Beijing isn 't the only Chinese city that's grasped the power of
sports as a way to enhance its own profile. Duncan Hewitt reports on
the spectacle of the Special Olympics' star-studded opening ceremony in
Shanghai:
It was the day the glamour of Hollywood came to the suburbs of
southern Shanghai. Was that really Arnold Schwarzenegger striding up
the stairs in the middle of an 80,000-seat concrete football stadium;
film star Ziyi Zhang pouting beautifully; Colin Farrell emoting
sympathetically about the situation of the world's intellectually
disabled; Yo-yo Ma playing a jaunty tune on his cello?
For a
few hours on Tuesday evening, the drab high-rises and home-decoration
superstores which surround the Shanghai Stadium seemed to vanish into
the night sky, as it played host to the opening ceremony of the 2007
Special Olympics World Summer Games, the movement set up by JFK's
sister Eunice Kennedy Shriver in 1968 to bring sport - and love - into
the lives of people once dismissed as 'mentally handicapped'. The
biggest contest ever, with some ten thousand athletes, this is the
first time the games have been held in Asia, the first time in a
developing country.
And China -- Shanghai in particular
-- is determined to ensure they leave an indelible mark. Thanks to Don
Mischer and his production team - veterans of the Emmys, the Superbowl
and the 1996 Olympics - the opening delivered, with a stunning light
show, dramatic fireworks and slick choreography: athletes with
intellectual disabilities performed tai-chi routines against a backdrop
of swaying bamboo, dancers formed a giant yin-and-yang symbol, and 170
teams of participants from around the world marched into the stadium in
a record-breaking time of just one hour.
Quincy Jones, who
wrote the theme tune for the games, 'I know I can', was there.
Oscar-winning composer Tan Dun conducted his own choral work. Jackie
Chan, Olympic gold medallist Liu Xiang, a host of Chinese movie stars
and celebrities and a smattering of international politicians added to
the glitz. Shanghai's own Yao Ming missed his pre-NBA season media day
at the Houston Rockets - and incurred a fine as a result - to attend
Shanghai's opening ceremony. Schwarzenegger, who skipped several days
of a special session of California's legislature to fly in, made a
tear-jerking speech, describing Special Olympics athletes as true
heroes. His mother-in-law, 86-year old Eunice Kennedy Shriver herself,
sat on the VIP stand, weeping with emotion. The plight of the world's
intellectually disabled has probably never had quite such a glamorous
moment in the spotlight...
And in the midst of it all,
China's President Hu Jintao sat smiling slightly nervously. A man
famous for his reserved, unemotional manner, the cautious Mr Hu can
rarely have had an introduction such as that given him by Special
Olympics Chairman Tim Shriver: "Wow! What a show! President Hu
Jintao!..." he whooped as he bounded onstage, like a
Superbowl cheerleader.
But the Games fit perfectly, both
with China's ambitions to present a caring - and internationally
engaged - face to the world, and with Mr Hu's own campaign to rebuild
China's fragmented moral values by promoting a 'harmonious society'.
Poised to preside over a key communist party congress beginning Oct.
15, China's party boss could hardly have picked a more public occasion
to press home Hu's serve-the-people message. State television showed Mr
Hu cheering on with apparently genuine excitement as he adjudicated
over a tug-of-war contest between Special Olympics athletes from
different countries.
There's no doubt that the high-profile
given to young people with intellectual disabilities, both in the
ceremony itself and on prominent advertising for Special Olympics
around China, is a first in a country where they've often simply been
hidden away by their families. And if China can fulfil its promise to
ensure that a million people will have access to Special Olympics-type
sport facilities by 2010 (today more than 600,000 do), that would be
real progress. Still, the fact that even some of China's local games
organisers couldn't help the occasional, un-PC reference to 'retarded'
athletes and 'normal people', was a reminder that there's a way to go.
The staging of the games is also another symbol of the global ambitions
of China's largest city - in a week when it's also held the final of
the FIFA Women's Soccer World Cup, a world-class athletics contest -
and is preparing for this weekend's Formula One Grand Prix. But once
the ten-day Special Olympics are over, and helping people with
intellectual disabilities no longer attracts the international
spotlight, will it be so easy to keep up the good work?
