China plans the ‘grandest ’ Olympics ever

How much is US$40 billion? It is enough to build two high-speed rails from Beijing to Shanghai, each four times the length of Taiwan’s Gaotie — the island’s much-prided high-speed rail from Taipei to Kaohsiung.

If you were dazzled by the spectacular Athens Olympics in 2004, you ain’t seen nothing yet. The Beijing Games are much bigger and more expensive. The price tag is about half the total spending on all Olympics since the 1976 Montreal Games.

Never before in the modern Olympic Movement has a host city drawn so much media attention and publicity as Beijing, even before the Games’ opening. The “Bird’s Nest” and “Water Cube” have become familiar names as images of the ultra-modern design of the Games main stadium and aquatics center make international headlines.

Never before has a host city shelled out so much money for a single sporting event as Beijing. The city is using the Olympics to remake itself, not only by building new facilities for the Games, but also investing heavily in infrastructural projects such as new subways, expressways and an expanded airport.

So gigantic is the scale of the Games that they are “probably going to be the grandest Games ever,” marveled Brian Newman, chief executive of the Sydney Olympic Park Authority.

But where does the money come from? People old enough can remember the Montreal Olympics in 1976, which was a financial disaster for the city. Not until the Los Angeles Games in 1984 have the Games been able to turn a meagre profit of US$250 million, thanks to the able leadership of Juan Antonio Samaranch, the new boss of the International Olympic Committee, and the managerial genius of Peter Ueberroth, chairman of the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee.

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