Yesterday, Guo Jingjing (whom I've previously profiled here as part of my increasingly prophetic Red Star series) and her partner Wu Minxia (who continues to cower in her compatriot's shadow) struck gold in the Women's Synchronised 3m Springboard, an event they've won in the past and were expected to win this year as well.

Despite daunting pressure compounded by a string of lackluster performances earlier this year, Guo and Wu exceeded expectations and were indubitably the best divers, as evidenced by this series of photos taken by Newsweek's Vincent Laforet (scroll down past the weightlifters). The other pairs look not so much synchronized as spastic, and their facial expressions seem to say, "I know I'm a hot mess!"

Note also how Guo's impeccable form is appreciably superior to Wu's. That's why Guo dates the heir to a billion-dollar Hong Kong real estate fortune and appears in ads for everything from pasteurized milk to hair care products, while Wu languishes in comparative obscurity.

Guo and Wu's combined efforts captured China's fifth gold, a number that has since risen to eight (if you're interested in monitoring the medal count, I recommend BOCOG's official standings, although for a quick fix you can simply type "medal count" into Google).

That puts the Middle Kingdom well ahead of the United States, which only has three -- although America continues to lead the overall medal count with 12 compared to China's 11 as of 6:00 PM Monday, Beijing time. Another Olympic-caliber display of precision and grace, Lin Yue and Huo Liang's gold in the Men's Synchronized 10m Platform, seems to confirm that China's diving dominance will remain unchallenged in this Olympics.

Expect to see other Red Star athletes capturing gold in the next two weeks. Strong performances by diminutive weightlifters Long Qingquan and Chen Xiexia bode well for Zhang Guozheng. (By the way, am I the only person who thinks Turkey's Sibel Ozkan, who took the silver behind Chen in the women's 48-kilogram weight-lifting category, is kinda blazing?)

Anyway, I'd go so far as to guarantee a gold for every Red Star athlete I've profiled in the past in "Countdown to Beijing", our blog about the run-up to the Games. But after the Redeem Team schooled Yi Jianlian & Co. last night to the realities of 21st century basketball (simply put, you can't just throw 7-foot players at the problem), I'm predicting USA all the way!

Regardless, congratulations to Guo, who plans to retire after the '08 Games. I'm sorry I ever doubted you, and I look forward to your individual performance in the Women's 3m Springboard Final on Sunday, August 17.
 

The Olympics is the world's greatest sports contest and it'd be strange to come to the world's greatest sporting event, or even simply have it arrive on the doorstep as has happened for those of us who live in Beijing year-round, without catching any sport. So today, I headed for the men's diving finals. They were battling for the gold medal for synchronized pair-diving off the 10 meter platform (the highest board, if like me you're new to this).

The event was a gold medal chance for one of the youngest athletes in the Beijing Olympics, 14-year old schoolboy Thomas Daley from the UK. He lost, ending last among the eight teams along with his diving partner Blake Aldridge, aged 26. The Chinese pair won, and the US team bumped along in the middle through all six dives in the contest. When it was over, the US duo was placed fifth.

An ugly spat then erupted between the British prodigy and his partner after the event as Aldridge blamed his much younger team-mate for their dismal ranking. "Tom was very nervous, more so than ever before. I think he really struggled to get through the competition, and as his partner it was hard for me to get up there and try and ease him into it," Aldridge said.

Aldridge revealed that 14-year old had "had a pop" at him before their final dive. "When we were sitting down I saw my mum in the audience and I asked her to give me a call but Tom went to me: 'What are you on the phone for? We're in a competition and we've got another dive to do'", Aldridge said. "That's just Tom being over-nervous. That's how it was today. Tom should not be worrying about what I'm doing. Today he was worrying about everyone and everything and for me that is really the sole reason why he didn't perform today." Nonetheless, even the pair's previous personal best of 446 points wouldn't have got them the bronze today.

Though he's young, Daley (still only an inch over 5 feet tall) showed that he's already seasoned at batting off journalists. "It was a great experience....It just didn't happen for us today", he said smoothly. He admitted to being "very nervous" - as indeed he was. He could be seen sucking in air before dives, but insisted he'd enjoyed himself, learned valuable lessons for the 2012 Games and was looking forward to competing in the individual 10 meter platform event. Aldridge is not competing in any other events in Beijing which might explain the depth of his disappointment. "For me, my time is now to get a medal. I believe I'll still be around for 2012, but diving's evolved so much," he said. 

American Thomas Finchum, 18, said took much the same diplomatic line at the young Brit by the way: "We stayed consistent...we didn't miss anything. We just didn't hit it to the best of our potential." It seems to be the soundbite of choice when you lose.

The Chinese were always hot favorites to win. They grabbed the lead with their first dive, and never lost it. The real battle was for silver and bronze. The Russian pair was in second place for most of the contest, but Dmitriy Dobroskok wobbled on the fifth dive and entered the water with his legs flipped back. It was a technical error that couldn't be blamed on nerves, he said ruefully afterward. As a result, the German pairing of Patrick Hausding and Sascha Klein scooped Germany's first silver medal of the Games.

It was my first time inside the Water Cube, a magnificent building that glows blue on the outside as light shifts across the giant bubbles that make up its polyurethane surface. Inside, it's smoothly cool, transparent and neutral, unlike the bitter rows going on inside its walls. 

It's not the only place in this giant country where tensions are high but inside the bubble of Olympic politics and sporting rivalry it's hard to remember there are other sources of friction. China is suffering its worst spate of terrorist attacks in years, for instance. State media reported that 10 militants and a security guard died in suicide bombings and a shootout in Kuqa in Xinjiang province in western China on Sunday and "dozens of unexploded bomb devices" were seized.  While the body count suggests the police won this round, a week ago it was the authorities who got hit hardest when 16 border guards died in explosions elsewhere in Xinjiang. The Chinese authorities blame separatists in the largely Muslim region. 

It also emerged over the weekend that Zeng Jinyan, the wife of a jailed dissident, disappeared on the day before the magnificent Olympic Games opening ceremony. The Chinese Human Rights Defenders group says it fears she "has been taken into police custody and might be mistreated." She was under house arrest and her husband Hu Jia is serving a three and a half year jail term for inciting subversion after criticizing China's human rights record in online testimony to the European Parliament.

The Beijing Olympics and their run-up are leaving a lasting impression on many people in the Chinese capital. I've invited some to write guest blogs about the implications of the 2008 Games. This commentary comes from Daniel A. Bell, professor of political theory at Beijing's Tsinghua University, which has long been referred to as China's MIT .  He recently published a book titled China's New Confucianism: Politics and Everyday Life in a Changing Society (Princeton University Press, 2008), and offers these insights into Confucius and the Olympics:

The spectacular fireworks display in the form of giant footsteps leading straight from Tiananmen Square to the new National Stadium at the opening ceremony should dispel any pretense that the Olympics are apolitical. But what exactly was the political message?

Without having seen anything, critics were quick to sharpen their knives. "When the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games begins this week, viewers will be presented with a minutely choreographed spectacle swathed in nationalist kitsch," wrote commentator Nina L. Khruschcheva a few days before Friday's festivities. She went on to lump China with other "totalitarian" regimes like Nazi Germany and predicted that "the world will once again be made to witness a triumph of the totalitarian will". It makes one wonder if we're supposed to expect genocide and world war after the Olympics.

The choice of legendary film director Zhang Yimou as creative director of ceremonies was indeed cause for some concern. Zhang directed the movie Hero which seemed to endorse the brutal and totalitarian ways of the Legalist-inspired first Qin emperor, who buried Confucian scholars alive in his drive to build a unified and powerful state. Zhang seems especially fond of spectacle which dwarfs the individual; he hired more than 10,000 performers for the opening ceremony who came mainly from the army and armed police.

But the Olympics symbolize a change of vision. For most of the twentieth century, China viewed itself as a weak and vulnerable country that has been denied its historical place in the sun. It was bullied by foreign powers and drew upon the Legalist tradition, self-consciously so in the case of Mao, to ruthlessly strengthen the state and mobilize the people for that purpose.

Now that China is more powerful and has begun to reestablish its "deserved" place in the sun, it can relax a bit -- and the traditional ways of Confucian "soft power" can begin to reassert themselves. Here government relies primarily on moral example, rituals, and persuasion to win the "hearts and minds" of the world's peoples. The ideal is a society regulated by care and compassion, where particularistic love begins with the family and is then extended to the nation and the whole world.

It's no coincidence that the glossy "Introduction to China" brochures distributed to 21,000 foreign journalists at the Olympics left out communist party leaders of the past. Instead, they extol Confucius, who is the figurehead of China's new national identity.

The ceremony clearly aimed to celebrate Confucian values rather than send a xenophobic and totalitarian message. Marx and Mao were left out and the themes emphasized openness to the world and its peoples. Children were prominently displayed, including a nine-year-old who helped to rescue victims of the Sichuan earthquake. The diminutive kid walked next to towering basketball player Yao Ming -- to somewhat comic effect -- and other children lent an air of charm and unpredictability to the proceedings.

The Confucian themes were explicit. Such Confucian sayings as "The world's peoples are all brothers" and "Isn't one of life's greatest pleasures to have friends visiting from afar?" were beamed to billions worldwide. Instead of Maoist anti-intellectualism, we had a tribute to the gentle scholarly life as depicted by "the four precious necessities" -- pen, ink, paper, and ink grinder.

And the Confucian-inspired civility campaigns seemed to be paying off. For the past year, Beijingers have been urged to treat foreigners with kindess and civility; spectators to cheer for opposing teams; and winning athletes to treat losers with respect and dignity. At Friday's ceremony, the cheers for the Chinese athletes were relatively restrained, and there were loud cheers for the American and Russian teams -- China's main competition for gold medals.  There may not be too many displays of chauvinistic nationalism at these Olympics.

But perhaps its an unfinished transition to Confucianism? The Chinese ideogram representing "harmony" was prominently displayed. But the famous saying from the Analects of Confucious that "exemplary persons seek harmony but not conformity" seemed to be one of the few missing from the ceremony. Could it be that the government worried about political implications? The contrast between harmony and conformity owes its origin to the ancient text Zuo Zhuan, where it clearly referred to the idea that the ruler should be open to different views among his advisors.  Today, social critics draw on the phrase to argue for more political openness and urge the government to be tolerant of different views. Such themes should be more present the next time the Olympics come to China.

Yao Ming came in to the game saying things no Chinese fan realistically doubted: China didn’t measure up to Team USA; they were just thrilled to play on the same court. To reporters from Houston to Shanghai, Yao uttered variations on the same low-key refrain. “From a technical perspective, we and the U.S. team essentially are not at the same level,” he said. Then thirty seconds after tipoff Yao, NBA stud that he is, squared up self-assuredly and drilled a three-pointer. Up in the rafters of comfy new Wukesong arena, the masses swooned. 3-0, China. A worthy start.