There were two juggernauts in the spotlight of Week One at the Olympics, smashing records, making history. One was the deep, determined Chinese team, amassing an astounding 27 gold medals to far outpace all rivals. The other was Michael Phelps.
With seven gold medals in seven races, added to six won in 2004, Phelps became the most decorated Olympic champion of all time. In some races, he left his rivals far behind. In Saturday's 200-meter butterfly, he won by a fingertip with a desperate lunge to the wall.
China, an Olympic host for the first time, remained a target for skeptics who said the games' upbeat ambiance masked a heavy-handed approach to protests and press freedom. But logistically, the games went smoothly, protests were small-scale, the smog that had shrouded the city finally lifted and the home team flourished before exultant Chinese fans.
It wasn't all China and America. A balmy Saturday was capped by an electrifying late-night men's 100-meter race, with Jamaica's Usain Bolt setting a world record of 9.69 seconds.
But as the games reached their halfway point, the Chinese had won nearly 21 percent of all the gold medals awarded, triumphing in 11 different sports. If that pace continued to the end, China would rank among the top gold medal winners of any non-boycotted Olympics.
The United States was second in golds with 16, and ahead in total medals with 54 to China's 47. U.S. team leaders said they were unsurprised by the host country's ascension and welcomed the rivalry.
"For many people, China's performance here is something of an eye-opener," said U.S. Olympic Committee spokesman Darryl Seibel. "For us, it's something we expected.
"Coming into the games, we felt China should be viewed as the favorite, not only because it's competing at home but also because of the significant investment being made in developing what will ultimately be one of the most sophisticated sports systems ever built."
The Chinese fans sometimes lacked sophistication or spectator etiquette — cheering at long foul balls in baseball, applauding Venus Williams' double-faults when she lost to China's Li Na in a major tennis upset.
But blatant anti-Americanism didn't surface. Fans showered equally boisterous cheers on both the Chinese and U.S. teams when the Americans — every one of them an NBA star — overpowered Chinese idol Yao Ming and his teammates in an opening-round basketball game.
In another head-to-head showdown, when the Chinese women outscored the Americans in team gymnastics, Chinese fans cheered good routines and booed scores they thought were too low regardless o####ymnast's nationality. When American fans chanted "U-S-A! U-S-A!", the Chinese responded with the local equivalent, "Jia You" — but there was no tinge of mean-spiritedness.
One factor in the relatively amicable rivalry is the web connecting the two contingents. All four U.S. table-tennis players are Chinese-born. Former Major Leaguer Jim Lefebvre coaches China's baseball team; former Chinese star Jenny Lang Ping coaches the U.S. women's volleyball team. Lang, who led China to a gold medal in 1984, drew thunderous cheers from the largely Chinese crowd when her team played China on Friday night.
After the Americans upset their hosts — a defeat magnified because China's president was there — the crowd grew silent but then heartily applauded as Lang exited with her players.
"Having her coach for America is an honor for China," said Yu Jingbo, a reporter with the government's China News Service. "It's a different era (from the Cold War). It's globalization. People are more open, and Chinese mindsets have changed too."
Coverage by the state-controlled media — the only media China has — has overwhelmingly focused on the success of the home team. Yet so far, they and ordinary Chinese have largely avoided crowing about their gold-medal dominance.
When Chinese media have preened, they've largely done so through words of praise from foreigners.
"The war for gold medals is raging at the Beijing Olympics. And the Americans are losing," China's premier sports newspaper, Titan Sports, reported this week, quoting The Salt Lake Tribune.
Many factors are keeping the medals contest from becoming an updated version of the U.S.-Soviet Cold War rivalry.
The Chinese government is wary that patriotism could turn into ugly nationalism, damaging the leadership's hoped-for Olympic boost to China's international image. Four years ago, after Japan defeated China in an Asian Cup soccer match in Beijing, Chinese fans turned so hostile that Japanese fans had to be escorted out of the stadium by police.
In recent months, people have been told to be good sports and taught how to cheer. The media have been instructed to tone down often nationalistic rhetoric when reporting on international sports competitions.
"This Olympic games has seen the most world records broken and has the highest television audience, turning it into a leader of happy, good times," the Global Times newspaper said.
Both the International Olympic Committee and local organizers consistently deflected foreign reporters' questions about political controversies and other developments that might take some of the luster off the games.
"The IOC doesn't need games to be perfect," said its spokeswoman, Giselle Davies. "I think we'll be leaving here very much with a smile on our faces."
On the playing field, the good times were well-distributed. Through Saturday, medals had been won by 61 nations, including the first ever for Togo, the first individual gold ever for India.
While swimming was the main source of U.S. medals, team officials gushed over some unprecedented breakthroughs elsewhere — a medal sweep in women's sabre, a one-two finish in women's all-around gymnastics.
There were American disappointments as well.
The nine-man U.S. boxing team had just two fighters left after a chaotic week which began with one boxer falling unconscious in a failed attempt to make weight. Another fighter, world flyweight champion Rau'shee Warren, mistakenly thought he was ahead late in his bout, ignoring his coach's urgings to attack at the end of a one-point loss.
But Phelps was the big story — for the Americans, for the entire Olympics.
