A Viewer’s Guide to Beijing
From its inception, Beijing 2008 was ballyhooed as a nation's coming-out party, one that would presage the Chinese Century. But you don't get your very own century without first establishing supremacy in international sports. Four years ago in Athens, China finished a surprising second in Olympic gold medals, ahead of Russia and just four behind the United States. If subsequent world titles are any indication, we might look back on Beijing 2008 as the moment when China surged past the United States in the gold-medal count for the first time—and never looked back.
Ever since these Games were awarded to Beijing back in 2001, China has invested billions in sports development. The centerpiece has been an effort called Project 119, which targeted multiple-medal sports—swimming, track and field, rowing and canoeing—in which China has traditionally lagged. (The number 119 represented the total gold medals initially up for grabs in the targeted sports; in Beijing, those sports will actually award 122 golds, with 88 in swimming and track and field alone.) Project 119 helped open up, at least by Chinese standards, what had been a very closed system. Teams competed more frequently outside China, and its sports establishment invited foreign coaches who had expertise that was lacking at home. Still, the real payoff might not show up until 2012, or even 2016.
Of course, that hasn't stopped the hype machine from billing the United States vs. China as the Olympics' hot new rivalry. The truth, though, is that it's a rivalry in numbers only. The U.S. vs. the Soviet Union—now that was a rivalry. Every contest was life or death; every victory on the field was cast as a triumph in a global ideological struggle. The United States and China is an engagement between trading partners. And there's a serious obstacle to raising the stakes any higher: with a few crucial exceptions (gymnastics, for instance) the two nations shine in wildly different sports. The Chinese excel at table tennis, badminton, women's judo and women's weightlifting, to name a few—events that most Americans don't give a hoot about. Is the U.S. vs. China a serious rivalry? Sure, but it's a rivalry that'll be contested primarily on an abacus, not in a sports arena.
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Mark Starr was named a senior editor in March 1998. He continues to serve as Newsweek's Boston bureau chief, where he has been headquartered since 1985. Starr has also held the title national sports correspondent since 1992. Before moving to Boston, he spent four years as a general editor in National Affairs.
Starr has covered eight Olympics, beginning with the Winter Games in Albertville and the Summer Games in Barcelona back in 1992. Before the Salt Lake Olympics, he wrote a cover story on American skating queen Michelle Kwan and, during the Games, covered both figure skating's judging scandal and Sarah Hughes' upset gold medal. In December 2001, Starr profiled Hughes in Newsweek's year-end issue as the "Athlete to Watch" in 2002, calling her a strong upset possibility in Salt Lake.
He was also prominently involved in four cover stories on the Nancy Kerrigan-Tonya Harding saga, which climaxed on the ice in Lillehamer, Norway in 1994. Starr has also covered three World Cups, writing cover stories on the shocking French men's home triumph in 1998 as well as America's "girls of summer," after they beat the Chinese in a thrilling Rose Bowl shootout in 1999. Starr has always been interested in women's sports. In 1996, he wrote on the U.S. women's basketball team hopes for an Olympic gold medal to jump-start a pro league. A year earlier Starr sailed with the women of America3 before its America's Cup challenge in San Diego.
Starr was a major contributor to Newsweek's special issue on the retirement of Michael Jordan, "The Greatest Ever" (October/November 1993) and the March 20, 1995, cover story on Jordan's first return to basketball, "Hoop Dreams." Starr has profiled a wide range of top personalities and performers in all sports including basketball's Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant, baseball's Pedro Martinez, NFL coaches Steve Spurrier and Bill Parcells, skating star Tara Lipinski, tennis' Martina Hingis, boxing champ Evander Holyfield, track stars Marion Jones, Michael Johnson and Carl Lewis, soccer superstars Roberto Baggio and Mia Hamm, Olympic gymnast Shannon Miller, speedskating queen Bonnie Blair and golfer David Duval.
Starr has also covered some of the more dramatic political stories out of Massachusetts, including John Silber's longshot bid to capture the State House, congressman Barney Frank's revelation that he was gay and Michael Dukakis's 1988 campaign for the presidency. Starr rode the Dukakis "bus" from New Hampshire until the November election.
Prior to Newsweek, Starr covered Central America for the Chicago Tribune during the Sandinista revolution of the late '70s. He was also a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle and the San Jose Mercury-News.
Starr, a native of Boston, holds a B.A. from Cornell University and an M.A. in journalism from Stanford.
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