A triumph for athletes and a nation at Athens Olympics

The longest shot for success at the Athens Olympics was Greece.
In the years and months leading up to the 28th Olympiad, it sometimes appeared as if Greece was attracting more skeptics than athletes.
The conventional wisdom was that Greece would not be able to complete work on the infrastructure that is necessary to host the Olympic games. Even on the eve of the games there were questions about whether sophisticated timing devices would work.
By the time that the curtain went up on the opening ceremonies August 15, skepticism was waning. By the closing ceremonies Sunday, all doubts were erased.
Challenges overcome
Clearly Greece did a marvelous job in hosting the Olympics under the most challenging of circumstances.
Greece, it should be remembered, has a population of only 11 million, making it the smallest nation to host the Games since Finland in 1952. And the nature of the games, not to mention the world, has changed enormously in that half century. Greece spent more than $1 billion on security alone; between $9 billion and $10 billion in total putting on the games. Based on population, that would be equivalent to the United States committing $250 billion toward hosting a world event.
It was an enormous sacrifice, and it will be years before the wisdom of the investment is known in financial terms. One would have to suspect that millions worldwide were inspired to want to visit Greece, just based on the aerial scene of the lighter Parthenon that was broadcast hundreds of times during the course of NBC-TV's coverage of the event.
But it will take millions of tourists to help pay off the enormous debt that Greece amassed in putting on the games. It's success in doing so may determine if any other small country can ever again host an Olympics, or whether the Games themselves are going to have to be scaled back -- something akin to putting a genie back in the bottle.
Still, the value of the justified national pride that Greeks can feel in putting on this Olympiad is incalculable.
Team USA won the most medals in these Games, with 103 -- 11 more than Russia. The Americans had the most gold medals as well, with 35 -- three more than China.
But regardless of the medal count, it was Greece that triumphed.
Next, Beijing
The scene of the Summer Olympics now shifts to China, which was third in the overall medal count at Athens.
But the success of the games in Beijing will not be calculated by medal counts -- expect China to be first, given the traditional hometown advantage that accrues to a host nation. And there is little doubt that the facilities will be ready for the 2008 Olympics. Already 30 sports venues are under construction, including the 100,000-seat main stadium.
Next month, a countdown clock will be lighted in Tiananmen Square, ticking down the days, hours and minutes to the opening ceremonies. And it is that scene, Tiananmen Square, where just over a decade ago hundreds of pro-democracy protesters were killed, that will present China with its greatest obstacle to success.
The images projected from Athens were of a people who worked hard and played hard, who enjoyed life. Certainly, Greece is a more complicated country than that. It is a nation with historic political tensions and Athens is a city where the poorest of the poor not only saw little benefit from the games, but couldn't afford a ticket to even those events where there were thousands of empty seats.
China's warts will be much more difficult to hide. It remains a totalitarian state. It is a nation where political and religious freedom remains a distant dream. It is a nation that even now reneges on its promises to respect the historic freedoms of an independent Hong Kong. And it remains a nation with a bellicose attitude toward Taiwan.
The success of the Olympics in China will be measured not by stadiums that are built, or the trams that run on time, but by its willingness to join a world where individual rights are valued as highly as individual athletic performance.