminded us about what makes good champions into greats and then into true legends.
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The Beijing Olympics is not that unique after all.
Before the Games began, there were two standard Olympic questions that we thought would not need answering in Beijing: how much have the Games cost? And would the venues be packed?
The cost still does not matter - after all the Chinese government has made it happen and there is no question of any public outcry over the near $40 billion that has been spent. Here, you can say it costs a fortune, but no-one cares. The same will not be said for London in four years time.
However, one of China's pitches for the Games was based around the passion of the Chinese for the Olympics. To adapt the line from the - 'if you build it, they will come'.
But while the Chinese have built great venues, it turns out the
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There is nothing like a dose of good old-fashioned nationalism to produce a compelling Olympic sporting moment.
Sunday's basketball match - which finished at midnight Beijing time - proved that in spades.
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Opening ceremonies are windows on the soul of the nation hosting the .
It would be easy to dismiss them as over-hyped events and those of us who cover sports are not immune to hype.
A victory in sports, even a lucky one, can be presented as a world changing triumph, a defeat is often a tragedy. But opening ceremonies are different.
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Sir Craig Reedie's failure to get elected to the shows that Britain is still failing to punch its weight in the corridors of power in world sport.
This has been a persistent British problem going back many decades. The last time Britain had an IOC EB member was nearly half a century ago.
This time it was felt Reedie stood a very good chance of getting elected. London will be the next Olympic city and the IOC tradition is that the IOC member from the next host country gets on the Board to act as the Executive's eyes and ears for the forthcoming Games.
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The opening ceremony of the 120th session of the in Beijing on Monday was not an event that compares with Friday's eagerly-awaited opening ceremony of the Games.
It wasn't designed as a media occasion, yet in many ways it was significant for the light it throws on China, the IOC and the relationship between the two.
It emphasised what China expects from the Olympics. Chinese President Hu Jintao's speech made it clear China sees sport as playing a major part in the country's economic and social development and believes the Olympics can act as a bridge between China and the rest of the world.
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Beijing
Olympic cities in the week before the Games begin are like - a mixture of hope, anticipation and some nerves.
is no different, although my first impression is Beijing is more nervous than some cities such as , , or were.
I was struck by this the moment I landed at , an airport that makes you realise how limited is.
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