Sports

Olympics close with grand ceremony
by Magdalena Rosova

After 16 days China concluded the most imposing and expensive but also the most controversial Olympic on Sunday.

Closing ceremony started with fireworks and continued with show by London, host of the 2012 Games. Guitarist Jimmy Page from Led Zeppelin played hit “Whole Lotta Love“ and David Beckham booted a ball into crawd of athletes.

China as a superpower got what it wanted: effort by its athletes to top the gold-medal standings, almost free organizing and happy volunteers. Additionaly, two athletes gave the greates performances in Olympic history – Michael Phelps in swimming and Usain Bolt from Jamaica in the sprints.

President of International Olympic Committee, Jacques Rogge, said: "Through these Games, the world learned more about China, and China learned more about the world," and added "These were truly exceptional games." IOC was criticized by human rights groups for their refuse to publicly ask China to give press freedom and set free dissidents.

But the atmosphere on ceremony was splendid, army band played the Chinese anthem, hundreds of dancers, acrobats and drummers swirled on the field.

China invested $40 billion in the Olympics trying to show its economic progress. Olympic telecasts and game´s presentce online achieved record. Rogge said the Olympics would leave a positive legacy for China. But he also noted that China blocked many politically oriented Web sites, despite promises of press freedom during the Olympics.

Human right groups protestet saying that the games were catalyst for „abuses, leading to massive forced evictions, a surge in the arrest, detention and harassment of critics, repeated violations of media freedom, and increased political repression,“ said Sophie Richardson.


related story: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/5846545/

by Magdalena Rosova for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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